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!

I am having one of those “longing for the USA” days. ( I wrote this on Friday but just now got around to posting it, I got stalled on adding pictures. )

This morning I went to the dentist. For the first time since DC. ouch. It was a long time coming for a cleaning but it took us a while to find a dentist. Seth went a couple of weeks ago which was a bad idea on my part. He came home complaining about how their cleaning method was painful. Hmmmm. I should have backed out then. When I arrived, the dentist took a look and immediately wanted to replace my one grey filling with a white filling so it would look nicer. Not really important since it will never be seen by anyone but a dentist. Once I said that I didn’t really think it was necessary if it was for looks he proceeded to poke it and yanked it so hard that I asked him to stop because I had a sneaky suspicion that he was going to make it fall out. He was trying to make it loose so that it had to be replaced.  I stopped him and called Seth so that Seth could hear about the necessary work and talk to the dentist with his fluent Spanish.  In the end I kept my non- aesthetically pleasing silver American filling and got another small filling. The next step was cleaning. Seth had warned me it might be bad. He used a water pick. A high intensity water pick with baking soda. He didn’t block my face so I got sprayed with baking soda for 30 mins. After I had survived it I explained that in the US my dentist did it by hand and that the water pick was not very gentle!!!! I asked if I could eat or drink. He said anything but chocolate, wine or coffee. And he didn’t even have toothbrushes with his name on them! Grr.

We blogged a few weeks ago about our bedroom set that we got made. I will post a picture below. We really like how it turned out overall! We asked the carpenter if he would trade our night tables for a smaller version because they are gigantic! He happily agreed.  That was weeks ago. We actually had one of Seth’s fraud investigators call for us because one day I called to ask him where they were andhe hung up on me. FYI- in Colombian culture it is perfectly acceptable to hang up on someone if you hear their voice and don’t want to talk. After weeks of the run around with him we finally got him to answer the phone and give us an answer. The answer is that he isn’t making them, never was, never is. Just flat out decided not to do them, but was saying all along that he was, they were in process, they would be at the store the next day, that they were getting finished…. We think that he made enough money off our bedroom set to feel financially secure for a while and decided the work of the tables was inconvenient. Smart guy!  Not a friend of mine for sure! Grrr.

Our Colombian “Pottery Barn” bedroom set..minus a few pillows and a bed skirt. We got the bed made taller so we could have more storage in Europe. Our dresser in our room..the second one didn’t fit since they were much larger than we expected so the second is in our entry way…as seen in the 3rd picture.

I have been trying to plan my “escape” for a few days now. Not from Seth and Jackson but with Seth and Jackson. Seth is going for a conference in DC and we were trying to figure out a way for Jackson and I to join him. The prices of tickets spiked significantly since last week so we decided to pass. I was very excited to be with Ryan and Stephanie and the girls for a few days as well as spend some time with our small group back home!!! We miss everyone! We are still investigating and hoping something amazing will pop up. If not Seth will have to eat double at On the Border, check out our next home for me, and go to Target to do the “must have’s” list.

Enough grrrs for today.  I will do a “things we appreciate about Colombia” post soon, I promise!