Monday, March 15th: The US Embassy

The weather was beautiful today. Maria Teresa picked us up at 9:00 and we were off to pick up the letter we needed from Bienestar. Thank God everything was correct or else we would have been delayed in getting Luke's visa. So then we headed to the US Embassy. As we got close to the embassy we could see the American flag. It may sound funny, but for some reason we were really comforted and happy to see our flag. Maybe because it symbolizes home and us getting one step closer to getting there. So when we got to the entrance Maria Teresa had a concerned look on her face. There was a sign posted in Spanish that she read to us that the embassy would not be processing visas today. She said about once a month the workers get an administrative holiday and the visa office closes for the day. That would not be good because that would delay our return home until Thursday at least. But no worries. When we got inside we found out that only visas for tourism, studying abroad and things like that were not being processed. So thank God we were able to get Luke's visa processed and it will be ready for pickup tomorrow. That means we're still able to leave Wednesday! Two more days! So after the embassy we enjoyed a nice lunch and walked around for a little while. Tonight Jorge stopped by. A lot of families who tour Guatavita with him chose to plant a tree, native to Colombia, in honor of their child. The tree is planted in a protected area and is cared for by the people at the lagoon. It is a neat thing to do first to help the environment which Jorge promotes and secondly for your child to see if he or she returns to Colombia someday. Jorge has the tree planted and then a marble plaque is placed in front of it with your child's name, birthday, and state/country they live in. It's a really nice thing to do. We didn't make the trip to Guatavita this time since the three of us ended up with colds and then we didn't want to leave Luke with the babysitter for an all day trip. So we picked out a tree, a Colombian pine tree, tonight and Jorge will see to it that it is planted and has Luke's plaque. But anyway, we're off to bed. We're picking up Luke's visa at the embassy tomorrow and then getting ready to come home. We can't wait!