Hi everyone,

We had a low key day today at the hotel. When we came down for breakfast all of our Danish friends sang Happy Birthday to me in their Danish language. Very nice. I also had a Colombian serenade at lunch time by Jeanette, Marischa, and Luciola. Marischa made me a birthday bracelet with the colors of the colombian flag and some local beads, and made a matching one for Andy as well. So nice of her to do that.

After breakfast we went to the park across the street and played for a while. Andy had a good time checking out all of the swings and such.

After we returned one of the other families here volunteered to trade rooms with us as they have a much larger room than ours, and knowing that we get Dana tomorrow we would need some extra space. We were so thankful that they offered that to us. The room that we are in now is about 3x the size of our original room, and Andy has his own little bunk-bed room. So we spent the afternoon unpacking again, and getting ready for our little Dana tomorrow.

We spoke with Cecilia this morning and she is going to pick us up at 8 a.m. and take us to CRAN Orphanage for our presentation. Jodie ironed Dana's little dress, and we got everything all set for our trip. We are soooooo excited for tomorrow to come.

So check the blog tomorrow and I'm sure in the early afternoon we will have some pictures.

Until then have a great night and thanks for all of the thoughts and prayers.

PS-tonight I was surprised with a birthday party! It was so nice of Jodie and our Danish friends, as they prepared a lot of appetizers, champagne/wine, and the cake that Jodie got earlier in the day.

Coffee Plantation field trip

Andy was working hard at the coffee plantation. This is the initial grinder to remove the skin on the coffee bean.








There were so many beautiful flowers everywhere. We are in front of a Birds of Paradise plant.



















Lunch with our Danish hotel friends and Mauricio our tour guide.

Hi everyone,

We had a fun day today. We went with our fellow hotel guests from Denmark to the coffee plantation. There are 5 couples from Denmark here in our hotel, and one couple from Spain, and we are the lone US couple. Everyone is so friendly, and we are learning a lot about Denmark. One of the couples has their presentation of their child tomorrow. Jodie and I learned that our presentation of Dana will be Thursday the 22nd at 9:30 a.m. All of our paperwork was dropped off at CRAN Orphanage on Monday and reviewed and accepted. So we are anxiously awaiting Thursday morning.

We spent the day with everyone traveling to the coffee plantation which was about a 2 hour drive over the mountains. We had a great lunch at a little restaurant. Some people had the rabbit, and Jodie and I stuck with the chicken. I did try a piece of the rabbit and it was pretty good. Everything was smothered with sauteed onions and "queso" cheese. That would make anything taste good in my book. One of our Danish friends asked me if I have ever had horse meat? I couldn't say that I have (maybe in a hotdog), and that is sometimes served in Denmark.

The coffee plantation was an older and smaller one for the area. Like many farms in the US bigger is often better, and this one has some old fashioned techniques that have been used for many years. Anyhow it is still in operation and serves the local growers well. The landscape had not only the coffee plants, but tons of flowers including Orchids, which is the national flower of Colombia, Birds of Paradise, and so many others in every color. The weather is so good for plants. There were many lemon trees around as well. It was overwhelming how beautiful it was. After the tour we had a good cup of coffee and a shot of coffee liqueur. As many of you know, we are not coffee drinkers but we gave it a try anyway. Jodie really enjoyed the coffee liqueur though:)

After our tour, we headed back down the mountain to Bogota. The traffic in Bogota is absolutely "loco." Our family in Central Wisconsin would not think it was good in any way. The air quality is quite poor in the city due to the massive number of vehicles. There is so much to look at as you ride through the city though; it is busy!!!

Tomorrow we will prepare for our sweet Dana. Jodie will unpack her clothes and make sure we are ready for her. We are hoping that Cecilia will stop by to give us all the information about what to bring with us on Thursday for the presentation. We are so anxious to meet our Colombian princess. You will all want to check out our blog later in the day on Thursday.

Special Section for my RCI Students:

Hi guys, Are you behaving for Ms. Parisi? I sure hope so. If I hear otherwise, I will call your parents from Colombia:) I hope you are learning everything you need to know about minerals. As I promised, I will try to teach you a little bit about Colombia while I'm here. We are in the capital of Colombia which is Bogota. The city is located in a valley of the Andes Mountains. The population of Bogota is approximately 7 1/2 million people. Yikes! It's just a little bit bigger than the village of Oregon:) There is so much traffic here that you can only drive your car on certain days if your license plate number ends with an odd number and other days if it ends with an even number. They do this to try to reduce the number of cars on the roads each day. Pretty interesting, huh? The money they use here is called Colombian pesos. 1 US dollar equals approximately 1800 pesos. So today we went to the grocery store and bought a few items and our total came to 68,000 pesos. Now that is a pretty scary grand total when you are dealing with such big numbers, but in US dollars it was only 30 some dollars. We went to lunch today and our bill was $100,000 pesos. It definitely takes awhile to get used to. Anyway, I must go for now.

