We have reached the end of our final day in Guatemala. Tomorrow we return home.

We were up early this morning for a 9am tour of Guatemala City. We had made arrangements through the front desk of the hotel and they set us up with a driver and guide… for just us! We began by driving through a residential area in Zone 14 called La Cañada, which is where all of the ambassadors from the Embassies live, alongside many of the upper class citizens of Guatemala City. Some of the homes were *very* nice, especially considering some of the places we have seen that people live around the city. Probably a blog topic for another day:)

Next we drove from the southern end of the city to the northern end, just to get a sense for how the Zones and things lay out. Guatemala City is divided into 20 zones, with Zone 1 at the heart of the city (downtown) and spiraling out from there… Zone 2 being directly north of Zone 1. Once into Zone 2 we stopped at a relief map constructed over 100 years ago as a scale model of Guatemala. We walked around the map and our guide, Leo, pointed out many of the important cities in Guatemala and walked us through a lot of the history. Then we returned to Zone 1 and the main city plaza. On the north side of the plaza sits the National Palace, which we were able to tour. The palace was built by one of Guatemala’s past dictators (I will have to get a guide book to remember which one), and is simply gorgeous inside. Today’s picture was taken in the lobby of the palace. On the east side of the plaza sits that National Cathedral, and Leo was also able to walk us through and tell us about much of the history of the building. On the way home we drove through the Sixth Avenue Market, but opted not to get out and do anymore shopping. We were home right at 1pm, with a hungry little guy who proceeded to eat two jars of baby food and take a bottle before we could even get back downstairs for lunch!

Although he was still in the middle of his afternoon nap, at 4pm we bundled him up and took him to the lobby… a few minutes later… there was Pedro with our Visa!!!!!!!!

He gave us our super-secret packet, which included a page of instructions telling us what to do at immigration tomorrow, and Carson’s passport with a USA Visa. The packet is a sealed envelope containing all of the original documents for Visa approval. It was sealed and stamped at the Embassy, and must be given to the immigration agent when we reach Houston tomorrow UNOPENED. We are now free to leave the country!! After a brief thought about seeing if we could switch our flights to something earlier, we shrugged and decided to get one more night of sleep.

BIG THANKS to Max, Pedro, Marisol and Carmen for all you have done for us and Carson.

We’ll see you tomorrow United States… one of your newest citizens is coming home!!

Today we did... nothing! We had breakfast about 10am, played cards on the balcony overlooking the pool area (the pool itself is closed for construction), walked around outside the hotel, did some shopping, watched the Seahawks game and had dinner. We're ready to come home!
Here's our new favorite picture... we laugh out loud every time we look at it:)

We made plans with our driver from the Embassy yesterday to take us to Antigua for the day today. Our plan this morning was to meet up about 7:30 for breakfast, and then find Herman around 9am. We assumed this would be no problem since Carmen assured us that Carson wakes up around 6am each morning. However, we woke up at 7:30 to find  Carson still sleeping happily. Apparently our little alarm clock has a snooze button:) So we called mom and dad and they agreed to come down and enjoy the cinnamon rolls we had bought the mall on Friday while we got up and got ready to leave.

It was after 9am when we headed for the lobby, and there was Herman – ready to roll. Herman is the best! We had found no time to go through the guidebook and pick out the specific places we wanted to go, but we kept running into the people on the tour from the hotel, so they must have been to the right landmarks! He took us to Convento de las Capuchinas, which was a convent until 1773 when the big earthquake hit that made the people of Guatemala moved the capital from Antigua to Guatemala City. The hotel was built on the ruins, and has done an amazing job of preserving the grounds of the church. They were setting up for a wedding there and it was incredible! We toured the crypts, saw lots of parrots and met up with a group of Japanese nuns that spoke Spanish… go figure.

Next stop was the Jade factory, just around the corner. Herman found us a guide to who explained the difference between the different types of Jade, and walked us through how Jade is processed in Guatemala and how it was used traditionally by the Maya. Next it was off to the market to buy some Guatemalan goods. Herman steered us to a corner of the main market that was considerably quieter and less crowded than the main section. Once again, we were happy to have Herman. We found some things we liked, that had been too expensive to purchase in the gift shop at the hotel, wandered around a bit more and then headed out. He took us to the Church of San Francisco on the way out, and then to Cuidad Viejo at the base of Agua Volcano. This was the original capital, before it was moved to Antigua, but has also been mostly destroyed by earthquakes.

We were home by about 4pm, had dinner at Champions, took Carson to the baby lounge to get some wiggle time in and retired to our rooms for some downtime.

