Merry Christmas!

This week marked 3 months since we've been home form Colombia. We learned recently that of the group of kids who traveled with Kidsave in the summer of 2008 Johan was the first to come home to the US. Diana & Mauricio who arrived home 2 weeks ago were the second. With the exception of one little girl the others are in process and should be home soon.

Mauricio is Johan's new best buddy. They live about 30 minutes away. They joined us for dinner last Saturday and we went to their house for dinner on Wednesday. Prior to leaving for their house Johan announced that he was sick and needed to spend 5 hours with Mauricio to feel better! He didn't quite get 5 hours but he did have a great time!

For Thanksgiving we went to California to visit with Tom's side of the family. It was a wonderful trip! Johan got a chance to meet Grandma & Grandpa Trotter as well as his many Aunts, Uncles and cousins. We had a nice dinner and celebration on Thanksgiving Day. We celebrated Grandma & Grandpa's 60th wedding anniversary as well as the addition of Johan to the family. Johan played the washer toss game with his uncles and cousins. He wasn't able to beat his Dad or cousin Ryan but I think he was successful in beating a few of the other cousins.

This trip marked Johan's first visit to the ocean and beach. He was ready to dive right into the 58 degree water. Later in the day back at Grandma & Grandpa's he announced that Dad & I could go back to Ohio - he was staying at the beach in CA.

We enjoyed the visit tremendously. Johan especially liked staying with Auntie Deb! She has a pool table and a slot machine - what's not to like for a 12 year old boy?! (not to mention how cool Auntie Deb is :-) He of course hit the jackpot on the slot machine which lead to one crazy victory dance. He's still talking about that one. Auntie Deb also gave him a camera which he just loves.

Last weekend we got our first real snow. Only an inch or two but enough to impress a kid who has never seen snow! We had a snow ball fight, made angels and made two snowmen - one about 7' tall. It was a blast. Johan spent the remainder of the day making an igloo house. We finally had to call him in - he was soaking wet, freezing and exhasuted!

Johan is doing well at school and his English continues to improve. The ESL teacher was very happy with his journal entry after his trip to CA. Johan wrote and wrote about everything he did and saw in CA. He was so excited.

We went to our favorite Mexican restaurant the other night where Johan made up a new song - called "I love Guacamole". You too can sing along - just sing "I love Guacamole" over & over again and every now and then end with drawing out guacamoleeeeee. Then start all over again. It's lovely.

Yes, he was excited about Christmas - we couldn't get him off the ceiling for days. We played up Santa even though we're pretty sure he doesn't believe in the guy in the red suit. Actually he decided a few weeks ago that the Santa's we see around town are all imposters. They are Santa's cousin 'Buddy'. It was quite the elaborate story.

We also had a long conversation last week about which came first - Santa or Baby Jesus. This led to a discussion on what came first in the Bible - Moses or Noah. Johan proceeded to tell us the major stories of the Bible in the correct order. Obviously he has had some religious instruction along the way!

I wrote most of this on Christmas Eve - today is the 26th. We had a wonderful time on Christmas. Johan received a good variety of gifts. He's been playing his games and building legos (actually he disappeared for about 3 hours yesterday afternoon building legos! - he loves those things!).

I hope you all had a wonderful, peaceful Christmas.
Carrie