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.