Saturday, November 25, 2006

Hello all! First of all, happy 7th birthday today (25th) to Jessica our niece in Florida – the year 1999 was a good one (we got married that year too)! Also, an early happy 6th birthday to our nephew Patrick in Illinois (November 29th is the big date for him) – have a fun one, which is easy to do when you turn 6 or 7!

By the way, other than being a little chilly, the Marriott is not “roughing it” like our first 3 weeks in Uralsk Kazakhstan (when we had no A/C in 95-degree weather, had to boil our water before drinking, no internet, no English speaking, etc.) One big convenience is that we are paying about 70 quetzals a day in Guatemala for high-speed internet usage to write these blogs and listen to the football games this weekend – when Danielito is sleeping or occupied. “Futbol” is obviously the sport to watch down here. A quetzal gets you about 13 cents, so a 55 quetzal sandwich at Champions sports bar and grill is less than $8 we think.

Danielito slept last night from 8:30 pm to 6:30 am, with just a couple of minor stirrings throughout, that is great news – the foster mother warned us of a probable 1:30 am bottle feeding. He is still a joy – smiles a lot, likes to play, loves to hug like a baby koala bear, and gets cuter every moment. We have seen worse behavior at restaurants, let’s just say that for now – although it is still early in the experience. We’ll see how Saturday evening sleep goes because naps are not quite as long as we were told.

We have been staying close to the hotel, per our agency (sightseeing is best done on your final visit when everything is official and legally completed). Tom did walk a block to the “market” to find some more Gerber baby food, no problems there – por favor and gracias. Tom’s grandfather’s younger brother has some good friends in a neighboring city who we hope to meet next trip – they have called us to make sure we were ok and offered a sightseeing tour, very nice of them.

Tonight we plan to eat at one of the 3 restaurants with a couple Tom knows via work who happen to be visiting their 3-month-old boy Saturday thru Tuesday – it is nice to share the experience with people. Today we saw probably 10 couples walking around with their new babies, yesterday we only spotted a few other “adoptive-looking” couples.

We briefly said hi on the phone to Noah and Brooke back home, they sound happy as can be with the Marolf grandparents (funny how that works with grandparents), although they too wish Danielito was coming to Florida sooner than later. We are so thankful to spend this quality time getting to know our new boy and are starting to mentally prepare for the goodbye cries on Monday morning. Meanwhile, we feel your support (and read your wonderful comments).