Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas to you!!!

We hope that you are having a very special day

celebrating our Lord Jesus' birthday!!!

We are having a relaxing, pleasant day together. When we woke up, we read passages from Luke and Matthew. We also had a blast opening our gifts to each other - packages as well as vouchers/coupons we made for each other for gifts to come. Karl's gifts were very sweet & thoughtful. He liked mine too. :) We read Christmas love letters that we wrote to each other too. It has been a very special day. Our thoughts are on the children as well. We hope our little darlings are having a special day too and wonder if they know about us yet!

It has been a while since we have been able to update! Here are some of the highlights from our incredibly busy week:

• We went to Chicago and got our apostilled documents necessary for Visas as well as to bring with us to Colombia for court process
• We successfully got both of our Visas at the Colombian Consulate
• Our precious friends, Jason & Mandy, took such great care of us and got us downtown on time! Karl & I were SO relaxed! They knew where everything was first of all and then would drop us off at the curb and pick us up when we were finished. It was AMAZING!!! We are so thankful and will never forget the incredible kindness they showed us. It was the most stress-free it could have ever been. Thank you, Mandy & Jason!!!
• We were able to spend some time with my Sister, Brother-in-Law, niece & nephews
• We enjoyed a wonderful, overdue trip to IKEA!!! It was SO FUN!!! We came home with lots of miscellaneous goodies :)
• Since we made our airline reservations, we have already received little Andres' paper ticket in the mail. We are amazed we have tickets to and from Colombia - Wow!!!
• Only 18 days until we leave . . . we are feeling the pressure as well as excitement and anticipation. We have a TON to do around here including get warm weather clothing to bring down for the children as well as get our own clothing + a multitude of other items in order and packed. There are so many different kinds of tasks to do that it is overwhelming. Tonight after our supper together we are going to have another planning session and write things down on our big calendar dry erase board. Hopefully that will help us get things in order!
• Karl set up Andres' crib last night! We thought it was going to be really complicated but thankfully he got it set up in a jiffy! So that seems like a milestone to us! All we need now is a crib mattress and bedding!

We'll write more soon! For now, we are going to sit down together for our Christmas Dinner. Merry Christmas, dear friends!