Dancing

All good here

All good here. One week to go. We´ve done more visiting and I went to school again. I´ve been to the salon and done some shopping. We continue to eat and take lots of naps. Here are a few pics from Raquel´s camera of birthday and other fun things.



This weekend we´re off to the beach with three other families, friends of Rafa.

Update

Diego is having a nice long sleep - the apartment is quiet and he is taking advantage of the opportunity, as did I. Rafa´s cousin and her son have gone back and Andres is off visiting his brother Arturo. We have been to a baptism, done lot´s more visiting and eaten a huge pizza. Rafa´s father came from Medallin and we had the beginning of a visit from him, he is also off with Arturo. I went to my old school today and connected with lots of people. I continue to feel like we never left, it´s sort of odd really. Tonight Rafa has a social engagement with a bunch of friends from high school who are in Barranquilla for the holidays - we may try to go for a bit. Here are a few pics.

Diego sitting on a case of Colombian beer.

Baptism of Rafa´s third god child.

Rafael senior and cousin Juan David.

A very giant XL pizza.

More family.

Picinaso

We have been here for 3 or 4 days. I´s hard to count. I think it´s Sunday. Diego is so happy. He wakes up and goes looking for Alejandro (a second or third cousin - whose counting?) and then does the rounds and wakes up everyone else. There is always someone to play with him and besides naps (which get harder the happier he is as he doesn´t want to miss anything) he is laughing all day long. We´ve been to the beach where he made a bee line for the water. The ocean was really choppy and so I was too nervous but Rafa took him in a little way and that was the end of it. We would take him up on the beach, turn him around a couple of times to see if we could disorient him but the second his feet touched the sand - straight for the water again. Yesterday we went to ´the Club´ with Jorge and his family. The pool was a great hit and I had to remove Deigo from the water when he started shivering but he would have stayed. He loves running around in his diaper and shirt without all the encombering clothing. In the words of Rafa ¨I think we have a problem Julia, I think we are going to have to move here.¨
Rafa is loving the talking and the occational bouts of Colombian Chaos. I am enjoying the vast majority and I´ve got myself a membership at the gym for a month so I can escape the apartment when it just gets too crowded and noisy for me. It looks like crowds and noise are no problem for Diego Rafael Campos. Definately a Latin baby.

Barranquilla

We are in Barranquilla and recuperating from the trip. It was successful, Diego was an absolute trouper but a 4 hour delay in Toronto and the night in Bogota that that created made for a very long trip. Here is the itinerary in short form.
-28th we drove to Toronto to stay with Kendra and Len. Great visit but not much sleep for either of us due to the emotion of the upcoming trip.
-29th we get to the airport in lots of time. Park the car - get free valet parking, arrive at the airport and find that the flight is delayed. Diego - happy in the airport walking around and looking at people keeps us entertained.
The delay continues to grow and we finally leave the airport at 4:30 - now with little hope of making our flight in Botota. We arrive at Bogota and are given a hotel voucher. A mini bus picks us up - with all our luggage and the luggage of several of the other travellers - including a couple of very tired and disoriented Canadians from Alberta and gets us to the airport. In the room by 12:00
-30th. Once in the room Diego wakes up after having slept in the sling for the whole bus ride and ensuing chaos. He thinks it,s morning and time to play and needs some convincing to sleep. 1:00. After 3 very short hours of sleep we are up again, getting the bags down the elevator and into a taxi. At the airport we get pushed ahead in the line (thanks to God for small blessings) and get organized to get on our flight to Barranquilla. Everything went well, Diego slept, we were so tired by the time we arrived it was hard to be too excited. Raquel came to get us in her new car with airconditioning. We got to her apartment, ate, rested and felt much better.



Now it´s new years. After a wonderful New Years dinner we talk, eat, receive visitors, phone calls, rest. Today we are going to try to get to the beach but if we don´t that will be OK to. We´re happy to be here and to not have to do much. There is a delicious breeze and lots of people to play with and keep an eye on the baby. Perfect really.