Love. Not like. Love:)

When we were in Colombia adopting Athena in 2007, we bought her a beautiful emerald since Colombia is known for their emeralds. We will give it to her some day when she is old enough so she has a little piece of her birth county from the weeks that we spent together there before returning home with her. We wanted to do something for Alton also, though we weren't completely sold on getting another emerald for two reasons. First we thought it might be better for each of them to have something different than each other for their special thing from the trip. Second, aside from putting it in a tie tack we couldn't really see what he would do with his emerald. Well, we kept our eyes open each time we went out and about & to the markets the whole time we were there. When we got our sentencia and knew we only had about a week left, we were about to just give up on finding something original for Alton and we were going to go ahead and get him an emerald too even though we weren't super excited about the idea for him like we had been for Athena. We went to the markets one last time. While we were shopping we stopped an an artist's stand with piles and piles of canvas paintings. I told him I was looking for something with trees or flowers or something 'naturey'. He dig through the piles and pulled out one kind of abstract painting of some very colorful trees with falling leaves and one more realistic looking one with purple flowers. We were going back and forth deciding between the two and then I put them side by side to compare and once I saw them next to each other, I wanted both of them. I thought they had just enough complementing style and color that they would look awesome hung side by side in identical frames. John still teases me that I ruined any chance he had to do any bartering because of my excitement and insisting on having them both no matter what:) So, after carefully rolling them and rigging up a travel container made out of puff cans duct taped together the paintings made it home safe and sound. We took them in to be professionally stretched and framed. That, BTW will cause you a bit of sticker shock if you've never had that done before! Yowza! But it was so worth it!!! They turned out gorgeous! Of course they will be Alton's some day, but until then they have a home in our master BR where they look amazing:) This wall has been blank since we moved into our new home 2 1/2 years ago and I think fate made us keep it blank because it knew we would be bringing these gems home from Colombia some day. Of course the snapshots here do them little justice, but it gives you an idea of how awesome they are:) I lovelovelove them!

Look who has a passport!

We (our representative Luz actually) got all of our paperwork snafoos figured out now, so today we got a lot accomplished with our final paperwork:) We picked up the final clearance papers from the ICBF main office. This is something new since Athena's adoption since the Hague was implemented. We also applied for and got Altons Colombian passport. Next we had our last meeting with the director of Ayudame to get final permission to travel home with Alton. Later tonight we have a doctors appointment for Altons medical clearance to apply for his visa.

Tomorrow we take his spiffy new passport to the American Embassy to apply for his visa to come home. We should be able to pick up his visa on Friday & that will be our ticket home!

Slowly making progress!

We're working through some things with our paperwork to be able to fly home on our original tickets on Sunday. Some things have come up and we definately will not be in a position to bump up our tickets to any time before that. Luckily our representative is very organized and proof reads everything with a fine tooth comb. She noticed on Monday that we were only issued one copy of a certain document that we were supposed to be given 2 of and today she noticed another one of the documents was accidentaly dated for 2010 rather than 2011. We are working on getting everything fixed to be able to pick up the final visa for Alton on Friday. Send us some more luck please:) We'll keep everyone updated on our progress! We're almost home!!

Butterflies, crepes & waffles:)

We had another fun day out and about today. Now that we have Sentencia and know our time remaining here is limited, we're trying to squeeze in as many fun things as possible before we go back home to the reality of work and double day care bills:) We're going to be running to lots of appointments this coming week to get all of our final paperwork done, so we did 2 fun things today that we've been meaning to do before we go.

First we went to the Bogota Botanical Gardens this morning with the Jaenesch's. By some miracle it didn't rain at all the whole time we were there, so we spent the whole morning walking around and enjoying the park:) We saw lots of beautiful plants and snapped tons of great pictures. They even have an awesome butterfly exibit going on right now!

Alton getting in his daily 'boob nap' as John calls it when he falls asleep in the carrier when we're out walking.

