Home Sweet Home!

We made it! We got home just before midnight on Saturday night. The flights went well, except for a 2 hour delay in Atlanta in which we had to sit on the airplane waiting for a thunderstorm to end. Gabi seemed to enjoy the trip and she loved the welcoming faces when we arrived in Minneapolis. After a good night's sleep, we went to church and Gabriela got to experience her first worship service ever. It was great! We are having a good time introducing her slowly to our neighbors and friends. She seems to be especially comfortable here already, almost more than at the apartment in Colombia, so we think she must sense that we are comfortable here as well. We are getting unpacked, attempting to decrease the mountain of laundry, and David is hard at work making Gabi a new toddler sized crib. We got the health insurance tasks completed and yet another miracle from God...Gabi will be seen by the doctors tomorrow morning to start the process of assessment for all her needs! Here's some more pictures.

Gabi and her serious face.

She can't get enough of babies.

A blast with some fun new jewelry we just got from some friends.

Dress up and pretend fruit cutting.

Practicing ballet.

Nap time with a baby on each arm.

Coming Home!

We booked our tickets to fly home on Saturday! We will fly on Delta Airlines and arrive into Minneapolis/St. Paul at 8:13pm from Atlanta, if all goes well. Friendly faces are welcome to meet us at the baggage claim for a brief moment of hello, but don't feel obligated. Please feel free to hug us (meaning the old Minnesota VanAckers), but keep in mind that this whole day will likely be very overwhelming to Gabi, so we plan to keep contact with her very minimal...lots of smiles and waves will be best for her right now. Thanks for understanding! We hope to see you very soon!

Almost home

Sorry we haven't posted much in a while...been busy getting everything done to come home.

Walking to the park. I was trying to get a picture of that man walking all the dogs. I was impressed with how they all walked so obediently.

Gabi playing with all my kitchen supplies. This is her "job" while I make dinner.

Reading with her big brother.

Monday-

Gabriela and I (Gerri) were escorted to the Colombian passport office where we applied for her new passport. It was a crazy day! When we got to the office it was bursting with people (all of which needed a passport) and every seat was full and lines were out the door. We got in line just to get a number. Adoption passports are a priority, so we were hopeful that it wouldn't take very long. According to the number we got there were 68 other people in front of us! We had no choice but to get comfortable and wait. A few minutes into waiting, a man came out and announced that there was a major computer problem and that everything was shutting down. He said they did not even have phone lines running. He said it was unlikely, but we could check back at the end of the day and see if the system was back up. I looked at Gabi and said "oh man, we need to pray." She immediately folded her fingers and bowed her head! We asked God to give us patience and to help us know what to do next. (It takes 2 days to get a passport and this is just the first step in the process of what we needed to be able to bring Gabi into the US.) I asked our driver if there was anything else we could do in the meantime, so we ended up going up the street to get Gabi's Visa photos taken. As we walked back to the car, we decided to check back at the passport office. The system was back up and running! Praise God! We still had to wait for a few hours, but it went quicker than it would have because many people had left and we were able to complete the application on time.

Tuesday -

We went around getting other documents and appointments finished. It took several hours, but it was nice that everything worked out that we needed to get done.

Today -

Gabriela and I (Gerri) got picked up at 8:30am and we went straight to the passport office to pick up Gabi's new passport. When we got there the office was packed again and every seat was full in the waiting area for "pick-up." Our driver went up to the desk to get a number and when she came back she said we had been given a "priority number" and hopefully it would work. Just then the sign blinked our number and we went to the desk to request pickup! Five minutes later we were on our way to the US Embassy to apply for Gabi's Visa. This was great timing because we had to get to the embassy before 11am in order to apply for a visa. When we got to the embassy, there were more than 3 huge lines out along the streets full of people waiting to request entrance. We were able to show my passport and go right in without waiting. We turned in our paperwork and expected to wait. Thirty minutes later we heard "Parents of Gabriela Liliana VanAcker Rollins please come to the window." There were two quick interviews, some papers to sign and we were done.

I'll make another post for what's up next, in case someone wants to skip all the details and find out when we are coming home!

CHINA Journey of Hope

Crossroads, our adoption agency, has made us aware of a significant opportunity to adopt through China. Below you'll find information on their "CHINA Journey of Hope" program. Please check it out

Please click on the image above to view the "CHINA Journey of Hope" brochure.

Please click on the image above to view a list of children waiting to be adopted.

VanAcker Girls

Gabriela is officially a VanAcker girl!

(I had a request for a few more pictures with me in them, so here you go.)

Sentencia today!

We got a totally unexpected call at lunch today from FANA letting us know that we could come and sign sentencia! This means that our court process is finished! We will hopefully get Gabriela's new birth certificate today (they needed one more signature)and then we can proceed with getting together details to travel home. It will take a few business days to get passport, visa, and go to the embassy doctor's appointment. If all goes smoothly, we could get tickets to fly home mid to late next week!

FANA - Gabi's Home for Three Years

Here's a short, simple video of FANA, the orphanage where Gabi spent the first three years of her life. Daniel and I took the video during our tour on Wednesday. We took it mainly to show Gabi as she gets older, but we thought some of you might like to see it also.

Another step.

We just heard word that our case was signed and passed along to the last step in the process yesterday. Now the judge has 10 business days to sign the papers and then we can go and sign the sentencia. It feels good to be in the final stage!

A few other exciting notables...Gabi said, "Anna" the other day, so she is now up to three words! She has learned about 25 signs and is using them consistently and rightly. Also we have been waiting for her to give any of us a kiss since day one (0ver a month now). She has allowed us to kiss her cheek, but she has not returned the affection to any human until yesterday. She was being especially close with me and I got down at her level and she gave me two kisses, right on the lips! I could tell she was excited and nervous because her cute little fingers moving back and forth like crazy. There were witnesses present, so we all cheered and hugged her. We hope that this is only the beginning of her trusting and loving us.

Have a good night,

Gerri

Concert in Colombia

Here's a video of a concert that we went to in the courtyard of our apartment complex last Sunday. Gabi has rhythm. The rest of us...not so much. At least we had a good teacher (she makes an appearance at the very end). And sorry about the sound.

Happy Anniversary! #13

Today was a good day. The weather was beautiful and we walked to the park this morning. We went to Crepes and Waffles for some ice cream to celebrate our 13th anniversary. They even had some sugar free strawberry for me!

We were invited to have dinner at "Betty's Place" again, so we walked there to eat and enjoy some time with the families staying there. We had fresh juice, rice that was cooked perfectly, empanadas, beef and beans. It was so delicious and such a treat to not have to cook. I think I (Gerri) might have set a record for number of empanadas eaten...I just had to keep eating them until the cilantro type salsa was completely gone! It was a holiday here today (although no one really seems to be able to tell us what the holiday is!), so the courts were closed. Hopefully they will be up and running again tomorrow and we'll hear more news about our case soon.

Filling our days

Last night we walked down to visit with the families staying at "Betty's Place" again. We went with them to a place they recommended called "Archie's Pizza." It was a very fun time out!

Jeremiah, Daniel and Anna got to make their own pizzas!

All the kids got balloon animals to take home.

Anna helping her sister with lunch.

The girls smelling the beautiful flowers that seem to be everywhere here.

David's favorite part of the day...siesta time!

On to Phase 2!

Good morning!

We heard that our adoption case was admitted to phase 2 (of the three part process) yesterday. Our lawyer was able to speak to the judge and request for understanding about our need to get Gabi home as soon as possible. This is good news! Now we just continue to wait.

More pictures and update later.

~Gerri