Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Today was a full day…
After breakfast Mike took the kids to the pool while Tristin went shopping with Gloria (our interpreter/guide) to a China-town like marketplace looking for gifts. Tristin was on “Red Alert” hearing this was more of a black market but upon arrival saw it was a bunch of different mini-stores/tables set up in a covered building with lots of police outside. Inside there were enough shoes to fit all of Medellin!!! There were also all of the typical off market wares such as selections of pirated movies and wii games, jewelry, lots of stuff… Tristin found some nice things. While there they received a call from our lawyer saying that we can go to the courthouse today for the signing of the adoption papers!!! Upon their return they took the metro train and upon exiting saw a bunch of people looking over the side of the overpass. Tristin and Gloria went over to see what they were looking at and it was horrible… an older man had been hit by a truck and was lying in the road… will spare any more details but it was clear he was not going to make it.
We were very excited for our final sentencing appointment. We all got dressed up – Diego even commented to Yerly “Que linda Yerly” (how pretty). We arrived to the courthouse and met our lawyer Maria Teresa. We went to the appointed court and it was not at all what we were imagining. It was basically an office where we stood in the hallway and they met with us through a window. We signed a couple of papers and that was it… The judicial assistant asked the kids to come into the office and they didn’t want to go so we went with them and they started crying. The secretary gave them a cracker and said congratulations and that was it. This process took quite some time considering all we did was sign two papers. Not the ceremonious, memorable experience we had imagined. Out lawyer said every court is different and some will have a cake and more of a party like atmosphere and others are very direct and to the point – all business. Guess we got the latter. Main point is they are now officially Diego Josee and Yerly Tatiana Rothwell!!!
When we returned to the hotel the hotel gave us a very nice three layered silver platter full of cookies, fruit and some water. Very nice of the hotel staff. Over these two weeks we have gotten to know several of them by first name and they are very encouraging to our family and our cause.
We went to our favorite Italian restaurant for our celebration supper. The kids enjoyed chocolate milkshakes. This restaurant has a beautiful view of the city. The sun was setting and a storm was making it’s way up the valley – very beautiful.
Tomorrow (Wed) Casa de Maria y el Nino will be sending someone to the birthplace of D&Y (Sonson) to obtain the original birth certificates and have them changed to Rothwell. These will be put with our other papers and Thursday we will get their Colombian passports. (They will be dual US-Colombian citizens) We will also be determining when we will be able to travel to Bogota to complete the process. THIS IS A MATTER OF PRAYER. There is a chance we might actually be able to come home this Sunday but a lot has to fall into place. Birth certificates and passports all completed Thursday morning. Flights to Bogota on Thursday afternoon. US embassy in Bogota is normally closed for adoption appointments on Fridays and next Monday is a national holiday so we are hoping the US embassy will make an exception and we could get in on Friday and take care of everything on one day. If this were to happen we could fly home this weekend. If this is not possible then we are planning on staying in Medellin until Sunday or Monday and fly to Bogota and start the process Tuesday after the holiday and be returning later in the week. This is mainly because we are familiar with Medellin and it is much warmer here. Bogota elevation is higher (8600FT vs 5000FT Medellin. 3rd Highest major city in the world – it’s motto is 2600meters closer to the stars!), it is much larger (7,500,000est people vs 2,500,000est people). Typical daytime temperature there at this time of year is around 60’F where Medellin is around 80’F – think we will soak up as much of this as possible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogot%C3%A1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medellin
We got back to our room and put the kids to bed – they went to sleep with NO CRYING in less than 10 minutes.
Maybe this is a sign of good things to come for La Familia Rothwell…
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