The guide got a butterfly to land on his finger and he passed it onto Athena's finger and let her hold it for a minute.

It was so incredibly hot and humid in the butterfly building because many of the butterflies are from tropical areas of Colombia. They need to recreate the right environement for them at the gardens. Many of my pictures look a littel hazy like this one because my camera lense kept steaming up.

BIG cala lillies.

This beautiful fountain is in the center of the enormous rose garden area.

As I mentioined earlier, Alton is a daddy's boy and prefers John right now. Today though, he kept reaching for me all day and wanted me to carry him:)

I heart this picture:)

After returning from the Gardens, we headed out to lunch. One of the restaurants that everyone loves when they are here is called Crepes and Waffles. Somehow in the 11 weeks total that we have been in Bogota adopting both of our kids, we have never been there. We couldn't miss it this time:)

We ordered 2 different types of crepes and split them. This crepe was cold and filled with smoked salmon, cream cheese, avacado, dill, red peppers & cucumber. The other one was hot and saucy and filled with chicken, cheese and spinach. Both were to die for! We also split a huge waffle sundae, smothered in Nutella and ice cream!

Athena's kids meal (a ham and cheese pita) came with a strawberry smoothie and this fun sundae!

Those of you who are friends with me on fb and have seen my food album, you know I"m going to copy this sundae as soon as we get home:) This awesome kids meal btw only cost about $5! The entire bill was not very big at all. Seriously, we need a Crepes and Waffles at home:)

Recap on Thursday

Like I said in the previous post, we spent Thursday out being tourists at the gold museum and candelaria area in Bogota. In part of the museum there was a huge visual time line that outlined the history of the different parts of the world. As we were reading through some of it Angie's dad Roger found this:

Fun! Kenosha Wisconsin mentioned at the Museo Del Oro in Bogota.
I also had to take pictures of these items for all of my stamping friends:) Check it out-embossing and stamping has been around for a long long time ladies!

We ate at an awesome restaurant just a few blocks from the museum.

If anyone visits the gold museum on your trip to Bogota, we highly recomend this place for lunch or dinner. The best home made guacamole and sangria! Steak and chicken was awesome too. As usual I was so impressed by the hospitality and friendly-ness of the staff. I needed to take both of the kids to the bathroom to change Alton and have Ena take a potty break. The bathroom was on the second floor and the steps were a very narrow, winding spiral staircase. Athena was having a hard time with it and I was trying to help her by just holding her hand as I was carrying Alton. A waiter ran over to us (literally ran), picked Athena up and carried her the rest of the way up the steps. People here are so sweet and helpful when they see you have little kids. You do not wait in any lines when you have little kids along. People insist you go ahead of them. Always. It's not just employess in restarants and stores who are doing their jobs either. People on the street and other customers in stores and the airport do this too. It's heartwarming:)

Hotel Paris

For those who haven't been here and wonder what our living situation is like, I took some pictures to share. We're staying at a place called Hotel Paris. It's not like a hotel in the US though, more like a bed and breakfast or a hostel.

The inside of our room. Our temporary home sweet home!

The dining room where we eat every meal. The food here BTW is deeeelish! They even make home made baby food for Alton. He has yet to not like something they've made him:) He did gag and throw up on mashed potatos when I tried them with him for the first time at lunch today though. Other than that little mishap, he continues to be a little garbage disposal, chowing down whatever we try with him.

One of the living rooms just off the dining room. We spend a lot of time out here before and after meals chatting with the other families and hanging out.

The other living room area. Athena and her friends play house in here a lot.

The court yard.

Daddy and Alton chilling on the bed.

We were planning to go to Lake Guatavita today with 2 other families, but we ended up having to cancel the tour and re-schedule for next week for a few different reasons. One of the families needed to cancel because they had some paperwork snafoos that needed their attention at the last minute and the other family has a sick family member:( It ended up being a rainy day today though, so maybe we'll have better luck with the weather when we go next Tuesday anyway:) There have actually been quite a few sick kids and adults here at the hotel in the last few days. We're really hoping our family is lucky and escapes catching anything!

