Friday, March 28, 2008

We're at the new place










Well we made it to the new hotel. It is nicer than where we have been staying but not as 'kid friendly.' It does have hot water, but still no air conditioning... I guess this is payback for freezing the secretaries and Dan out every week in the office! When we got to the hotel our rooms weren't ready so we had to actually try and sit still for almost an hour. This normally wouldn't be a problem but when you have 5 extra little ones it is a challenge. We ended up sending them to the gym and even Robert got on the treadmill for a little bit. When we got settled in we decided to take the kids to the pool and when we got to the pool we had to laugh... this thing was about the size of a baptismal tank! It was only 3' deep at the deepest part and was really warm... and the kids hadn't gotten in yet, so it wasn't pee. The kids wanted to keep jumping in and then get out and then jump in and then get out, over and over and over again. This normally wouldn't bother me but I felt like someone was going to get hurt, so I made them stop. But, like most kids do, they didn't get it right away and Diogo jumped in and hit his chin... busting it wide open! Normally we would have taken him to the hospital (it's right across the street) but we decided to butterfly bandage it and roll with it. Is that bad? It wasn't bleeding uncontrollably or anything. And there was soooo much chlorine in the pool (it felt like someone sprayed muratic acid in your eyes everytime the water got in them) so there isn't any possible way that it was going to get infected. And girls think scars are sexy, right? So he can thank us later for his really cool scar. I did get MJ to take a picture of the wound for you guys but it was too blurry to post. So, you only get to see the bandages.



Today I took Marlon to his interview with the judge. Let me say this, I almost started crying in the courtroom. It was just Marlon, Lino (our liason here in Brazil), the Judge, 2 court recorders and me. The Judge put Marlon in the witness chair and started asking him all kinds of questions. He asked him if he and his brothers and sister wanted to be a part of our family and Marlon told him, "that he had talked to all of his siblings except for Robert and they all wanted to be with us. The Judge asked him why he didn't talk to Robert about it and Marlon told the Judge that Robert was only 2 years old. The Judge then asked Marlon what he wanted from our family and without hesitation his response was care. Lino told me the word that he used care or affection. Wow. Out of all the things to ask for he was wanting something that every child should have anyway. The Judge then asked him what he had to offer the family and his response was the same. The Judge told him that he was very proud of him and that he was a very wise little boy. He said that he was proud because his answers were something that money couldn't buy. I was choking back the tears at this point becuase he could have said a house or security or some other 'thing' but, of all the things to ask for he asked for affection or care. Well, he's come to the right place because that's exactly what he's going to get! The Judge then made him sign a document that stated that he and his siblings wanted to be a adopted by MJ and I. And that was it. You can see a pic of us with the Judge at the end. Well that's about all for now. Thanks again for reading our blog and thanks for all the prayers. We love you guys!






Love ya,



Dr. Jim

No comments: