I think when we started this adventure in December we had no idea how long the process would take to get “settled” again. Yesterday we drove 2 1/2 hours to Maryland where all of our worldly belongings have been housed since we last saw them in Dallas 9 months ago.  The warehouse was enormous. Just to give you an idea, an 18-wheeler drove in to the warehouse where we were and it looked like a matchbox car (picture the last scene of “Raiders of Lost Ark”) . When we arrived they had already pulled our 4 crates from the mass of crates. We had to go through the boxes…150 of them to be exact..one by one and say whether we wanted them to go to Bogota, stay in storage or be taken home with us that day. No time for dillydallying! The only things we wanted to bring home with us in our car were our bedspread and Christmas decorations. We will have an air shipment that will join us 2-3 weeks after we arrive in Bogota with a few necessities…ie Christmas decorations(just in case of delay), cookbooks, baby gear, spices, clothes…and the rest of our things will arrive in 2-3 months. Our friends’ shipment of household effects got high jacked on it’s way in to Bogota just last Dec so we are not stressing out about the timing as much as we are praying that it all arrives safely.

I’m sure that this process of witteling down our list of necessities will get easier as the years go by but it is really tough at this stage. I wanted so badly to sneak myself into the 18-wheeler, bribe a few workers with forklifts to grab our 4 crates of memories and drive on out of there. I can’t wait to have our “home” back. For those of you that don’t know we have been living in a furnished apartment which, yes, is very nice for a furnished apartment but any of you that live in a home of your own, or even apt for that matter, know that it is nice to roll over on your own sheets and eat off of your own fork. By November or December it will truly feel like Christmas to unpack everything that we haven’t seen in a whole year.

Jackson had a wonderful play date with my Aunt Carrol yesterday. He enjoyed being held and cuddled all day while we were away from him. We were missing him but when we got home it was apparent that he was great! On the way home from Maryland we had to pull over in a parking lot because Jackson was having a meltdown. He was crying so hard that we feared he would burst a blood vessel in his little bald held. The second we removed him from his car seat to calm him he relaxed and peacefully laid in my arms looking up at me pleasantly. We soon realized he just wanted time with mommy after a long day apart. We ended up having to push him around in his stroller until he fell asleep so that we could just set his car seat in the car and go! This was unusual behavior for Jackson. We have been so blessed with a great baby that has been really patient with all of our business related to our move. I think he was just fed up with all of the running around.  Today he was so content to be home and have some mommy time.  I enjoyed it as well!

Well, as the title says this is only the beginning. I think we thought arriving in Bogota would be the start of the adventure, come to find out it began the day we left Dallas.