Daddy's Boy:)

Snapped a few cute on-the-go pictures of John and Alton at a craft fair/market we went to today. He does seem to be leaning towards being a daddy's boy at this point! Check out these handsome guys:)

We got this cute toy at the craft fair for Alton. The Reedy's actaully found it first and bought one for their little guy Cruz, but after we saw theirs we loved it and copied them and bought one for Alton too:)

Two fun days:)

The beginning of the week we really didn't do much of anything but hang out and go for walks. The last 2 days have been really fun though:) Yesterday there was a birthday party here at the hotel for one of the kids being adopted. A little girl named Eloina who turned 5. We went shopping with the Jaenesch's and let the kids pick out some gifts for her & the cooks here made her a beautiful birthday cake. It was lots of fun. Their family also got sentencia this week and signed their final decree yesterday for her and her brother, so it was a double special day for them:)

Just like a birthday party at home. All the kids crowded around watching her open presents:)

Little sweetheart birthday girl giving Athena a thank you kiss for the present. She gave a thank you kiss to everyone at the party:)

The most kids we've had at the hotel at once when there was a full house. L-R: Jose (aka 'little Jose), Jose (aka 'big Jose'), Jenna, Laura, Ben, Lauren, Jack, Eloina, Cruz, Athena, Alton.

They're all so stinkin cute!

Today we went out for pizza for lunch. The place we went to was awesome! They have a special kids menu where the kids get to make their own pizza. There is a separate little kitchen area where they take the kids to be chefs. We went with the Jaenesch clan and met the Seifert clan there, so we had 8 kids total! They all had so much fun & I have a feeling we'll be going back there once more before we leave:)

Cutest little chef ever:)

Pounding the dough flat.

How awesome is this kid-height, squiggly work table for the kids!! I want one for my classroom:)

The lady in charge of helping the kids in the kid kitchen really encouraged them to get into their work and get dirty. As you can see, Ena was happy to comply:) We're thinking that super cute birthday cake set up in the back was for a birthday party later today.

Tomorrow of course is the day that they close down some of the busy streets for walking and biking so if the weather cooperates, I'm sure we'll get our excercise out walking around the markets for the majority of the day again:)

As far as how our process is going, we're trying to have faith in the 'no news is good news' theory. Our representative just keeps telling us that everything is good with our paperwork, we just need to wait out having it go through the system. We know for sure at this point that we weren't assigned to a fast court, as we most likely would have heard something by now if we had. Hoping now that we're in a medium-fast court and will get some news this coming week:) Little guy turns one on March 14th, so that gives us about 2 weeks if we want to get home before his birthday. (which I'm hoping for!)

Hanging out.

We've spent the last few days just hanging out, not doing anything too exciting. The hotel has suddenly filled up and there are lots of families here to hang out with now and it's been fun having a full house. We've been going on lots of walks and John has been working a lot the last few days. Seems there is always something we find we 'need' to justify a walk to the grocery store and a stop at Juan Valdez coffee shop on the way back:) Us and the Reedy's walked to the mall today to meet up with another Wisonsin family who are here adopting a sibling group of 3:) They got their Sentencia already and are heading home next week, so we're going to try to get together with them once more this weekend before they head out.

One of Altons favorite 'toys' is to bang on the cover of Athena's plastic container that has all of her craft supplies.

His GQ shot:)

He loves to walk around like this. We're just waiting for him to take off on his own!

This is one of the new ways the wonder twins have found to entertain themselves. They like to make a tent over the bed out of the curtains. They sat in the tent and played with coloring books and stickers for over an hour the other day!

Back from the coast.

