Archives for June 2010

Sentencia is signed!!! Cameron David Mulvehill is officially our son as of today, June 30th, 2010!

Magnolia came to the hotel around 9 AM to get me to go and finalize the adoption. Because we were going downtown it is customary for only one parent to accompany the interrupter to the court to sign the sentencia. Because parking is impossible, we took a taxi to the central square in Downtown Cali. Downtown Cali is an incredibly busy place. People everywhere, taxis, motorcycles, street vendors, life in the big city. It was sensory overload for me. It was hard to walk in a straight line because there was so much happening around me and so many things to see.

The main Justice Building in Cali was bombed two years ago (news story). They are still working on the damage so all of the family courts have been moved to different locations in the city. Our court (family court #7) was located above a shopping center a block from the downtown square. We got on the elevator and went to the sixth floor to wait for Elena, the lawyer, to arrive. The “court” was just an office with a lot of people waiting for help. Magnolia and I waited outside while Elena retrieved the paperwork from the office. She brought everything into the hallway and we verified the spelling of our names. Then Magnolia handed me a pen and right there in the midst of all the people, I signed the sentencia finalizing our adoption of Cameron David Mulvehill Hatmaker(as it will appear on his birth certificate). In Colombia the children take both the names of the father and mother, so poor Cameron is going to have one long name in Colombia! =)

The afternoon was spent at a mall getting Cameron’s passport and visa pictures. Magnolia and Elena will be traveling to Buga tomorrow to get Cameron’s birth certificates and if they get back in time we will try and get his passport tomorrow as well. If everything goes as planned, we should be traveling back to Bogota on Friday morning.

Though we are excited about the prospect of getting home next week, there is a bit of sadness about leaving our new friends here in Cali. It has been an amazing adventure with the most incredible blessing ever!

Day 17 Photos

That’s right! We decided to eat lunch at McDonald’s today. We needed to get some KLIM for Cameron so we decided to take a taxi to a shopping center called Chipichapa. It is a really nice up scale shopping center with a food court, movie theater, and lots of name brand shops. It was interesting to see how many of the shops were American brand clothing. We were really trying to find some authentic Colombian shops, but this shopping center didn’t seem to have any. There was another Exito so we were able to get Cameron’s milk.

The highlight though was lunch at McDonald’s! We thought that we would be able to walk up to the counter and say, “Combo Uno!” However, there weren’t any numbers on the menu!! A little stunned, we mumbled through the Spanish words on the menu and ordered a Happy Meal for Cameron and two Quarter Pounder meals for Mommy and Daddy. They gave Cameron the biggest Happy Meal box we had every seen!! We could’ve put him in it and carried him around the mall! Lunch was good, tasted just like in the states.

We had hoped to hear some more news today regarding our court process, but Magnolia called and said that there was nothing new to report. She said that they would know more tomorrow. We will be meeting with her tomorrow morning around 10 AM to see what is happening. We’ll report more tomorrow.

Day 15 Photos

Day 15 Videos

Here is French Fry Boy doing his little French Fry Dance! You can’t see it as well in the video, but he is shaking his whole body back and forth. Ain’t he cute!

The dancing fountain in the Chipichapa Shopping Center

The city of Cali is several hours from the Pacific Coast, so when you are looking for a quick afternoon by the water, you don’t think of the beach…you think of the river.

The Pance River is located in the southern side of Cali and is a popular place where the locals go for recreation and leisure activities. We took a taxi about 20 minutes outside of the city to a wonderful little river resort like place that Enrique takes the families. There is a pool, kiddie pool, and access to the river. It was a wonderful little Sunday get away, and once again, the food was incredible!

We enjoyed relaxing in the pool and listening to rush of the river. I promised Cameron that white water rafting was in his future! He looked excited. =)

Day 14 Photos

Today we visited a petting zoo, well, really is was more like a small animal petting theme park. There were a lot of different animals, little refreshment stands and fast food places, a large pond where you could rent a fishing pole and fish, as well as horse back riding. It was an interesting little place and we got to expose Cameron to some more farm animals (preparing him for Grandma Snyders farm). He started out a little scared, but slowly started to warm up to the idea of being near the animals. He never did pet any, but at least he stopped freaking out when they got close. There were a lot more animals than we took pictures of, but you get the idea.

Before I post all of the pictures and video from today, there is one special video that I wanted to highlight. Mommy has been trying to teach Cameron how to give kisses. This is as far as she has gotten. He doesn’t quite understand it yet. =)

Cameron trying to give Mommy kisses.

Day 13 Photos

Day 13 Videos

Cameron is warming up to the animals.

These two llamas kept fighting over the food that Mary Ann had in her hand.

Mommy tries to get Cameron to pet the little donkey.

Trying to take picture of Cameron on the fence, but he just wouldn’t stay still.

Cameron loved the slide. Daddy keeps forgetting to tell Mommy that he can’t flip video. =)

Cameron tried his best to climb back up the slide.

Today was market day! Every Friday the owner of the hotel takes the interested families to the market were he buys the food for the hotel. It is an amazing look at the Colombian culture.

