Day numero uno:)

Hey!

We slept in until about 7:45 this morning which is pretty late for our household. Athena was so excited to get dressed and head downstairs to eat breakfast and check the place out so we were off right away! At breakfast we got to meet the other family from our agency who are also staying here at Hotel Paris, the Jaenisch family. After pancakes, strawbery juice and coffee, we made plans to head out to a Sunday market together with them. On Sundays they close down one of the large busy streets to car traffic and open it for walking and biking only. It was a beautiful sunny, warm day and we got some great exercise and sun;) We didn't buy much at the market since we definately have plenty of time to window shop now and go back to purchase over the next several weekends. When everyone else headed out to another market area, we headed back to the hotel. We wanted to stop at the grocery store to get some snacks for the room and head back for lunch, then have some quiet time back at the hotel for Ena to take a nap after being up until almost midnight last night. (We all 3 ended up zonking out for about an hour and a half;)

It's great having friends here to hang out with. Athena and the Jaenisch's 2 older kids Lauren and Ben play great together so far and really help to entertain each other.

Our presentation date with Alton is still set for Tuesday at 11:30. We were told to travel either Saturday or Sunday and we would get him either Monday or Tuesday. We happened to get the combination of days that had us get here 3 days

before we get him. Oh well, it will give Athena time to settle in and get her bearings a bit before having everything changes!

Have a great night! Here are a few pictures from our first day:)

We're here!

We made it to the hotel safe and sound at about 10:30 last night. Flights went fine and Ena was a trooper the whole day! We just had coffee, pancakes and strawberry juice for breakfast and are heading out for a walk to the markets with the other American family who is here at the hotel:) We wanted to let everyone know we got here safe and sound last night, but we couldn't get the internet connection until just now. Someone please pass the info onto my mom that everything went fine!! (they don't have internet)
Love from Bogota!
Zuge's

Finding my Zen;)

Well, our agency did say that yes, we can extend out Visa's while in Colombia if need be (whew!).

Today was my last day of work and tomorrow I"m going to be running around wrapping up last minute loose ends. On Monday I had to run some last minute paperwork to Madison to be certified. They called today to say it was ready (whew again!) so running back to pick that up tomorrow is on my to-do-list.

The long term substitute who is taking over my class was in the last 2 days working with me & transitioning into the position. Everything went great with her learning the ropes & getting ready to take over the class for 12 weeks. It went really well and I'm feeling really good about it:)

Packing is done for the big suitcases! I'll be working on the carry-ons tomorrow. We're doing the whole trip for the 4 of us with just 4 suitcases. We just don't want to have to schlep a ton of stuff through the airport with little kids along. Get used to seeing us wearing the same small rotation of outfits in all of the blog posts;)












Ena is all set to go. We went and got her hair cut tonight. She told her teacher that she needed to get her bangs cut so they're out of her eyes and she can see baby brother when we meet him. Sweet girl:) It's letter D week in her class so she's taking doughnuts for show and tell and sharing them for a treat for her last day:)














We're planning to leave the house at 6:00 am Saturday morning to head out to the airport! This will probably be the last post from the U.S.! We'll update from Colombia as soon as we can!

Travel dates!

We have travel dates people! Tickets have been booked for January 29th. Our presentation of Alton is set for the morning of February 1st. We have appointments to get our Visa's at the Colombian Consulate in Chicago this Friday the 21st.
The to-do lists have begun! I'll update more info over the weekend:) Just wanted to let everyone know our news!

Some Sunday Fun:)

Athena got it in her head that she really, really wanted to try making "home made" orange juice. Of course the only oranges they had at the grocery store were regular old navel oranges, but we decided to let her have a whirl at it anyway. She worked hard at it, that's for sure. About 30 minutes and a 5 lb. bag of navel oranges later, we had exactly one and a half cups of the most delicious "home made" orange juice ever:) It went great with our brunch feast of scrambled eggs and pigs-in-a-blanket.
















Notice the high chair in the background all ready for little Alton!! Hee hee:)













The aftermath:)

Keepin' our eyes on the prize!