We're back from our get away to the coast. The kids are pretty worn out from all the swimming and sun & fun and they both fell asleep during take off and slept the whole plane ride until we landed back in Bogota:) When we arrived back to the hotel, we got to finally meet the Reedy family in person. We've been in contact just via email and fb for months now and it's great to finally meet in person and have another family to hang out with here during our stay:)

I have a few more favorite pictures from our trip to share. None of Alton today though. I just wasn't happy with how any of his from the last 2 days turned out. Don't worry, I'll make a point to post more good ones of him again next time! Lots of pictures of Ena that I thought turned out extra cute and I wanted to share:)

I also wanted to tell about the tons of iguana's that we saw on our trip! They are everywhere at the resort. They're about as plentiful as squirrels are in Wisconsin. Seriously! The Janesch's even had one sneak into their bungelow!

These guys liked visiting us at the pool.

They're hanging out in the trees all around the resort.

Can you see all five of them in this one shot?

A culinary adventure:)

I can read a small amount of Spanish. Understanding what someone is saying when they are speaking Spanish at a regular speaking rate though? Forget it. The poor person who is trying to talk to me may as well be speaking Chinese for how much I'm going to understand. It was when we were going out for lunch today that I really wished I could understand a lick of what was being said to me:) I have GOT to learn more Spanish!

We went into town to shop at some markets and have lunch today. Shopping was fun:) Ena scored a few treasures and John got one of those cool Colombian cowboy type hats that he's been wanting. We decided to get some lunch before heading back to the resort to spend the afternoon swimming.

There was a security building on the beach with police men and security people in it and Mary had a good idea to ask them if they had any suggestions of a good place to go. The police officer we spoke to immediately yelled something at an old man who was sitting on a tree a little ways down the beach. The old man came running over and started to lead us down the beach. We ended up at a beach restaurant where the old man then yelled something at a couple of other men who started scurrying around grabbing chairs and tables and setting up a place for us on the sand. They were so accomodating and nice. Stacking up chairs for make-shift boosters and picking up the kids and plunking them into the chairs for us. When we were all finally seated, they brought out the 'menu'. Lauren wouldn't look at it, but Mary and I of course immediately grabbed our cameras:)

The menu:)

The man who seemed to be in charge picked up each of the fresh fish and rattled off what each one of them was. As he was attempting to take our order, I was somewhat intimidated at this point not knowing what he was asking of me and how the heck or what the heck I should order. John finally just went ahead and pointed to the fish that happened to be nearest to him and said he would take that one. Athena said she wanted fish, but "without eyeballs". The man pointed to Athena and 'fillet para ninos?' Yes, that I understood:) Fillet of fish meat for the child. Yes, please! As he went around the table figuring out what everyone wanted, Brain asked for pollo (chicken) so I knew that chicken was also an option. When he got back around to me, I also asked for pollo.

When the food came out, it was delicious! John's fish was really good! Dredged in some type of coating and then the whole thing was fried & served with coconut rice and plantains. If I would have seen ahead of time what it would be like I would have probably gone ahead and pointed to one of the fish and had it fried up too:) The chicken was really good too though. Dredged in a yummy flour mixture and pan fried and served up with coconut rice also. Athena's fish fillet was beautiful and huge & it came with french fries instead of the plaintains. She liked it and ate quite a bit of it.

John's yummy fish.

Athena eating up her fillet para ninos.

Alton got to enjoy of few of sissy's papas fritas (french fries)

Our table for 9 by the beach. Complete with an eccentric local trying to wow us with his mad guitar and singing skills:)

The view from our table. I took this picture from my seat.

After we got done eating, we needed to stop at a store to pick up some supplies before heading back to the resort. We needed more bottled water and Jaenesch's needed some baby supplies. Mary again grabbed the bull by the horns and used her best Spanglish to ask the man in charge at the restaurant where a store was nearby that might have these things. The man yelled to another worker at the restaurant to come over and walk us to the store. He started heading off and gesturing for us to follow him. He walked us right up to the front door of a large convenience store that did in fact have everything we needed:)

We certainly didn't look like American tourists. I think we blended right in, don't you?

It was a fun experience and a yummy lunch that I'm sure our family will never forget:)