Our Journey, Part 1 - Barranquilla

To fulfill the petition of my only reader "Tuija K" from Finland, here is Part 1 of a summary of our journey in Colombia:

After the usual waiting game (USCIS/Department of State/US Embassy/ICBF) we finally got our Entrega day scheduled for February 3rd, 2014 (75 days or 2.5 months since the day we got the news). 

Katalina and I left a week before and went to Barranquilla where my family was getting together to celebrate my twin cousins' quinceañera which is the latin version of a sweet sixteen party.  Katalina had never been to Barranquilla before, so it was a special treat since she got to meet my grandma, 6 of my aunts and uncles and my cousins for the first time ever.

Here we are travelling solo Katie at 4 (now 5) has more flying miles than what I had at age 25. Crazy!

Once we arrived to Barranquilla Katie had the-best-time-ever! My mom is the oldest of 9 children, which means I am the 2nd oldest cousin and at least 60% of my cousins range from age 3 to 10 which means Katie had plenty of playmates, it was also sweet for me because I got to see my brother and his son for the first time after 4 years (last time we had seen each other was when we went to Bucaramanga to receive Katie)

Katie also got to sharpen her Spanish skills as none in my family speak English, she got to taste some of our Santander cuisine since my grandma owns a Typical restaurant in Barranquilla and she also had her first "paseo con olla" which is a trip to the river where you hang out the whole day and while everybody takes a splash in the river, the ladies cook a delicious soup which is called "Sancocho".  We also went to the beach and the kids went to DiverCity, which is a miniature city for kids to play to be big. 

We were in Barranquilla for a total of 4 days and it was so much fun that Katie did not want to leave, she cried her eyes out when saying goodbye which made all of the adults in the room cry like babies, it just reminded us how sad it is that we don't get to share time together that often... it took us at least four years to get together... only God knows when will be the next time.

I regretted my decision to go back to Bogota so soon but there was nothing to be done, I worked from home from Wednesday to Friday and we hung out with Katie until daddy arrived on Sunday,  he came in very late and the next day we finally welcomed Joey into our family which I posted here and later posted the photos here

It's been six months since we were in Barranquilla and Katie still asks me in a regular basis when are we going to go back and when is her cousin (my cousin) Valerie going to visit us here in the US, my answer is always the same "I don't know, I hope soon"