Day 22 Monday (Colombia Holiday and Judges Still On Strike)

Today was a day of rest and working on the kids English skills.  Partly because I have not been able to get money exchanged for 4 days due to the weekend and holiday so we are running low on money and partly to help them out.  I labeled about 15 items In the hotel room, in English so the kids can learn what they are called.  I also put up the numbers 1-10 and body parts so they can look at them and start to learn them.    L impressed me and wrote her numbers 1-5 on a piece of paper.  I guess there is hope for her education as she is really far behind from where she should be at her age.  B seems to be doing well with his English. 

Today was another great day of breakfast but apparently we are supposed to be eating on the 10^th floor breakfast and not the main breakfast area.  I assume there will be allot fewer options for the rest of our stay but hope that is not the case.

Today I also told the kids more information about the strike and that it is taking longer than we hoped.  Christy and I felt that this was a good option, just in case we are unable to bring them home this year.  They don’t know that they may be left behind but we are letting them know a little bit at a time so in the event they can't come back with me it won't be a complete shock.

Tomorrow we are hoping for some good news.  The judges were ordered on Friday to return to work or they won't have work.  So we will see if that makes a difference or not..Also, our attorney is meeting with ICBF to discuss our options.  We are presenting them a letter asking that they make a special process that we can use during this strike or begin working on placing the kids back in foster care.  We are giving them until Friday to give us an answer.  We don't want to play hard ball and we know it will hurt B & L but also we have kids back in the states and a life outside of the fact that we are essentially covering two households while in Colombia.  So cross your fingers, send prayers we will take whatever that between the government order and our meeting tomorrow we get some type of resolution.