Home:)

Hello everyone,

We are all home safe and sound:) Our day of traveling went more smoothly than I had even hoped it would. I had myself mentaly prepared to be that person on the plane with the crying baby that everyone glares at, but it wasn't like that at all. Athena was a dream! She hardly cried at all on either of our flights, even during take offs and landings. We were able to entertain her most of the time and she took naps during a lot of our time in the air also. We left our hotel at 5:30 am and after 2 flights, 1 layover and 2 car rides, we arrived at our home in Mayville at about 10:30 pm. Thank you to grandma Nicholson and grandma Janet for picking us up at the airport:) Thank you also to Beth and grandma Janet for feeding us for our first couple of days home:)

Athena is adjusting very well to her home. She seems to be comfortable with her own room and new bed because she continues to sleep through the night. She got to meet several family members already including her two grandma's who picked us up, grandpa Ralph and Uncle Joe:) She LOVES Amber and Isabelle! If either of them are in the room Athena's eyes are glued to them and she reaches out to touch Amber whenever she is close enough. We went out for our first family walk today and everyone did very well:)

It's great to be home:) Hopefully we'll get a chance to see everyone soon and you can all meet our little sweetheart!

Love,

Nic, John and Athena

Our last day in Bogota

Athena with John, John and Jenny, other guests of Zuetana.

A going away gift for Athena from her friend August.

Hello everyone,

We apologize for slacking on blog updates! Since we recieved our sentencia on Tuesday, we have been crazy busy getting ready to come home. We have had several appointments each day to get everything done and have been getting back to the hotel late and putting a lot of our evening time into trying to comfort a very over-tired Athena! We have been so fortunate to get everything done in time to fly home on Saturday. Each appointment needs to go in a certain order. ie-you need to sign certain documents at the courthouse, then take those document to be notorized, then take the notorized documents to the passport office because you need her passport to be able to get the doctors appointment for medical clearance for her visa, then take it all to apply for the visa, make an appointment to pick up the visa, etc..... The point is, we were so lucky to have everything fall into place to be able to fly home on Saturday and not have to wait out the weekend to wrap things up when the offices opened up again on Monday! Cecilia, our coordinator has been amazing with organizing everything and keeping all of our ducks in a row, ordering us drivers, making appointments and being an all around miracle worker:) We are sad to leave our friends here at the hotel who have become our family away from home, but they recieved good news shortly after us and are leaving for home on Tuesday:) We're leaving the hotel tomorrow morning at 5:30 for our 8:00 flight from Bogota to Houston, Texas. After a 2 1/2 hour layover in Houston, hopefully just enough time to make it through immigration, baggage and customs, we have a 2 1/2 hour flight to O'Hare where grandma Nicholson and grandma Janet will be waiting for us:) We have a few last pictures for everyone to enjoy. Hopefully you'll all get to meet Athena soon in person! She's excited to meet all of you. We're going to lay low for a few days after we get home and let her get used to her new home and get comfortable with her surroundings, but we'll certainly start introducing our baby girl to everyone very shortly after that:)

Love from Bogota!

Nic, John and Athena

SENTENCIA!

We got the call at 5:30 tonight that we have sentencia!!! We just got back from a celebration dinner out with Ann & Camillo. John is going to court to sign the papers tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10:00 am. to make Athena an official Zuge! We're going to try to get all of the paperwork accomplished by Friday or Monday. Soooo, if all goes well we will most likely be home on Monday or Tuesday of next week! We'll let everyone know as soon as we know! No pictures today, we just wanted to send a quick note to tell everyone our good news.
Love,
Nic, John and Athena

Fun Weekend:)

Hello,

We had a very good weekend here in Bogota. On Saturday we went on a trip that I have been looking forward to. We went to the Bogota Botanical Gardens. It was so cool! The park is divided into different sections to represent different regions of Colombia and the different categories of plants. One of the most beautiful attractions was the building that showcased all of the exotic flowers and plants that grow in the tropical areas of Colombia. As you walked through the buildings the climate changed from green house to green house to get warmer and more humid to represent the different ecosystems from the desert to the tropical rain forest. There was one room that showcased orchids, Colombia's national flower. Outside of the buildings were herb gardens, a huge rose garden, lilly's, and all differnt types of flowering trees. It was awesome. Definately Nicole's favorite tourist attraction that we've gone to yet:) We were only there for a few hours, but we all agreed it would have been great to spend the whole day and bring a picnic lunch.

On Sunday we went to a large market at La Hacienda Santa Barbara. It was a very large market spread out into 3 large parts througout the neighborhood. Although we didn't buy anything it was so nice to spend the morning walking around the markets and seeing all of the sights and sounds with our friends Ann, Camillo and August. We got to sample some tasty fruits and see some more pretty spanish colonial style houses and shops. We all met up with another family from here at Zuetana for lunch. We went to the Bogota Beer Company on the main square. We all had some tasty brew pub food for lunch. We got back to the hotel just as an afternoon rain storm was moving in and Athena tucked in for her afternoon nap:)

Tomorrow is the start of week number 5 for us, so we'll see what is in store for us:)

Love,

Nic, John and Athena

May 3rd:)

Hello everyone,

There isn't a whole lot of excitement around here, but we did do a few fun things this week to tell about. On Wednesday we went to learn about emeralds at a beautiful emerald dealers' store. It was an interesting experience. Freddy, the store owner, sent his driver to pick us up for our tour and shopping. When we arrived we needed to be buzzed in through a set of locked doors. When those doors were locked behind us, then we were buzzed in through the second set of locked doors. The inside looked like any other really nice jewelry store that you would go to in the U.S. Once inside, we met Freddy. He is a very nice man who speaks very good english and he taught us all about emeralds. We learned how to tell the quality of emeralds and how they are graded. He showed us tons of examples in each category ranging from a very poor quality 2 karat emerald for $200 to a 1 karat beautiful, nearly flawless emerald for $22,000! Apparently, 70% of the emeralds mined in the world come from Colombia and they are all mined within a small 60 square mile radius. We went thinking maybe we would by a pendant for Athena so we could have something extra special from Colombia to give to her when she is older. Of course we're already pushovers for our baby girl and we ended up buying her an absolutely beautiful solitaire pendant!

The hotel has an activity coordinator Carmen, who sets up activities or outings for the guests every few days. Yesterday was mini spa day and I got a french manicure:) John came walking by while I was getting it and commented "Gee, it's soooo rough being a new mom. I barely have time to get in my manicure during nap time!"

Today was probably John's favorite day because we took a little break from the hotel food and went out for burgers to a place called El Corral Gourmet. He's been looking forward to going to this place for quite some time. The hotel food is good, but we haven't had burgers since we've been here and we're both big burger fans:) It was really good, John had a 1/2 lb. triple cheesburger with nachos!-such a Wisconsin boy! It was kind of cold to go out walking to the restaurant, but we bundled Athena up and put her in her snuggly and the I put my rain coat on over the snuggly, so she was plenty warm. Like a baby kangaroo:)

One of the German families here who are just a few days ahead of us in the process and are in the same court as us recieved their sentencia today! We're hoping we're next:)

Everyone keep your fingers crossed for us:)

Love,

Nic, John and Athena