Aug 2023-- More Adjustment

I dragged the kids on a walk one day to a fancy mall, the Centro Comercial Hacienda Santa Barbara.  Poor Sebas had hurt his foot the day before and limped the entire mile there and mile back. I didn't really realize how bad it was till he was limping.  🫣

I love that Bogota's sewer/water caps all have frogs on them.  Not the same frog either, there's all different ones.  So cute!

Usaquen, btw, is very safe, and we see tourists around quite a bit. It's a very wealthy area too and I feel a bit out of place, everyone expects us to be wealthy because we're from the US and I frequently have people specifically targeting me to beg from. I'm not nice and told Leo he couldn't buy anyone food anymore after feeding like three people one day. Seriously, Leo is so much nicer than me. But, I feel out of place because, for instance, our neighbor next door owns 2 BMWs. And we walked past the Ducati, BMW, and Mercedes dealerships to go to a store one day. Yeah, we're American but we have way too many kids and student loan debt to be in that level of wealthy.

The Santa Barbara Mall is not nearly as nice and upscale as it was when we came in 2009. It used to have super expensive foreign stores in it that I definitely could not shop at, but now it's pretty run down.  It's pretty cool though because it was a colonial hacienda and a lot of the architecture and buildings were incorporated into the modern parts.

I loved this mosaic!

And the sloth.  The food court was still prime, and we discovered our favorite drink ever--Limonada de Coco.  SO DELICIOUS!!

We stopped by a nearby park to finish our drinks--since we were all thirsty for walking that far. 

I can't remember why Efraim was so upset, but doesn't he just look so dejected there?  😂

Hmmm, not so well placed. 

On the way back we went through the street market that's outside of the mall and it started to rain.

The boys all loved this graffiti.

I love watching the foggy clouds on the mountains here.  It's so pretty.  

Our townhouse is huge--as everyone tells us who comes to visit--1800 sq ft. Nice little humility check right there. But this is Nicolas, Jubal and Efraim's room. I've since decorated it with some pictures of Colombian military planes and flight maps that I bought from a garage sale next door--the guy had been in the air force--so it doesn't look like a bleak barrack anymore. I can't help myself, a house just isn't welcoming without a little decoration.

Sebastian's "room".  We hung up a bed sheet to give him privacy, but that only lasted a couple weeks before we gave up on it.  

Out couch was delivered!!! Yay!!!

We got internet after a week and a half and this has been my kids' lives since. Before that, Sebas read all 4 books I brought specifically for him, Jubal read the 3 books I brought for him, etc. And they spent two days making origami that Sebas brought. I love/hate the internet.

And the refridgerator and microwave!!!  HALLELUJAH!!

And our table and chairs.

Also the missionaries came over for super one night.  It was fun to have them.  

Elena brought her violin as her carry-on.

See?!?  It looks like a bedroom with stuff up on the walls.

This is the rustic style furniture you find everywhere in Colombia.  It's inexpensive and we ended up buying a set for our living room to go with the couch. 

I can't remember why but I think I bribed the kids with Crepes and Waffles one day. SO delicious!

I also discovered Pricesmart.  Central America's equivalent to Sam's Club and Costco.  It even carries Members Mark brand stuff.  Anyway, the kids were overjoyed to have pickles, brownies, and soy sauce (there's Colombian brand soy sauces but they're nothing like the real thing.). 

And another day I was too tired out to cook we went to Pan Pa'Ya!s for pizza.  It was good--not the same, but still yummy.

The milhoyas for dessert were yummy too.  This used to be Leo's favorite Colombian food.  

We discovered this as well.  I LOVE this mix.  I don't buy it much because I'd just eat it in a day. But so yummy.

Facebook:  I was going to have Leo call some places to see if I could take the kids to a swimming pool or something, but the hurricane near Florida delayed flights so he won't be able to come at all this week.
In happier news, we sold our house in Wichita. Yay! 

We got very creative at the park entertaining ourselves because of having so little to do.

Sebas thought this was so funny! And literally and ironically, McDonald's is the closest restaurant to our house. Burger King is just down the street too.

