Paris Bound!

Well actually Hotel Paris in Bogota! We finally got our sentencia which is the legal documents that make Kayella officially Kayella and officially ours. But it wasn't without drama. We were originally told by our lawyer that we would be able to sign on Monday. So Ted got up early and started working so that he could get in as many hours as possible before we signed. 11 o'clock rolled around and still no word, 12, 1, 2 and finally at 3:30 we got word that we would not be signing that day. But then our lawyer was SURE that it'd be Tuesday so Magnolia was going to meet us bright and early at the hotel and wait with us until we got the call. So Tuesday morning we all got up and Ted got dressed in his nicest dress pants and shirt and got prepared for signing. Magnolia showed up at 9 am and we began to wait and wait and wait and wait and wait. Before we knew it, it was 4:30 and we were told we would not be signing that day. So Magnolia headed home but told us she'd back back at 8am on Wednesday. The rest of the day we spent moping around.

This morning Magnolia was here at 8am and once again we began to wait. At 9:30am we heard a family from Italy was going to go and sign which didn't concern us too much cause they had been here longer than us. But then at 11am a family from Germany who had arrived a week after us got the call that they were going to sign today. Magnolia decided to give our lawyer one last check in and still no signature. 5 minutes later, Magnolia's cell rings and it is our lawyer saying that our sentencia was signed. Ted and Magnolia rushed downtown to the Judicial offices (which are walk up windows in the 5th floor of a mall) and received the sentencia. From there it was a mad dash to get to the notaria by 12 to get the birth certificates started. They made it in the nick of time. After that we were able to breath a short sigh of relief while we waited the 3 hours for the birth certificates to be completed since it is done on a typewriter. Ted and Magnolia returned to the notaria only to have to wait another hour and a half for them to be completed. Finally with birth certificates in hand they met up with the lawyer to receive the remaining copies of the sentencia and then they headed to the Avianca office to purchase our plane tickets to Bogota!

 With all of this finally done we could now enjoy the party that the hotel was putting on for the lighting of the candles on the eve of the feast of the immaculate conception. It was great to spend one last night enjoying the company of all of the new friends that we had made. However it was bittersweet knowing that we'd be parting ways and also that our new friends from Texas still had to wait til next week to get their sentencia signed. Please send your thoughts and prayers to them, that their judge will sign their papers first thing Monday morning.

So there you have it. Tomorrow we begin the first part of our journey home, if all goes as planned we should be back by the middle of next week and we can't wait to see all of our friends and family again. But before we leave Cali here is a list of things we will miss:
-All of the friends we met along the way
-The amazing people who have made this process just a little easier especially our champion Magnolia, Heinrich and all of the staff at Hotel Stein, Medardo our taxi driver/tour guide and Trudy our lawyer.
-The amazing people at Chiquitines for taking such good care of Kayella before we got here.
-The beautiful city and mountain top views
-The 80 degree weather in December
-The handiwork of the Colombian people
-Laundry washed, dried and pressed for us
-Poker Beer (Ted)
-Lorenzo (the dog)

And of course a few things we wont miss:
-The climb to the tower (our room) even thought it was beautiful
-The mad dashes across the streets
-FISH

Ciao for now, we will try and post once we arrive in Bogota!