Tonight we celebrated a successful and, quite frankly, easy day at the Embassy by eating at Sirabella – the nicest restaurant at the Marriott! If you look closely in the picture, Carson is the sleeping yellow bundle. We had avoided it on our first visit trip because it looked too fancy, and then on our second trip vowed not to eat there until we were here for pick-up. Good thing there were rooms available on our short notice:)

We met Pedro this morning and arrived at the Embassy about 6:45. There was a long line of local people waiting for the doors to open at 7am, but there was a separate line for adoptions that allowed us to pass the main line. Our appointment was at 7:15, but it turns out they “batch” appointments together for 4-5 families have 7:15, 4-5 families have 7:30, etc. We were #4 for our time, which was the first time available, so also #4 overall for the day. At about 7:45 they finally starting calling families forward to the windows.

Pedro went up the first time and gave them our stack of documents. They accepted them and then he told us we would soon be called for two interviews. He had to go pick up another family with an 8:30 time, and would be there when we were done. Not long after we were called to door #10, which we entered to find two chairs facing a desk with a piece of glass separating us from the man on the other side. This was Interview #1. His first statement was, “You’re from Oregon! Where’s McMinnville?” We told him it was an hour and a half south of Portland, and he said, “I was born in Portland.” AN OREGONIAN! He went on to say his parents live in Seaside, OR, and we told him we stayed at the WorldMark place on the boardwalk a few times. He laughed and told us his parents met on the Seaside boardwalk – his mom was a vendor there when she was young. Hah! He asked when we first met the child and we said March 10 of this year. He said he was approving our application for an IR3 visa, and to go out and wait for the next interview.

We waited another 15 minutes or so, until they called us to Window #9. She asked us to raise our right hands and swear that all of the information contained in the documents presented was true and accurate to the best of our knowledge. She also asked when we first met the child and then verified that we had entered Guatemala in March of 2006 by checking for a stamp in our passports. Interview #2 was complete - and that was it! We received a receipt that will be needed to pick up the Visa on Monday, and passed it along to Pedro, who said he would pick it up for us and bring it to the hotel on Monday around 4pm.

By 9am we were back at the hotel. We took naps, played some games and ended the day with a good dinner downstairs. Carson is sleeping happily in his crib.

We're here. We have him. We are very tired.

After flying all night we arrived at the Marriott around 1pm and checked into our rooms. Dad and Scott went to the grocery store to get diapers, water bottles and baby food and then we met back downstairs about 3:30 to wait. Just after 4pm Marisol, Carmen and Carson arrived! We started chatting in the lobby and then moved up to our room, where it was quieter, and Max soon joined us as well.

We passed Carson between Carmen, Scott and myself (so he knew we were all still there) while she told us about his schedule, as well as his likes and dislikes. We asked her what she would like for Carson to know about her later, and she talked for a long time about how much she loved him and how special he was, but also that she knew he was going to continue to be loved and was happy to see him join his new family. We taped the conversation, so we will be able to play it for him in the future. Max also told us that Carson's birth-mother had wanted to write us a letter, but it had not worked out with our short timeframe. However, Marisol noted that she will be traveling to Oregon soon with another baby and would be happy to deliver a letter at that time. What an amazing thing for Carson to have!!

After Max and Carmen left, Marisol stayed behind to tell us how tomorrow will work. We will meet Pedro in the lobby at 6:30am, be at the Embassy by 7am and, hopefully, will be back at the hotel by 8:30 with a visa approval in hand!

We will post pictures tomorrow... for now, good-night:)

Today is the day to wrap things up at work... wrap up the packing... and wrap up our last day as childless parents. Tomorrow, Carson is ours!

Now that we have an actual travel date  people have started to ask when they will be able to meet Carson... well, here's your official invitation to the (very short)...

So on Monday we received an email from our lawyer saying, “Congratulations! I will be waiting for you for your Embassy Appointment this Friday September 22, 2006.”

It was VERY exciting and gave us some hope (finally!) that we might actually be nearing the end and were actually waiting on PINK instead of a birth certificate, or a final signature from Carson’s birth mother. After all, he would know, right?

The strange thing was that usually (in fact, almost never) the lawyers and facilitators do not contact parents directly, they go through the agency. So why did Max email us…?

Turns out… He’s been reading our blog!  He saw our 9/8 post and wanted to give us an update!

¡Hola Max! Muchas gracias…
¡Hasta pronto!

(We cannot wait to see you next week!)

(Apparently they were right when they said they were working on our file, even though we weren't getting any updates! )



Our Embassy appointment has been scheduled for Friday, September 22, which makes our final timeline something like this:

Thursday, September 21 - GOTCHA' DAY! (Day we get him with no intention of ever giving him back!)
Friday, September 22 - Embassy Appointment
Saturday & Sunday - Hang around and wait for the Embassy to be open again.
Monday, September 25 - Pick up Visa at the Embassy
Tuesday, September 26 - HOME FOREVER