Facebook: A lot of people have been asking me about how Colombia is going, and I think we've turned a corner today.  Mostly because the mattress I bought was finally delivered and I'm no longer sleeping on my Klymit air mattress and freezing to death at night.  Really we've just been in a state of limbo--Leo left within 2 hrs of us getting the keys to our townhouse and has been back a total of 4 days since then.  That's out of 3 weeks.  We spent the first week with no fridge, no furniture, sitting on the floor eating a lot of sandwiches and oatmeal. We also experienced three earthquakes--6.1, 5.6, and 4.3.  We barely got the paperwork to START the process to get the kids in school last Friday, etc. And the most helpful thing I've bought since being here is a chupa (toilet plunger), no toilet paper down the toilets but I'm still unclogging a toilet at least every other day.  Anyway, if you want to read more, I captioned thingsAnyway, hopefully the kids will be in school by the middle of September. I was so proud of myself-- I went to the school alone to give them the paperwork. Trying to get the security guard to let me in was the hardest part. I can follow a lot of conversations but I am a mess trying to speak it.

I was proud of myself for managing to buy the mattress on my own too.  It's simultaneously amazing how much you can communicate with only gestures and facial expressions, and also how much that is still so lacking in actual conversation.

Aug 2023--Settling In and an Earthquake!

Where to start?  After eating at Crepes and Waffles with us, Leo had to leave and fly back to the USA literally 2 hours after getting the keys to the apartment.  So me and the kids were on our own in Colombia.  We didn't really know what to do with ourselves that first week, I was nervous going places on my own, and so we cleaned and put things away, and then the kids read A TON and did origami and we played cards.  

This was at the mall's theater right by our house.

Beds our up.  That took like 5 minutes.

We also brought a water purifier because last time we were in Colombia for a long time, we ended up with Giardia, and I didn't want that again.  

Totes doubled as bedside tables.  

I had a hard time figuring out our stove, because as you can see no temps exist anymore on the surface to mark the temperature.  After watching the temp on my digital thermometer one day, I decided it didn't really matter because the temperature inside fluctuated so much.  So now I just try to smell when the food is cooked.

Also the gas range is fun because only two burners will work at the same time.  Joy.

Also, I was FREEZING to death at night on my little kylmit air mattress. BURR....

Boys making their own entertainment.

We did find a couple nearby parks.  

We went to the parks A LOT.  

 Poinsettia trees outside our chapel.  I never realized they grew that big!

And my favorite part of our street.  Hibiscus are everywhere, roses, hydrageneas, irises, geraniums as tall as my waist, bougainvillea, calla lilies, etc. It's gorgeous!!! My other favorite things include: MOUNTAINS!! I love seeing the mountains again. Different from Wyoming. But gorgeous and so close. Also just seeing things I normally would never see, like a truck full of bananas, or all the street vendors, or all the purebred dogs--seriously no poodle crosses here and every other person on the sidewalk has a dog. I've seen cocker spaniels, huskies, a Leonberger, Aussies, Great Danes, a Bernese Mountain Dog, an English bulldog, tons of little yippy dogs, etc I've never seen so many different breeds in my life. But they all look straight out of the pages of my sister's dog breed encyclopedia book. 

I love the orange, pink and red flowers.  

The kids were really bored and again, making their own entertainment.  I had bought wool blankets as their only bedding besides their pillows and little compact sleeping bag liners which were now their "sheets".  I was on a Kylmit air mattress with my wool blanket and I was FREEZING to death at night.  I ended up buying a comforter set at the grocery store to have another blanket and then I was okay.  The kids said they weren't that cold.  But eventually, I bought another blanket for Nicolas (who just stopped using his wool one despite him saying he was oh so cold).  And by the time we'd been here a year, I'd bought another blanket for all the kids.

We thought this was hilarious. I love the random, bad English translation shirts.

And another one. 

Another day, another park.   My boys may have broken that merry-go-round a few months later, and then it was removed from the park.  So sad.  They loved that thing--a little too much.  

