Links to Pictures
6/23/04 - Jack at the Airport
6/23/04 - Halle Close-ups
6/23/04 - First of the Presentation Pics
6/23/04 - Some more pics from the Presentation
6/23/04 - And still more...
06/23/04 - Still more..
6/23/04 - Halle's First Bottle
6/25/04 - Sleep tight Halle
06/25/04 - Halle in the Tub
06/25/04 - Jack and Halle Pics
06/25/04 - Jack holding Halle
06/25/04 - Everyone wants to hold Halle!
06/25/04 - Jack being Goofy
06/30/04 - Miscellaneous Pictures
06/30/04 - Halle in her Dress Posing with Jack
06/30/04 - More on the bed
07/02/04 - Halle and Jack
07/02/04 - Halle with her new Earings!
07/09/04 - Halle
07/09/04 - Jack and his Guitar!
07/09/04 - The Couch Picture
07/09/04 - Monserrate
July 15 - On Monday I had to fly home leaving Julie, Halle and Jack in Bogota to wait on signing Sentencia. Luckily, while I was in the air Julie got a call that they would be signing on Tuesday morning!! She couldn't get a flight home until Saturday, but even so thankfully they are only 5 days behind me. Jack is SOOOO excited to come home and Halle told me she can't wait to see her new, super sized crib and that she would sleep like a good little girl when we get home!! Yeah right! She actually is a good sleeper......as long as you are holding her! She loves to be held and wakes up almost as soon as you put her down, oops! So we will need to convince her to sleep in her crib without us having to hold her for her to fall asleep. We will finally all be home on Saturday July 17 and can't wait to see everyone! July 02 - We've been here now for 11 days and thus far we've had some great family time together. Jack is still a huge help with his baby sister, he loves to get her bottle when it's time for her to eat and he is always trying to shove the binky down her throat, I mean put the binky in her mouth. We've been to the park a few times which Jack loves and have met some nice Colombian boys (around age 11) who were enthralled by our attempt at speaking Spanish and our English. Jack has really done a great job of making new friends and has enjoyed asking how to say every word under the sun in Spanish! Today we went to El Salitre a small amusement park and Jack actually went on some of the rides himself!! Halle is doing great, she smiles a ton and has been eating and sleeping well. We had her ears pierced yesterday and while she had a tiny bit of discomfort last night, she has done great with it. She looks so adorable with them pierced! We found out we are court 22 (the Pizza court because when you sign Sentencia you are supposed to bring Pizza with you to celebrate!) We plan to tell them we will bring 10 pizzas if they can expedite the process! It can be a pretty quick court but that remains to be seen. We will hopefully find out more next week early, unfortunately Monday is a holiday (the third in four weeks on a Monday!!) Anyhow we will continue to enjoy our time together in Colombia with our new friends from France and Kansas City and will hope to be home to see everyone soon. Hopefully we'll all be on the same flight home, though right now that's hard to see. We will hope! Take care and hope to see everyone soon! June 22 - Jack has a baby sister!! We traveled to FANA at 11:30am and finally received Halle at around 1pm in a small presentation ceremony. She looked sooo adorable in the dress MiMi made! She is beautiful, happy and very calm! We haven't heard her cry yet and we've had her for about 4 hours now! She definitely is not as large as her picture makes her seem! She is very petite, though she definitely does have some kissable cheeks! Jack is so excited to be a big brother, he has been kissing and hugging her every chance he gets. We have been taking many pictures and will post some later if we can load the software onto Carmen's computer. Everyone was so happy to see Jack and kept saying how beautiful he is! I know we are partial, but we agree. As usual, he was shy at first, but after a bit he was goofing off for everyone. He has been speaking Spanish fluently since we got here, go figure! He woke up this morning and said he wanted Leche to drink! He has also been saying both Gracias and Denada which has everyone in stitches! As I said, more to come later:) I will try to update this site to keep everyone up to date with what we are doing daily if possible. SHE'S FINALLY HERE!! We received news of Halle Manuela, much to our surprise, at our CFAC picnic on Sunday June 13! She was born March 18, 2004 weighing 4 pounds and she was 16 inches long. She's almost 3 months old and now weighs 9 pounds and 8 ounces and she's 22 1/2 inches long. Though she was 6 weeks premature, we are told she is doing very well and is a happy, healthy baby girl!! Jack is now 3 and is so very excited to meet her. When we told him we finally received his baby sister and that we had a picture of her he looked all around and said 'Where is her, I want to see her!' He's going to be such a fantastic big brother! We are scheduled to leave for Bogota on the first day of Summer, Monday June 21. We will be staying at Carmen's Place again and will have access to our new email address (nickels4jac@netzero.com). Please feel free to email us, we will be extremely homesick! Since you all can't be here to see her, we wanted to share our experiences with you through our pictures! Check back, we hope to update frequently!! We can't wait to get home so she can meet you all!! Take care. Love, Julie, Jack, Halle and Brian
