Monday April 14, 2008 (75 deg Sunny)

Embassy Day!!! Up at 5a, shower, and make a bottle. Wake Uncle Tim at 5:30a, shower and prepare for our breakfast and that of young James. 6a wake James and feed him, change him and put on his pressed outfit for the days event. Eat breakfast, grab the diaper bag, paperwork and stroller and head down to meet Brian.

Brian is walking in as we are walking into the lobby. Jump in Brian’s car and head to the Embassy. We had to stop at the picture place for James to get his visa pictures. It was an interesting little picture studio. Would never had found it if we had to navigate on our own. Park the car, get our picture taken, and walk about 2 blocks to the Embassy. As we approached, we noticed about 100 people waiting for the Embassy to open. It seems all were waiting for visas to travel to the US.

Two interviews, both 4-5 minutes. Total Embassy time was 2 ½ hours. Not bad. It was a couple questions about our plans after the adoption that was the subject of interview number one. Because James had a tilted sleep schedule, he had fallen asleep in my arms a few minutes before the firs interview. It was awesome, except it was difficult to sign my name etc with him sleeping. They asked if we planned to complete the adoption process in the states (re-adopt), if we had any other children, if the information we provided previously was correct, etc. It was quick. Then we waited for interview number two. An oath to promise to take care of James complete with my right hand raised high. I was asked a couple more questions about our intentions, what we will call James when he is in America, a couple signatures and it was all over and we were walking back to the car. They did ask if Michelle had visited the baby previously and if she was not able to make it. It was a fairly simple process. I did not feel stress about any of the questions. I did not feel like they put me on the spot where I wasn’t sure what questions to answer.

Once at the hotel it was the same cycle, change / feed / play sleep. Uncle Tim and I wanted to let everyone know that we made it back to the hotel and share the experience, but we couldn’t get our computer on the internet. It turns out it was a bad modem, but it took 2 hours to get to that point. Our cell phones seem to work for receiving calls if we are outdoors, but we can not find the proper method behind placing a call to the states on them. While changing James to prepare to go to lunch, I removed his diaper, bent down to get the new one and he had started his own pool with a private invite. Unfortunately he was on my bed. He was on the changing pad, but the bed is not perfectly level, so it went all over. Bath, new sheets, clean clothes, a cry or two and we were off to Lunch! We went to the downstairs lunch restaurant, and had the buffet – Great spread that included fresh made to order sushi – after my allergic reaction to what I had eaten the day before, I have slowed down on the experimentation of new foods. James had some steamed carrots and rice. Doesn’t seem that he can manage a spoon for long durations. He is ok with a few mouthfuls, then he starts to turn his head away and bat the spoon with his hand. Could be a new daddy thing – lol.

A trip to the business center to see who might know how to place an international call from a Verizon cell phone and then we went to the front desk to get an additional can of formula to bring home so that we can slowly switch James to our brand formula.

We had a technical person arrive at the room to fix the internet connection. So we wanted to get some play time with James and have some time for Uncle Tim to catch up with his life. The days and time go by fast. It is a hustle from wake to sleep with talking to people, eating, feeding, changing, playing and then trying to catch a rest. I was dog tired from the past few days. We fed James and he went to sleep. Uncle Tim wanted to catch up with everything, so he said that he would stand guard so I could take a nap. First of the trip and it made a big difference!

Almost the last crisis of the day was when James had gotten up. He needed a change, and then we played. Shortly into playing he began to make what I call the poopy face. It is a fairly recognizable event and it was followed by a poopy smell.

We called Mommy and had a nice chat and it was time to eat again. Some eats, some play a changing and we were still bright eyed. It was shaping to be another night like last night was, he wanted to stay up all night. The only difference was I had a nap as well, so it was easier to handle. I believe that lying down with him, gently rubbing his tummy or back and having him close soothes him. As soon as I did that, he went right to sleep. He was asleep by 10:30p, and so was Uncle Tim. We are getting up at 6:30a, to go to Antigua tomorrow. It is about 45 minutes from here.

As we were talking with Mommy, an earthquake started to shake the building. It was a 6.1 magnitude earthquake with its center 45 miles south-southeast of Escuintla. It lasted about a minute and this building was like standing on the boat when a wave went by. It didn’t shake so bad that the pictures fell, or glass broke. It was a gentle shake back and forth. It was a bit scary, but it was over fast and no one here seemed to be running out of the building. All remained calm, the power was never lost, it was just an experience to add to the trip.

We can pickup the Visa at 3:30p tomorrow afternoon.