The End of Summer

So much has happened since I last wrote. I am realizing that I have an awful memory so hopefully I can include some stuff on here. I feel like I am getting used to things here in Brasil more. I look at myself right now and I really don't know how I did it all in Buford (homeschool, cleaning the house, cooking, playing with the kids, etc.) I do know, the USA is based on efficiency and SPEED. The apartment seems to get soooo dirty (literally with dust and dirt from the open windows) everyday, I am constantly washing the 6 plates and cups we have for every meal (no dishwasher) and since I am used to doing jumbo loads of laundry I have now gotten used to doing multiple small loads a day. Laundry is always fun. I have to first wash (takes at least an hour), then hang it up to dry for a few minutes, and finally dry in my machine which takes between 1 1/2 - 2 hrs.

I have realized that my biggest mistake was not bringing the kiddos enough toys to play with. They have really gotten over all the ones we brought on the plane and majorly miss their toys. I am so thankful that we are heading back to the US in Aug. this way we can bring some more toys back before receiving all of our load on the boat in a couple of months. Now I actually can say that I have a little rhythm down and it seems to work well. I found a grocery store that I am going to stick with after trying out several different ones- thank God. I also feel like I know my way around a lot better. I think that walking around a lot has really helped with that.

God has placed several angels in my path this week. I have gotten to know 2 of my neighbors really well and they have helped me out immensely. My next door neighbor is great!!! She has grown children and speaks Spanish (what a blessing!). She has given me some great tips and is always willing to answer questions. We also met another neighbor from the third floor. She has 2 little boys that are 7 and 2. Our kids play down at the apartment playground and soccer field almost every afternoon. Viviana has had me and the kids over to play and is constantly giving me useful phone numbers that I need.

This week I also met another missionary family. They have 4 little gilrs (6,4,2, and 7 months). Allison and I became instant friends and we had a lot to talk about. The kids also hit it off. It is a shame that they are leaving tomorrow to go to TN for 10 months and do not know if they are coming back to Brasil. Allsion gave me an entire notebook full of information about this area (everything from common Portuguese phrases I would need to know to where to buy certain things in this area) because she lived a block away from our apartment for a year.

Friday I was worried about Joaquin because he had been up for two night in a row and was cranky all day. I thought that he had an ear infection. Now, going to a pediatrician in a new country is a whole new adventure for me. Thank goodness for my downstairs neighbor, Viviana. Not only did she call her pediatrician for me, but got them to squeeze me in. Allison just happened to stop by (God sent) as I was outside talking with Viviana about going to the pediatrician's. Allison offered to stay and watch all of my kiddos with hers while Jaime, Joaquin and I went to the Dr.. Viviana drove us to the pediatrician's office and waited with us in order to translate. Our health insurance is still kind of up in the air so we had to pay "particular" or as if we had no insurance.

It was such an interesting experience. I am so used to the pediatricians office in the US. We walked into the Dr's actual office. He took Joaquin's medical history (on a blank 5 by 7 index card, looked like gibberish) and then he did everything; he weighed him, took his temp and did a complete evaluation on him. We just watched and waited. He took his time, while the little booger laughed and smiled at him the whole time (after we briefed him extensively to act the part). After about 20 min. he told us that Joaquin's ears were a little pink and he was probably in pain whether from teething or a potential ear infection. He let us know that we could give him tylenol and come back the next day if need be.

The next day Jaime and I decided to not take him back in because he had a great night and has been good ever since, but I was very impressed last night at 8 pm when my phone rang. It was the doctor himself calling to check on Joaquin. I was moved by his attentiveness and that is definitely above and beyond the call of duty.

Today we went out and bought school supplies. That was an experience (pricey as well). We went to a store that was very much like Office Depot. A wonderful lady that worked there grabbed my three school lists and helped me find everything. Thank goodness because prior to getting her to help us I had spent 10 minutes looking for one item. We actually found 85% of what we needed at this one store. I was amazed again at how much we were required to purchase as far as materials and how expensive they were. Next we had to buy Isabella's school books. That took another 2 hours at a bookstore and we had to special order 3 of the books. The kiddos start school on Monday. They are all very excited. We bought their uniforms this week. They can't wait!! Next time I post I will have pics of them all dressed up for school. Please pray that this transition into a new school, in a new country, with a different language will go smoothly.

Settling In

This week we have settled in to somewhat of a routine. We are all recognizing stores and places around the apartment. The kids and Jaime walk to the "panaderia", which is the bakery 2 minutes from our apartment, and bring home fresh breakfast a few times a week. The kids are loving having this tradition with Papi. I am loving the fresh bread!!!! The kids attended their first VBS at church this week. I think that they had fun. It was very well organized and I was impressed with everything they did. It was based on a Max Lucado story.

We are all picking up more and more Portuguese each day. Some words sound like Spanish words with an American accent on them. It cracks me up!

