Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Colombian Summer

Just dug this old blog out and dusted it off.  We have been quite a few places since the last post. 

We moved from lovely Cleveland, to the Windy city, over to the Nation's Capital. We have returned to Colombia for our second summer in a row to visit family and friends and to give the girls' more exposure to their Colombian culture, language and family - lots and lots of family time! 🙏

This year, we are starting our Colombian summer in Cartagena - the magical, coastal city. We are staying on the beach in La Boquilla where we are enjoying the pools and the warm waters of the Atlantic. The thing about Cartagena is, we don't have family here. We bought Betty a ticket to stay with us for the month, but in general, expected it to be fairly quiet. 

How wrong I already have been proven 💕. We arrived this weekend and were greeted by Nico's sister, Daniella, and her fam. We spent the long weekend together enjoying each other's company and creating memories amongst the cousins, Olivia and Juanfer. Nico's cousin, Victor, randomly happened to be in town for the weekend to visit friends and fam, and surprised us with a couple of visits. Monday, Daniella and fam left and that night, Betty arrived. Last night, we had dinner with two of Nico's aunts who came for one night. 

Yesterday was the first day of camp. Nico's cousin generously got us into a wonderful camp here for the next 3 weeks. As a child, I never liked going to summer day camps in my hometown. These two worldly kids hopped on a bus in a new city knowing no one and came home so happy and carefree. They are so brave. 

Tonight is our first night just the 5 of us and we will start settling into a routine. The girls are enjoying the real beauty of Cartagena - swimming daily - both in the pool and in the ocean. Our little fish love jumping the warm waves of the Atlantic and building sand castles on the beach - as well as practicing all their new moves from swimming class with their DC Swim Coach James in the pools.