5 months old today

Esteban was born 5 months ago today! Happy day, mi hijo.

If you’ve looked at our photos, you’ve probably noticed that Esteban has a great smile. He also makes some very funny and expressive faces, from confused to very serious to extremely angry when we put saline spray in his nose (for congestion). His little voice is very sweet, and he vocalizes more and more every day. We’re just starting to hear his giggle, and it’s contagious! To round out that set of observations about him, he also has one heck of a wail when he’s hungry. We’ve taken a couple of great morning trips the past few days, with our friends the Sanfords. On Sunday we went to a wonderful flea market that happens every Sunday in the Usaquén section of Bogotá. We walked around, looked at the booths, and smelled the food for several hours. Julien was very disappointed that Sabeth wouldn’t let him eat any food from the street vendors. Esteban got a great puppet and some new shoes.

Monday we hired a driver (who toured us in a bright green 1973 Dodge Dart, see photo in Snapfish) and went to La Candelaria, the historic downtown of Bogotá. It was founded in the 1530s by the Spanish. It is almost 500 feet higher in elevation than our hotel, which is at about 8000 feet. The presidential palace, parliament, congress, supreme court and Simon Bolivar square are all in La Candelaria. Esteban especially liked the pigeons we fed in Bolivar Square. We finished our tour with a really great lunch of traditional Colombian food. We also learned that we should always have an extra set of clothes for Esteban in case of a diaper explosion.

Being the rainy season, it rains almost every afternoon here. Sabeth has learned that if she hasn’t taken the laundry down from the (covered) clothesline before the rain, it absorbs so much moisture it has to hang another day before it’s totally dry. We took Esteban out just before dinner for a quick walk to the grocery store, and he seemed to really like the sprinkles and the breeze. We bet he’ll like Seattle!

Speaking of Seattle, Esteban’s Grandma Dawn (Sabeth’s mom) joined us for dinner last night. She is taking a week long Spanish language course before joining Sabeth at the Halifax after Julien leaves. She was VERY excited to meet her first grandchild—and proclaimed that it was about time that she’s no longer the shortest member of the family.

We've discovered Juan Valdez Cafe (the local equivalent of Starbucks) has FREE WiFi. This might become our new favorite hang out. And it's right across the street from a great park!

We’ll write again after our appointment with the Defender of Minors on Thursday. This appointment will officially begin our Colombian legal process.