Day 2!

We received a few messages from avid blog stalkers and email correspondents eager to get the low down on today! So sorry! While we remained at El Cortijo with Jonatan, the day was full. Tomorrow will be a late night post as well as we are going to travel down to Armenia to the Parque de Café…Rosario, the owner of El Cortijo, arranged for her driver to escort us down and back. It is about an hour drive from here! So fun and such a blessing!

I cannot express how appreciative we are of our host! She has gone above and beyond in tending to our needs, both known and unknown on our part! Rosario has additionally invited us to the ‘country club’ on Saturday…and then later next week we will be going out to a finca (farm) in the country for a barbecue and change of scenery.

The night before we met Jonatan, Rosario had also taken us out to the Periera Mall to show us around, coach us on using the taxis, making purchases within the local grocery store…it was so wonderful…and made us feel so much more at home. She calls herself ‘professora’ with Dave and I…actually, the pressure is more on Dave to speak Spanish with her…she is enjoying the opportunity to teach…while she is also challenging herself to speak English with us…as she is attending an English class at the local university. As another side note regarding Rosario, she must know the whole town! While at the mall, at every turn we found someone that she knew!

A little about El Cortijo before Jonatan…Rosario shared that back in the late 80’s economically the area was going through a hard time…she had also fell under those hard times and was searching for what to do. Someone had suggested she consider turning her home into a hotel of sorts for families traveling to the area to adopt. Since then she has kept her home open in this way. She has 7 absolutely gorgeous rooms…two sitting directly over the pool…literally, you can walk out on the deck from one room and you are standing over the pool! I don’t know if she would call this her ministry, nor do I know where she stands with the Lord…although I would say that she is faithful to use the gifts, talents, and resources she has in service of others!

On to today: We awoke this morning around 6:30; Jonatan had a small bottle and rested for another hour before we were up and getting ready for the day. He had slept through the night, although it was a bit short as we had all gotten to bed rather late. There is a family from France here and they are adopting a 7 year old named Juan David. They were to leave to return to Bogota today to finish paperwork before returning to France, so El Cortijo threw a fiesta with all sorts of yummy Colombian food, wine, and an xtra yummy dessert…forgive me for not knowing what everything was…



Jonatan has a bit of cold while I am still recovering from a sinus infection, so we decided to keep things low key and stick around El Cortijo. We enjoyed playing at the pool…not in it yet as Jonatan seemed a bit tentative about the agua…we splashed one another and another little boy named Juan who is being adopted by a couple from Spain while Papa took pictures.



We also spent mucho, mucho time playing ball…Jonatan is absolutely mesmerized by balls…he can’t get enough of them…a funny thing happened today with little Juan of the couple from Spain. Juan is 2 and was very interested in playing with Jonatan’s ball…well, Jonatan would not have any of this. This was the first fit that we got to see from him, and really it wasn’t all that bad. He actually seemed a bit tired today and consequently had a lower tolerance level for stuff like this. The same sort of thing happened later in the day with Juan David and his sister Karen. Hopefully tonight’s sleep will be better for him.

In parting…because I know I have written a ton already…Jonatan is an amazing eater…he isn’t very finicky about food...he even eats greens!!!!! We found that his favorite foods are definitely fruits, fruit juices, and he absolutely loves empanadas!!!! So cute! We hope you enjoy the photos, and thank you so much for all the mail and comments! They mean so much!