An update on the paperchase again: We got the email that our Article 5 came through from the US Embassy in Colombia on Friday (the day Alton turned 10 months!) Now that our representative in Bogota has this document in-hand, she can request travel dates from Ayudame! We've requested our travel dates to be 'as soon as possible', so we'll see what they end up being. Usually 'as soon as possible' is within 1-2 weeks. The program coordinator did say that the orphanages are a little bit behind right now with being able to schedule the presentation dates as quickly as families would like them since they too are still working through the 'holiday back-log' of families that kind of pile up in line over the long Christmas break.

The Secretary of State came through and got our appostilled Special Visitor Visa documents done in just 3 days. We are now however, wresting with the postal service to get them delivered back to us. We've been tracking them and watching them get bounced back and forth between the same 2 post offices for the last 4 days now and because of the long holiday weekend along with a less than helpful customer service dept., are unable to get an answer as to why. I did receive a message from a friend who went through this last year and she said when she called the Colombian Consulate herself, they told her she could get her visa without the appostilles. If we don't get ours from the post office on Tuesday (they are closed Monday), I'll call the Consulate also and see what tell me about whether or not the apostilles are in fact still required. Hoping this is still an option like it was for her in case ours don't arrive in a timely manner!

Between the Federal holidays here and the Christmas break in Colombia, I'm thinking Nov/Dec just isn't the optimal time to get a referral if you're hoping to whip through your paperwork and travel in 6 weeks rather than 8. (the estimate they tell you to expect is anywhere between 6-8 weeks) Like I said though, we know we're in the homestretch and we're trying to stay positive and keep our eyes on the prize:) Mommy, daddy and big sissy are almost there sweet baby!!!

Update on the paper chase

Our paper chase is moving along. I've realized at this point that even though things are moving along we are going to be looking at the end of Janurary more so than the middle of January like we were hoping for when we were originaly told 'mid to late' January as our travel estimate.

All of our dossier updates, including updated FBI print clearances, are done and have been recieved by our representative in Bogota. Our I800 approval came last week Wednesday the 5th. The Article 5 is usually given by the US Embassy in Colombia about 1 week after the I800 is issued. All of the government agencies in Colombia take about a 3 week Christmas break though, so I'm not sure if our I800 was received by them last week when we received it, or if they won't begin processing it until this week, after the break. I guess we'll know if our Article 5 comes this week or not. We just need to 'wait it out' and see.

We had our conference call with the program coordinator from our agency last week Thursday and it's a good things we did. We could have done it either last week Thursday or this week Thursday and thank goodness we did it last week. We caught something that could have been a small catastrophe. With Athena's adoption, we were able to get our special visitor visas by sending our passports and applications to the Colombian Consulate via FedEx. This time, we need to drive to Chicago and get them in person. I assumed (wrongly) that the applications did not need to be notorized and apostilled this time since we were going in person and not doing it through the mail. I brought this up during our conference call and she told us that no, they still need to be apostilled! In Wisconsin, you can't go in person and have them done while you wait, it's a 2 week process through the mail. This is a problem since we were hoping to travel in 2 weeks. So we quickly put them in the mail on Friday and hope for the best. Better we caught it last week than this week!
I will certainly post once we get some confirmed travel dates and all of our ducks are in the final row:)

Been there? Done that? Help!

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about how Athena is going to handle the 6-8 week stay in Colombia. I'm trying to think of things we can take along to entertain her on the days that we spend just hanging out in the hotel. Of course there will be many days that we have little daytrips & outings planned, and we're hoping we can pull together a trip to the coast for a few days while we're there, but there will be equally as many days that we are just hanging out at the hotel waiting for time to pass while we're waiting for sentencia. We found out that there are several other families from our agency who will be in Bogota at the same time as us! I'm very excited about this and looking forward to meeting everyone! I"m hoping there will be other older siblings around the same age as Athena so she has some playmates too:)

As far as things to take along to entertain a 4 year old, here is what I've come up with so far.

The blue box is a travel set of 4 different preschool games: Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Hi Ho Cherry Oh, and Memory. The pink container is an arts & crafts kit that I put together with activity books, regular markers and crayons, stickers, post it notes (she LOVES post it notes!) , fun stationary, color wonder markers and books, scissors, glue and blank notebooks.

Any other suggestions? Did you take movies along from home? For those who have already made this trip with an older sibling in tow, let me know if you came up with any other awesome ideas!

Happy New Year!