The girls decorated their walls with origami.  Isabel and Sebas both read all of the Wingfeather saga and I ended up buying more books from Amazon.  They ship to Colombia--that was the best discovery ever!!

I liked the cat hanging out at the ferreteria. 

Also this is so Usaquen/Colombia!!  Mercedes car towing a four wheeler.  😂😂😂😂

This is the yard of the townhouses we live in. 

Park day yet again.  

We couldn't really go far without Leo. I mean I could've hired an uber, but I didn't know really where's safe or not outside the bubble of Usaquen (the neighborhood we live in). BUT there's tons of parks within a couple blocks. Our favorite is literally around the corner. I bought a soccer ball for the kids and usually other kids join them. Funniest thing, there was a family we met from the UK and Jubal ran up with the kids and told me, "Look Mom, I met a kid who speaks English!" And the little boy promptly added, "I speak a little United States too!!"

The first time Leo made it back we went and bought a refrigerator.  It was really hard trying to make meals and feed the kids with no fridge.  We basically were living on oatmeal.  We were also eating while sitting on the floor.  Good times.  Leo and I also bought a used washer and dryer.  Another necessity.   At least I think so.  It leaks.  It was also under warranty, so they came and "fixed" it. It still leaks, but not as bad.  We don't have a swamp anymore.  

The lovely flower shops near our house.

And the view from the mall near our house. 

We went to eat there, because yeah, it was hard to think of meals to make them with no left overs or fridge. 

That's from the window of the mall.

I found us a table on mercadolibre and Leo's aunt and uncle picked it up for us.  Yeah!! No more sitting on the floor!!  The day they brought it, there was an earthquake!!!! Seriously, wild!!!!!  Then there was a major aftershock too.  I didn't realize what was happening at first.  But yeah, it was 6.3 earthquake with a 5.7 aftershock.  I added a video about it below. 

From Facebook--

There's multiple grocery stores and little shops near us. One of the things I packed with us was an old granny shopping cart to drag behind me. So so glad I did that!! It's so random trying to debate what to buy based on what will fit in my little cart and reusable shopping bags. And I tend to overstuff and I've already had two reusable shopping bags break on me on the way home. No bueno. But I've kind of stocked my pantry now so I don't feel quite as desperate about what to make for dinner. I still need Leo to go with me to one of the carnicerias to figure out cuts of meat sometime. And Sebas eats constantly so it's hard to keep up. He's basically turned into a hobbit and between every meal eats another bowl of cold oatmeal with milk and sugar. And then again before he goes to bed. 

I bought some buckets at the store to wash our fruits and vegetables in with bleach--the sink is kind of weird shaped and I didn't have a good plug, so I felt that this was easier.

This is a preschool we pass on the way to church.  The rolls of barbed wire on top of a preschool always seems so incongruous to me.  

And at our church building.  I think this was at a youth activity.  Our ward is AWESOME by the way. There's only 4 other YW, but more YM. The primary is super small too, but they've been so welcoming and kind!  Which speaking of church, we picked where we lived based on walking distance to the chapel and the safety of the area only to find out that we're one street over from not only NOT being in that ward, but NOT even in that stake! Our actual ward chapel would be an hour's drive away in traffic.  Thankfully the bishop spoke to the stake president who spoke with the other stake president and they decided to just let us keep going to Los Cedros Barrio.

Real meals on a table!!!  Miracles never cease!!!

The next week when Leo was home again, we bought a couch together.  It has ended up being the most uncomfortable thing in the world.  Who knew?  I also harassed Leo to let me buy more furniture. He didn't want to, but it ended being for the best that we did.  But that wasn't delivered till later.  Anyway, those first two weeks were kind of just surreal to be honest, and we were just making do as best we could.  

Aww Jubal. The other reason I worried about trying to take the kids places. He did not like Bogota (he's the only kid to say that btw) because he doesn't like his "freedom" (his word not mine) being taken away by things like: staying where I can see him, walking to places in a group, and not crossing the street without the rest of us. It's a hard knock life.

Sebas was trying to fight the flood to get to his bathroom.  

I think we terrify the other parents because of stuff like this.

When it rains hard, it's deafening in our house.