Roller coasters and new friends

Yesterday Evan & the girls went to an amusement park close to the condo:
http://www.salitremagico.com.co/

Evan was finally able to hang out all day yesterday with the other couple adopting the 2 older kids (boy & girl) Jeffrey and Sam. Their kids are from the same orphanage that ours are from as it is pretty big and has quite a few houses within the same 2 blocks. I don't know how many kids total are in Michin but it is a lot.
http://www.hogaresclubmichin.com/home/

He was also able to finally feel like he had people to talk to and to discuss the things that he is going through which I think was pretty relieving for him. Their kids seem to have almost all of the same exact behavioral oddities that ours do so I am coming to realize that some of the behaviors they exhibit are quite possibly cultural. A couple of examples are the way they act when they meet new people....they stare at the floor and do not say a word. We originally thought maybe it was a language barrier thing or maybe a shy thing but they did the same thing when they saw Jeffrey & Sam's kids and they KNOW them! As soon as they get here, we are going to work on etiquette for meeting people (and apparently seeing people you know too). One of the other things is the way they eat. Leidy holds her fork like she is 3 way up at the base where the fork part is. When they have meat, they put the fork in the middle and eat around it as opposed to using a knife and cutting it. One other thing is the chewing like an animal which they also do with their gum and we have been working on the whole eating / chewing thing from back when they were here in the States. I know they have been doing these things forever so it is going to be hard for them to start doing everything a new way. We worry that if they do stuff like this at school, they are going to be shunned though.  ;)

After the amusement park, Evan took all 4 kids to the park by the condo to play soccer and basketball and they ended up staying for 3 hours! I am really glad to see the girls get some exercise and do something physical because they haven't been doing much or had much motivation to change that. I think now that they have other kids to play with they are going to be much more active. AWESOME!