Amy and I had an interesting nail experience today- ala Steel Magnolias. We decided to go and get our nails done and had some trouble finding a place that wasn't booked. Our neighborhood is packed with beauty salons, but apparently walk-ins aren't common. We finally found a place that "had openings". Where do I start? Amy sat down to start her manicure and the lady blew her nose and started the manicure. We new right from the start that this definitely wouldn't fly in the US. Amy did her best to not die laughing. Then it was my turn. We were surrounded by the liveliest group of women of all ages that I have seen in a while. They talked about all kinds of topics. The main one for today was how much they loved drinking beer, but that beer was much better when drinking with another person and not alone! I had a hard time picking a nail color, as you all know I love my dark colors. Here those do not seem to be the norm. It was mostly light and bright blues, purples and greens or your basic red. You will be happy to know that I did find a darker brown. We left the salon to many goodbyes and promoses that we would be back, but we won't. :)

Next to the nail salon, we found a quaint little coffee spot. It was delicious. We sat down and shared a coffee (for Amy) and of course hot chocolate. Today was very cold and windy so it was a perfect day for this. We can;t help noticing how everything here is so petite. The drinks came in shot size little coffee cups. It was adorable. We have noticed that everything here is smaller- from cars, to bathrooms, to portion sizes.

Jaime and I will be celebrating out 11 yr anniversary tomorrow and the kids and Amy decided to throw us a party tonight. It was awesome. We spent the night dancing, but first, of course, Isabella picked out "fancy" outfits for each of us to wear for the occasion. This will be one of those unforgettable nights!! All the girls had on long dresses. Isabella changed 3 times during the course of the party, like usual. The boys all got spiffy and put on Papi's cologne. Our apartment smelled wonderful. After we put the kiddos down, Amy volunteered to babysit and Jaime and I went out. We found a wonderful little romantic restaurant nearby. It reminded me of some of the places I hung out at when I lived in Colombia (Cafe and Crepes). Great ambiance, dim lighting, romantic and live music. The food was good too. I am so surprised to find that fondue seems to be very popular around here. We had fondue tonight!

I am really loving it here. I do have to say that I am still getting used to how everything takes so much longer. The one thing I miss like crazy is ICE. Our refrigerator has mini ice trays, but I am just not used to making ice. I love having really cold things to drink and that is just not happening here. We even found a corner store today that had a sign outside saying it sold ice cold drinks and had ice because ice is a commodity. Miss it!

Tomorrow we are going on a church picnic to celebrate the end of VBS.

It should be fun. I am coming to the realization that Amy is leaving this week and reality will probably set in more. I have enjoyed her being here so much and I couldn't of made
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transition as smoothly without her. What a blessing. I love it that we are so close. I will write more in a few days.

Here is a video of the dance we had to celebrate our 11 year anniversary.

Susan

First Week in Brasil

I am writing this blog to help keep everyone up to date on our latest happenings with our move to Brazil.

We left Florida on June 30 (we left our house in Buford on June 15th) After 2 longs weeks on the road the day finally came.

It was a sight to see how much luggage we had. We had 14 pieces of luggage.

Jaime and Juan did an awesome job of making sure that everything weighed the max 50 lbs. We had almost 700 lbs of luggage on each flight. The kids loved being in the airport and because our flight was delayed we even had a chance to pull out the carry along swing that Marcela gave us and let Joaquin relax for a while.

We were a sight to see in the airport!!! Thank God Amy flew out of Miami with us because it was a long trip. The kids did great on the flight from Miami to Atlanta. In Atlanta we barely had time to get something to eat and get on the plane. We ate on the plane.

Santiago proceeded to spill most of his rice all around him and the flight attendants did their best to remind us that he had made a mess. Oh well, kids will be kids. It had been such a long day that the kiddos fell asleep quickly (with the help of our friend Benadryl). The longest flight was for Joaquin. I feel like he did great but it was long for him. It was a blessing that NABC had purchased a seat for him-that really helped. We took up and entire row on the plane. We finally arrived in Sau Paulo. Getting off the plane we were trying to hurry to make it through immigration, but our stroller took forever to get unpacked. We did get preferential treatment for having so many kids and made it through immigration without any major problems. Getting our luggage was a whole other ordeal.

Jaime had to push his way through all kinds of people in order to find all of our 14 bags. We kept counting and recounting and finally realized that 2 bags were missing. They were the ones we had checked in under Amy’s name. Delta gave her a lovely toilletries bag and then let us know that the bags would arrive the next day to our hotel. We had no idea how handy that little bag was going to end up being.