Purple puppies! (This is a secret code for one of my classes. You know who you are and what I mean.)

Greetings from Bogota!

Andy at the restaurant playing soccer with some of the kids.








Our day begins in Madison with lots of luggage!








Here is our room. We feel like we are at band camp! The hotel is great, the room is just a little snug for us. We can make it work for the time here.









Cecilia is in the middle with the blue sweater. Her mom and sister are to her right.






Hi Everyone,

We made it safe and sound on Saturday evening to our new home in Bogota. Jason Pickett was our designated driver and we picked him up at 7 a.m. and he brought our car home so we didn't need to keep it at the airport for a month+. Thanks Jason! We were in the air at 8:50 a.m. and arrived in Bogota at about 8:45 p.m. All of our flights were on time and no problems at all. Andy was a good traveler, and we were all tired. We got to our hotel at about 11 p.m. and slept hard.

Yesterday was our first full day here. We had breakfast, and met with Cecilia at 10:30. She brought her sister and 88 year old mother. Sundays are a day for families, and they were so glad to meet us and Andy. They were crazy about Andy of course, and kept saying how "lindo" (beautiful) Andy is. Andy sat in Cecilia's mom's lap and she kept asking him for hugs and kisses and Andy was happy to oblige.

Cecilia invited us to lunch with her husband, and mother in a little village on the other side of the mountain. We were happy to go and see Bogota from the mountaintop. It is such a beautiful city and region, and the city itself is huge! We had a great Colombian lunch at the restaurant, and incredible views. Jodie had the "baby beef" and I had trout. It was very delicious. We also had a nice time visiting with Cecilia and her husband Hernando who is a Math Professor at the University. At the next table was a couple and their children from the US, and we found out that he works at the US Embassy. We spoke with them for a while and Andy played with their children. Everyone is so very nice.

Our hotel is very nice. The room itself is pretty small for 3 people and a baby, but there is a lot of common areas here to hang out in. There is a nice courtyard that Andy can kick the soccer ball in, tv's and dvd's, and pool/foosball tables. There are 4 other families here, and all are from Denmark and are very nice. There are three beautiful children that they have adopted, and it is fun to see their babies.

Cecilia is going to stop by this morning to have us finalize our paperwork. She will then drop it off to CRAN Orphanage today, and it looks like it will be Thursday now for our presentation. We are anxious to have her be a part of our family officially and hold her in our arms for the first time. So once we hear more we will update the blog.

Other than that, we are going to play at the park across the street today, and walk to the Unicentro Mall to get some exercise and check it out.

More to come.

Hi everyone,

Well after a long day of packing, cleaning, and last minute errands we feel like we are pretty well set for our big trip tomorrow!

Andy had his last day at Cathy's house, and they were going to throw a going away party for him, so I'm sure he will have a good day there. Cathy has been such a great influence in Andy's early life, and we feel that she is a part of our family. Next year Andy will be in the 4K program here in Stoughton, so Cathy is pretty sad about his leaving. We will still have him there on Friday's next year after Jodie goes back to school, but it is a long 4 - 5 months for her without seeing Andy. Jodie is planning on staying home with Dana until after the 1st quarter ends in October, as the first weeks and months are so important to bond with adoptive children.

We also found out on Wednesday that most likely we wouldn't have our Presentation of Dana until Wednesday the 21st. We checked into changing our flights, but the difference in airfare and change fee was more than the original tickets, so we opted to continue to go tomorrow. So we will have a couple of days in Bogota and will be anxiously waiting for Wednesday. We didn't get our FBI fingerprints back from the FBI until Tuesday, and LSS of MN didn't get them until Wednesday, therefore Cecilia didn't get them until Thursday or today in Bogota. She will formally present our finalized Dossier on Monday and arrange for the Presentation on Wednesday (or sooner?). As soon as we hear anything we will let you know.

We are just so excited to bring Dana into our lives, and get goosebumps when we think about it. Andy is doing well with the idea of having a sister and being a big brother, but I'm sure we will have a few challenges with sharing our time, as all kids do when they have an addition to the family. Anyhow we are truly blessed, and God will give us what we can handle!

My next post will be from Bogota. Please keep us in your prayers for safe travels.

Love to all.

Today was a busy day. Andy's daycare provider was off for a funeral today, so I stayed home with him and worked from here in the morning. We were able to get Dana's crib put together and Andy was a big help.

We also finally received back our FBI fingerprint cards, and we had those notarized (thanks Kathie at the bank) and ran them up to the Secretary of State's office to be Apostiled. Wendy at LSS of MN should have those tomorrow! WHEW... just in the nick of time!! We also received back our Special Visitor Visa from the Colombian Consulate in Chicago, so good to go on that front as well.

