19 days till lift off

Have our date is such a relief.  We have been able to work on preparing for our trip and setting our lives in order for our departure.  Much to do, much to do...


BIRTHDAY WISHES
But before the logistical update I have cute pictures and cute always trumps planning.

Got an email entitled, "Happy Birthday Mom"!  These cute pics were a great way to start my day!

Looks like she might be working the room, talking to all the cute boys here.   Oh, no.

Checking out some fun going on across the room.

TRAVEL
When we traveled for Lucy, we were able to accomplish the whole thing with points and go First Class.  That was nothing to be particularly proud of as each of us were on the road a lot to collect all of those miles.  Thankfully, our work lives are considerably more local now.  We got all of our service through Delta's SkyMiles Elite Service number... no more!

This time we decided to work with a travel agency and found Janey at Edina Travel Leaders (952-929-6444).  She has been incredible.  Part of the Visa process at the Colombian Consulate is to show your itinerary, but it's too early in the process to have your actual itinerary.  Janey's sister is adopting and she knew exactly what I needed.  She pulled off a miracle and had it ready for us the morning of our appointment.  She has been great help on the ticketing side, too, and will be ready to assist when we undoubtedly need to change our return flights.

Here Juanita asked us if we had a travel date.

This is the "Woo Hoo" that followed after we said yes :)

ACCOMMODATIONS
We absolutely loved our time at Betty's Place and are so sad that this won't be part of our visit this time.  Betty retired recently which requires us to find a new home in Bogota.  We really think that an apartment will be the best setup for us.  Everything seems to have a catch and really would be nice to see in person.  So, we will be spending our first week at El Refugio (2 rooms - don't think we could hack all 4 of us in 1 room) and visit 3 or 4 different apartment options before we make a decision.

There's a private apartment that we were really, REALLY excited about.  The people were very honest saying that the exterior of the building will be having work done, so they were worried about the noise for us.  We should be able to make that decision for ourselves, hopefully it won't be too bad and we can still end up there.


FBI FINGERPRINTS
One of the first things we did after our referral was to redo our FBI fingerprints.  Ours expire at the end of December, so we needed new ones.  Before the strike, we thought this was a just-in-case step, but in the end, it is completely necessary.  Thankfully they arrived this week and I was able to overnight them to a courier in DC for authentication at the US State Department.  Just in the nick of time!