Mateo & Santiago: Mamounette's & Papounet's Surprise Visit

Marie Paule and Bill came to Colombia on a surprise trip for Nico's birthday! We picked them up at the airport, Nico fooled into thinking we were picking up some friends of mine, and headed straight to Anapoima for the weekend. Mateo had a blast playing with his grandfather in the pool, diving for gold Euros with him at the bottom of the pool, and learning the infamous Bill trademark: his thumb game! Not to mention, playing with the trucks they brought him. Santi, who's going through separation anxiety, had a hard time getting used to them. He has a strong case of "papitis" and a milder one of "mamitis". But towards the end of their stay here, I think he finally got used to being around them. It also hasn't helped that he's been teething. Before we left for Medellin, he's fever spiked up to 102F. I brought it down with some Tylenol but the following days he was still highly sensitive and running slight fevers. He's somewhat better now. He has no fever, but doesn't eat very much and is very restless.

We returned to Bogota for a couple of days. Bill took Mati to school everyday and we would all go pick him up. Mati was very proud to introduce his "abuelos" to his friends, and it was hilarious when Jeronimo, one of his best friends, told him matter-of-factly, "Mateo, your grandfather is so old!".

Over the weekend we went to Medellin. The city has some amazing modern architecture, but otherwise, it was rather dirty and not very pretty. In my opinion, the best part was taking the teleferico up the shanty town of Santo Domingo. It felt real: the streets were so animated with music blasting, people talking while sipping their beers or "tintos", kids running around everywhere. We certainly stuck out like sore thumbs and because of that we opted not to parade our cameras around, so I have no pictures (besides, we decided to go at dusk!!), which makes me sad. So, the purpose of taking the teleferico was because of the view. Medellin is in a valley (it actually reminded me A LOT of Caracas) and had it not been foggy the views of the city would have been beautiful.

The abuelos are now back in France, but we wanted to thank you guys for coming and sharing a little bit more of Colombia with us! We hope you enjoyed your stay and the boys!!

ANAPOIMA

On the speed boat watching Nico wakeboard.

"I found the gold coin Papounet!"

"Good job Mateo, give me five!"

And you all think I'm skinny!!!

Eating beets

MEDELLIN

Santi was fascinated with the Botero sculptures.

Common scene with Santiago!

At last ... at peace with Mamounette.

The Medellin Aquarium ... very cool!

Parque Explora - Bill having fun playing a virtual harp.

La Catedral de Medellin - Mateo made me go through each of the 12 stations and explain to him what was going on. He would go back and forth between them and ask again and again (he still obsessed with this) why Judas had decided to put Christ on the cross.