Day 4

What a great day we had! It started this morning by Owen sleeping for a consecutive 7 hours! Thank goodness because his mama needed some rest! Since everyone was well rested, the 3 of us went to breakfast together – Owen loved sharing his papa’s French toast! After breakfast, we had to get a diaper change in and get Owen dressed for the day.

Later in the morning, we took Owen on his first trip to the zoo! Carmen (who runs El Refugio) arranged for a van to take 4 of the families staying at El Refugio, including the 3 MN families, on the 30 minute (Colombian time) drive to the Jaime Duque zoo and amusement park. Owen slept during most of the car ride to the park, which took about 45 minutes with traffic. After buying our tickets, which was a little confusing given language issues, we stopped to figure out what area of the park we wanted to see first. While doing so, Owen was fascinated by the ducks!

We first decided to take a ride on the train around the park with the Sibley’s and Henry’s. Owen was a little cranky on the train – which took us newbie parents a while to figure out he was very hungry! So we gave him a cookie while Papa made a bottle. After eating, he was all set to check out the park. We were able to see most of the park from the train, which was good because we were only planning on staying for a few hours given that the little ones would be ready for naps. We were all pretty hungry after the train ride (with the exception of Owen who had just eaten), so we grabbed lunch. Owen made sure to sample some of Papa’s French fries and hamburger bun, and some crackers. Next on the agenda was a walk around the park, which had some great views of the mountains.

Owen eating a cracker (he's quite the little mess maker!)

Our last stop was the zoo, which was fairly brief as Owen was falling asleep. He was able to check out the flamingos, a puma, and a tiger before dozing off.
We then loaded up the van and made the trek back, which was quite an adventure given the crazy driving in Colombia. The drive back took about an hour, and Owen and the other 6 children slept the entire way. When we got back, Papa gave Owen some juice, which he thoroughly enjoyed as you can see by his clapping.

For the rest of the night, we just relaxed at the residencia and had dinner. Owen sat in his highchair for part the meal, which was a vast improvement over yesterday. He ate some “soup”, cantaloupe, and half a jar of prunes - we’re starting to get really concerned now that he’s eaten 1 ½ jars of prune baby food and several ounces of a prune drink concoction that the maids at El Refugio made and still hasn’t gone #2. (Hopefully we have a “present” for us in the morning.)

After dinner, Owen and Papa played peek-a-boo and then we headed off to try to get Owen to sleep. We put the cutest pjs and hat on him, but our boy isn't fond of hats (and his papa didn't particularily like this one), so it only stayed on for about 3 seconds!Owen has always hated his crib – Mama spent 3 hours last night getting him asleep and into his crib. But tonight, we wised up! We finally attached the mobile that we had brought along to his crib and he was fascinated with it! He stood up outside the crib watching it go round and round and started dancing as it played Rock-a-Bye Baby. We thought we’d give it a shot and laid him down. He didn’t like it right away, but he didn’t panic like he usually does. So his Mama rubbed his belly for awhile and eventually his eyelids got droopy and he was sound asleep by 9:00 pm!! Off to bed we go to get some ZZZs before he wakes up!