Day 15 in Colombia

Our first night in the new place was interesting. Owen didn’t sleep well, probably due to moving to a new place yet again. So we were all up very early this morning! We had breakfast at 7:30 which they conveniently bring to our room.

After breakfast we discovered a few issues with our apartment –we noticed the stove didn’t work when we tried to boil Owen’s bottles and the shower leaked water all over the bathroom floor. So we had to move yet again! (This is the 4th place we’ve been in!) Owen wasn’t as helpful packing as he was unpacking – he kept taking all of his things that we put into the suitcase out!

The packing must have made him extremely hungry since he decided to see what his socks taste like! Our new apartment is a bit nicer, but less kid friendly. So we haven’t unpacked our bags yet as we’re waiting to find out if there’s another apartment with more child-proof furniture in the living room – we should know tomorrow and may make one final move.

By the time we got settled into the new place, we decided to do something easy for lunch and just made sandwiches. Owen had Pollo y Verduras (Chicken and Veggies) baby food, which is really hard to find down here, but he loves it! After lunch we got ready to head over to FANA for our tour and social history. Since Owen couldn’t go with us, the Henry’s offered to babysit. So Owen got to spend the afternoon playing with Taciano and Lilliana (thanks to Korene and Brian for babysitting!)

We got to FANA early, so we decided to check out the gift shop – they have great stuff, some of which is made by the women at the Hogar. We picked up a few things and then headed upstairs for our tour. Unfortunately we found out that there was a miscommunication and only the Sibley’s were supposed to show up for their tour/social history today. Carmen at El Refugio had coordinated the visits, and when FANA called with the time of the meeting we all thought it was for both us and Sibley’s. Flor was kind enough to squeeze us in on short notice, which we greatly appreciated.

The tour of FANA was wonderful! It’s such an amazing facility that’s run by loving and compassionate people. Everything is so clean and state of the art and the children look so very happy and well cared for. We are so fortunate that the staff at FANA did such a great job caring for our son!

After the tour and after the Sibley’s met with Flor, we had our meeting. Flor is such a terrific women and we really enjoyed spending the hour with her going over the social history of Owen’s birth parents. It was very emotional and wonderful all at once to be able to hear all about the courageous woman who loved her son so much that she wanted him to have two parents who could care for him in a way she couldn’t. We are forever indebted to her for allowing Owen to become a part of our family.

When we finished, we shared a cab back with Flor and were able to have a great conversation with her – she’s hilarious! And you can just see her passion for FANA and its children. We then picked up Owen from the Henry’s, ate a quick dinner and got Owen ready for bed. Hopefully we can get on a better schedule for Owen soon. Off to bed!