Let’s see. Not much news here. Just preparing  to leave tomorrow for Texas. It is going to be a whirlwind trip as we once again try to fit in every family member possible in a very short period of time. We will spend time in Ft. Worth, Houston and Jacksonville all within our short week. We are really looking forward to it. Here are the small updates just so you have a blog to read this week…

On Monday evening Seth brought home a special box in the mail…. from GAP. Inside Jackson found his first undies! Yep, that’s right we have stooped low enough in the blog world to write about underwear. Jackson was so thrilled that he wanted to wear all of the pairs at once!!  Here is a picture that we will for sure show to girl friends someday!

3 pairs later

On Tuesday Jackson and I hosted the American Women’s Club baby group. My oh my. It has been rainy lately so everyone came….yep..over 20 kids and 20 parents. We colored eggs and played and snacked. I was exhausted when everyone left!!!! I think I am still getting the house back in order. Here are some pictures.

just spotted the peeps before everyone came

Jackson surprised me with his egg decorating…he sat still as can be and knew to be careful

Jackson and Natasha (a buddy from school). He held her hand and ran around with her the whole time!

That’s about it from here. We will update you after our Texas adventures! Hope you all have a wonderful Easter!

oh my goodness….2 years old is sneaking up on us!! Jackson has had a fun month and is learning so much. He has been talking for a while now but seems to be talking so much now…and to everyone!! He is now using 2 words together like “need people” (for his little people).  A couple of days ago I had a couple of little boys  here for speech therapy. Jackson loves to see the “big kids”. He was doing “high 5” with one of the little boys and started cracking up. He said to the little boy “you funny”.  Today he came in and saw Elmo laughing on his  video and said “elmo funny”. He is also using lots of action words like “raining”, “sleeping”, “running”, and “eating”. He loves to comment on how fast he goes when he runs. He learned “fast” with daddy! A couple of nights ago I kissed Jackson and told him I loved him. He said “thank you, mommy”.

He is really playing with his toys now. He does some pretend play with his little people. He enjoys pretending to feed them and shares his sippy cup. He named one of his little people Sonia. For those of you that don’t remember that was our first maid. Yesterday he insisted that Sonia come in the car with us. Everywhere we went he told people that it was Sonia. Very funny. He has caught on to the names of some of our front door guards. His favorite is Juan Carlos. When we go down the elevator he starts asking if Carlos is there. Every morning the guards comment on how cold it is outside. Just last week Jackson popped out of the elevator and proclaimed “frio”…for cold in Spanish! They all broke into laughter that he understood their system!!

Other favorite activities are coloring and the bean bucket. The bean bucket is a big tupperware of dry beans that we hide plastic toys in and go hunting. We scoop and pour and say “ay a you?” (“where are you?”).  It’s a nice activity to do inside on rainy days if you spread out a towel under. Jackson now knows the beans stay on the towel.  Jackson has a tantrum every single time the activity ends.

Jackson’s big adventure coming up is that we are flying home to TX to take him to the farm for a few days. The whole trip will be an adventure but we think he is going to love the farm. He loves cows and horses at the moment so it will be fun when he realizes he gets to be so close to them!

wiped out after church; about to get in trouble for sitting on arm of couch and jumping off; Easter egg display at mall; kissing Ruthie’s picture because I said we needed to give her birthday kisses.

Nope, not manic, just promised to write a post about things we do like around here!!

Here are a few things we like about Bogota….

1. friends

we have started a tradition with our friends Nick and Kima of them coming over most Friday nights and ordering in dinner. Jackson usually gets a little visit before bed!

2. it’s beautiful..year round..except for when it rains off and on every day! No really, it is the same temperature all year and because it rains frequently we  have beautiful flowers and plants all year!

3. we can afford to have our house full of flowers because they are so darn cheap!!

these are the weekly picks!

4. fruits and veggies- cheap and abundant.  We particularly love the fresh juices!

I worry that Jackson might think every child gets to eat strawberries, avocados and kiwis everyday. Life after Colombia is going to be apples and bananas for him! I am going to let him enjoy while he can!