We left the hotel around 10:30 AM with two other families. After a 15 minute drive, we arrived at the market. Enrique, the owner, took us around the market and showed us all of the places that he buys the food. He explained the different fruits and vegetables available in Colombia. It was a extremely interesting trip and we learned a lot.

Later on in the day we ventured out to the Exito, which is a store much like our Walmart. We needed daipers and were told that it was the best place to go. Using Bing Translater, I figured out how to ask the lady at the front desk to call us a taxi (I wrote it all down and showed it to her…she laughed at me,  but she was very helpful). =)

The taxi ride cost us $6,500 pesos (about $3.50 US) one way. We got to the store and sure enough, it looked a lot like a Walmart. We wondered around the store trying to find diapers and baby food. Prices really aren’t all that different from the states. Anything that is imported is more expensive, so toys and electronics aren’t something we want to buy here. Food is reasonably priced and clothes are about the same as we would pay at Walmart. All in all, we weren’t that impressed, but we got our diapers! =)

Magnolia e-mailed us last night and offered to take us on an overnight trip to coffee country. She said that she would have to check on some prices for renting a car and get back to us. She called back today and said that she had planned on taking us, another family, and some guest staying with her from the states. The other family decided not to go, so that made the rental price go up for us. Magnolia could just take her car if it was just her and her guests, so we decided not to go. We figured that the whole weekend would have cost a good bit, plus we would have had to pay for the hotel here to keep our room. Though it would have been an interesting trip, we figured it was better to just hang out here for the weekend. We are hoping to hear something more on our court process on Monday.

Day 12 Photos

We just spent the day hanging out around the hotel today. Our lawyer, Elena, stopped by the hotel today and told us that we had completed step one of the three step court process to complete the adoption. She said that it was very good that we got this step done so quickly. She said that it was a good sign for the rest of the process.

We took some pictures for an adoption announcement that Mary Ann’s dad is working on for us. Here are some of the “rejects” that ended up being kinda cute.

Day 11 Photos

Today we got to see some of the sites and sounds of Cali. Enrique arranged a city tour for us with his driver. He likes doing this for all of the adopting families so they get a chance to see the city. We had no idea were we were going to go or what we would see, but it sounded like fun and we needed a reason to get out for awhile. So off we went.

Did I mention that the driver didn’t speak English? =) It made things a little interesting, but I guess he had done this enough times that he could communicate the important details. Honestly, the views we say spoke for themselves. We had no idea that Cali was so big and so beautiful!!!

We drove up to the highest point of the city, the Cristo Rey, which is a huge statue of Christ that looks down over the city. On one side you have this huge city that seems to go on forever, and on the other side, these incredible mountains that stand between us and the Pacific Ocean. It was amazing.

After coming back down we visited one of the oldest trees in Cali. The root system of the tree spread out over a entire hillside. Next door stood a monastery which we were able to tour. A dear sweet nun blessed Cameron as we were leaving. It was very sweet.

Cali is a wonderful city! Definitely someplace that we want to visit again!

Day 10 Photos

Day 10 Videos

I didn’t take any photos of the monastery. I wasn’t sure if flash photography was a good idea. Just off the main room where we were standing were some nuns chanting and I didn’t want to disturb them. Here is some video from inside the main worship area.

We found out today that we have been assigned to court #7 which apparently is a really good thing. Our translator says that court #7 is a fast court and that everything should go smoothly. There are three steps in the court process. Once we sign the final adoption decree (called sentencia), the only steps left here in Cali will be to get Cameron’s Colombian passport and copies of his new birth certificate. Then we will travel back to Bogota for a doctor’s visit, a final paper from the ICBF, and then to the US Embassy for Cameron’s visa. Then it will be changing our plane tickets and coming home.

We decided to celebrate by spending a little time in the pool. Cameron loves bath time, so we figured the pool would be fun. He didn’t like baths at first, but it might have been the whole idea of a couple of strangers trying to bathe him. We were right, he loves the water!

Day 9 Photos

Day 9 Videos

Taking it slow. The water was so cold that slow was the only way to go!

Didn’t take long though. Cameron kept throwing his ball into the big pool.

The big event of the day was the ICBF interview. This is the interview were they make sure everything is going okay and that Cameron is adapting well to his new family. Magnolia picked us up around 1 PM and we traveled to the ICBF office for our 1:30 PM meeting. Everything went really well. They were impressed with how well Cameron was doing and very excited about him being with us. I heard the social worker say it was “Perfecto!”

Magnolia told us that the social worker that was working with us was retiring this Wednesday. We will be one of her last cases. She has been doing adoptions for a very long time (Magnolia didn’t even know how long). She was a very sweet lady and wished us well.

All of the paperwork was given to our lawyer, Ellena. She will be submitting everything to the court system. We will find out tomorrow which court will get our case. Magnolia says that as long as it isn’t court #5, everything should move quickly from this point. With everything else that has gone haywire with our adoption, I am fully expecting to be assigned to court #5! =) The adoption cases are randomly assigned to one of eleven different courts. Some are faster than others, so we will see what happens.

Day 8 Photos