We heard from Wendy that Cecilia in Colombia needs the FBI and USCIS documentation to arrange the presentation of Dana early next week. We are still hoping that Monday will work out for the CRAN Director, but will have to wait and see.

Otherwise we are just taking it day by day, and know that all of the packing, cleaning, and preparing will all come together. Lots of details. I am so thankful for having such an awesome wife, and Jodie is always right on top of things, she has definitely been the driving force to get things done. She is an awesome partner in life, and great mom to boot!

Until next time....

Andy's final miniball soccer

Hi everyone,

I thought I would put a picture of Andy on the site (left). He had his last miniball soccer yesterday morning. He didn't score this week but played really well. There was a 6 year old on the other team that was running circles around our team. Last week with more even competition he scored 3 times. He had lots of fun this year and played well. It is fun seeing him develop into a little athlete. By the way grandma's, Jodie set up Andy's prom date with the mom of the little girl in the front row on the left, Emma! It is never too early to set up your prom date. :)

We had a busy weekend of packing, shopping, and celebrating Mothers Day. Andy and I had a boys day out yesterday and did some shopping for mom. Andy got her some gifts, including earrings and two turtle brownies (of course Andy and I had to get a donut ourselves while at the bakery). Andy also picked out a "pink bear" for Dana, like his "blue bear" that he has had since he was a baby. He has been sleeping with it to make sure that Dana knows that he loves her. Andy can't wait to give it to his little sister next week. At church this morning our Pastor Paula said a nice prayer for our family, and that warmed our hearts. We also took Jodie out for lunch at her favorite Chinese restaurant, and then shopped a little more.

So just working hard on packing, clearing out Dana's nursery room (Andy's old bedroom), and getting ready for Saturday. We still are waiting on our FBI fingerprints to be returned and hope to have those on Monday. We should also have our Special Visitor Visa information back from the Colombian Consulate on Monday or Tuesday.

Happy Mothers Day!

Here is the latest.

We received news on Monday from Wendy at LSS of MN, that we can travel to Colombia on Sat the 17th or Sun the 18th. I just bought our airline tickets. We are going to travel on Saturday the 17th. It takes about 12-13 hours to get there, including the layovers, and we get in late on Saturday night, so we thought it would be good to have a day to rest. From what we understand our "presentation" of Dana will be on Monday the 19th! Yeah ;)

We will be working on getting our temporary visitor VISA from the Colombian Consulate in Chicago, and will be overnighting that information today. We should also have our FBI fingerprints back today, so that part will be done after the notary/apostile process (2-3 days).

We are so excited to travel and meet Dana. The one picture is all we have so far, and we can only imagine the joy we will have holding her for the first time at the Presentation. Anyhow thanks for your support and prayers. More to come in a few days.

Goodmorning,

Well a few days have passed and we wanted to update.

We took yesterday off to drop off the documentation to the Sec of State office for the Apostile process, and finish up that paperwork. We are still waiting on the FBI and USCIS to get our fingerprints back.

We also did some major shopping yesterday for Dana, and got our bottles, blankets, clothes, etc... for the trip. Colombia is in the Southern Hemisphere, so it is their winter rainy season, and a little chilly and damp, so we are able to get some good bargains on out of season clothes here. Dana is 4 months old (DOB is 12-21-07) and about 15 pounds, so we got some 3-6 and 6-9 month clothes to cover all bases. It seems like everything we got is pink!!! Jodie loves it.

Lastly Cecilia who is the Colombian representative for LSS of MN, called this morning. She is going to put us in the Las Palmas hotel while we are there. Apparently it has a good area for kids to play in for Andy, and is close to the mall, restaurants, and a good neighborhood. Their website is: www.laspalmasbogota.com/

Cecilia said that Dana is a beautiful little baby, and she is in great care in a foster home. She also mentioned that we are really lucky to have a referral of a younger child as there are far more older children waiting for adoption. We are so thankful and pray to God every night to take care of her and let her know that we will be on our way soon.

We don't know an official travel date yet, as we are waiting on the FBI and USCIS to give us their ok, and once we have that then we can have Cecilia let us know. We are hoping that we will be traveling the week after next (around May 15 or thereabout??)

Hope everyone is well and enjoy the weekend!

Today we officially faxed in the acceptance letter for Dana's referral into our family. Wendy at LSS of MN is forwarding it to Cecilia, who is the in-country facilitator. We are anxiously awaiting our updated documents that had expired during our wait. Once we have those in and forwarded to Cecilia we should know more about a travel date. Hopefully in the next few weeks we will be in Colombia. Stay tuned.

Dana's medical record

Hi,

We had the U of MN International Adoption Clinic review Dana's medical records from Colombia, and everything looks good. On Monday we are going to officially accept the referral. We should know more details about our travel next week. Stay tuned!