5. restaurants here are plentiful and generally reasonable.  when we say reasonable we mean that for the price of dinner at a Chili’s-type restaurant you can get a steak dinner. So when we do go out we can get more for our money.

you might remember these pictures…the first is of the cookie and hot chocolate from our favorite bakery. The European influence here means wonderful baguette’s, croissants with chocolate, etc.  The second is of Graham’s steak when he came to visit. For about $14 this was the amount of meat he got at dinner! He had meat sweats halfway through!

6. domicilios- delivery. for everything.  medicine, food, framed pictures, paper, you name it and it will likely be able to be delivered.

7. the dollar is getting stronger and the peso is weakening..not sure if that is a good thing about Bogota or the US, but it benefits us here!

It’s been a while since I (Seth) have posted, mainly because so much of my Colombian stories are work-related, and probably shouldn’t be shared.  But I do have a few quick stories from the past month or so that I thought I’d share.

We were watching American Idol through our slingbox last week and right after the show was over it went into a new show (at least for us) called Lie to Me.  We were slightly intrigued because the commercials were talking about a murder at a diplomat’s wedding and something to do with an ambassador.  (Since we’ve been to a diplomat’s wedding, we quickly realized that the story was overdramatized.)  Anyway, the opening scene showed a hispanic man shooting another one in the chest.  Then in the corner the location of the murder popped up.  Cali, Columbia.  The only thing is that Colombia isn’t spelled Columbia.  It’s a common mistake, but it was especially embarrassing we thought because here is a show on Fox and they don’t know how to spell the name of the country.  I told my co-workers the next day, and we all got a good laught out of it.

The nice thing about living in Colombia is Valentine’s Day.  Mainly because the “holiday” hasn’t caught on here yet.  I remember last year we were driving to a restaurant for VD and at the stoplight there was a guy selling roses.  I bought some for Kristen thinking I was being all romantic.  And then I told Kristen how cool I thought it was that they actually were selling roses on VD.  Then Kristen reminded me that they always sell roses at stoplights and it had nothing to do with VD.  Which brings me to why VD is nice in Colombia.  One, it’s super easy to get a reservation for VD since no one else is wanting one.  Two, roses are super cheap.  On any given day, you can get a dozen for like 3 bucks.  And Kristen said she’s seen a truck that drives around selling 2 dozen for 75 cents!!!  Remember, all the flowers you buy from your local florist come from Colombia.  Three, there are no Hallmark cards in Colombia, so you don’t get ripped off buying those.  Instead, you can write something on your own…from the heart.

The traffic here can be horrendous.  The other day we were driving 3 miles each way.  It took us 45 minutes to get there and 45 minutes to get back.  Unbelievable.  They’ve tried reducing some of the traffic by institutuing “pico y placa” which means that if your license plate ends in a certain digit, you can’t drive on that day.  Up until a month ago, “pico y placa” was just from 6-9 AM and 4-7 PM.  But they are doing major construction around town starting in a couple of weeks, so “pico y placa” is now extended to 6 AM until 8 PM.  Thankfully as diplomats with diplomatic license plates, we aren’t affected.  But I will say, we haven’t seen a dramatic decrease in traffic despite these new rules.

A few weeks ago, a bomb went off at a Blockbuster about 7 or 8 blocks from our house.  We have friends who live about 1/2 block from the explosion.  And my boss was at that exact Blockbuster only 45 minutes before.  Thankfully, no Americans were hurt, although 2 people did die.  Needless to say, things were quite tense around here for several days following the explosion.  The next night, Kristen and I heard three explosions, and immediately called the embassy.  Turns out they were only fireworks.  Which led us to think that fireworks should be banned for at least 48 hours after a bomb goes off.

And the biggest highlight of all.  McDonald’s is looking at building a restaurant at the embassy in the coming months.  I am quite pumped, although Kristen has said I’m going to have a monthly quota on Big Macs.  Before we got married, I average meat on a bun at least 3 times a week (Justin can attest to that).  We are now down to about once a month.  McDonald’s won’t be as good as Whataburger coming, but with only about 7 months remaining, it’ll suffice.