It was a good thing that Joao (the man that works for NABC in Brazil) had rented a small bus for us because we barely fit with all of the bags. We had a great drive to Campinas. It is beautiful. We arrived to a nice hotel. Room service was the way to go for the first day because Jaime had a lot to do to get our apartment and car situation taken care of. The food was awesome and I am already loving all of the fruit juices I can get. The kids got their first taste of what it is like to live and breathe Brazilian football on the second day we were here. We decided to get up and head to the mall to try and find furniture. We knew Brazil was playing later that morning but had no idea that the entire city was going to be at a standstill. Walmart was the only thing open in the entire mall and we were the only people there, other than the employees. When we saw that they all started leaving their different posts and setting up chairs in front of the big screen tvs and closing, we knew it was time to go. We left Walmart as the Brazilian world cup soccer game was starting and we were literally the only people out. We went back to the hotel, where we watched the game. Unfortunately, Brazil lost. We still got to hear a lot of fireworks during the game in order to help cheer their team on. Fireworks are a common occurrence here, as we have learned. They are set off at all hours of the day and night for no particular reason. I guess that it is just a very festive culture. J After the game we went to see our apartment. The kids were excited beyond belief. We cleaned for a little while, because it is unbelievable how much dust and dirt gets in the apartment because of the balcony and windows always being open. That night we went to ETNA, which is just like IKEA. Thank God, we were able to order everyone a bed and couches. The only downside was that it took FOREVER. I think we were there 3 hours. We then headed back to the hotel. The kids wanted pizza so we decided to order some Pizza Hut. I couldn’t believe that 2 pizzas cost us $50. Let’s just say that food here is really expensive and eating out is even more expensive. We fully enjoyed our pizza.

Saturday we checked out of the hotel and went to the apartment. We needed to run back to the mall and buy appliances. I was set on getting a fridge, washer and dryer. Most people here do not have dryers at all and some people use washers. When we got to the mall we realized that it is the place to be on a Saturday ( or not the place to be if you have issues with personal space). It was packed unlike the day before. We had lunch at the mall. The mall in and of itself is huge and the food court is as well (3 times the size of our previous mall in Buford). We went to a restaurant that is very typical around here, it is kind of buffet style, but had great healthy food and at the end they just weight your plate and you pay by weight. I loved it because it had the Brazilian steaks and meat and great veggies and salads to choose from. Yum Yum!! After lunch, we spent another 3 hours buying appliances. God was watching over us because we found a place that actually sold dryers which we had previously thought we were going to have to ship. I am working on getting back into the Latin American culture, where everything takes longer. I automatically had taken for granted that in the US everything is fast and you can get in and out of places. That is not the case here. The kids were stretched to their limit after our little 3 hour shopping experience (fortunately they had TV's at the store, so they found a spot and watched their much loved "tele"). Amy was such a great help entertaining them and just hang out while we did everything that we had to. We made the poor decision to”run into Walmart” to pick up a couple of things before leaving. That was a mistake. That took forever as well. I think that we were there another hour. We bought some "camping mattresses" to sleep on in the apartment until we got our beds that weren’t getting there for 5 days. The first night at the apartment was interesting.

The kids are troopers and did not seem to mind that we were sleeping on the floor. We love the apartment and the area that it is in. We went out that night to look for a place near by to eat. We found a place around the corner (literally). It is a hotdog stand that opens every day from 5pm to 5am. It is called Cachorro, but these are not ordinary hotdogs. No these dogs are accessorized with anything you can think of, and they all come with a THICK layer of mashed potatoes. We didn't catch that part. They are very big meals, so we will probably split some next time. Great for the late night folks.

We went to church on Sunday for the first time in Brazil. The kids had a great time. All 3 of the older ones stayed together. Joaquin attempted the nursery. I had a good time talking to the two ladies in the nursery with Joaquin. Amy and Mauro actually got to hear the entire Sunday school and preaching. The church is very missions oriented and is about a 10 min walk from the apartment. The people were extremely friendly and welcoming. The missionaries had us over for lunch and we had a good time visiting with them. They were a blessing because they lent us sleeping bags and an air mattress to use until we get our own beds. That night we had dinner at the apartment.

Monday we waited all day for our washer, dryer and refrigerator, that never came. Oh well, that seems to be common here as far as everything running on Latin American time- late! Tuesday, was very exciting. We started the day by going to the kids school. We got a tour and met a few of the teacher assistants and administrators. The most exciting part for them was buying their uniforms. Isabella and Santiago tried theirs on and didn’t take them off for the rest of the day. We had a wonderful surprise because our appliances got here!! Yeah!!! We got the appliances and couldn’t use them because the plugs weren’t compatible with our outlets. The maintenance man in the building said he could come Wed. and install them for us.

Wed. we waited for the maintenance man and then he came. Jaime was gone to work . When I looked over the man had cut off the plug from my new appliances and was saying something about it being wrong to me in Portuguese. I totally didn’t understand anything that the man was saying to me. I showed him what Jaime had bought at the electric store and then I saw in his facial expression that he had made a mistake. He said he would be back. Finally after a little while he came back, reattached the plugs and fixed everything so that it would work. We started using our washer immediately because we hadn’t done laundry for almost a week. Jaime and I decided to go out for the extension we needed to buy for the dryer . When we came back Amy was standing at the door with the baby and all the kids were screaming about something beings wrong with the washer. Apparently it had been dancing around the laundry room . We then thought we got a washer that didn’t work. After a few phone calls Jaime finally figured out what was wrong and got it working. I am proud to say that we now have a working washer and dryer and I have done at least 10 loads in the last day.

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Yesterday our furniture finally arrived and we all got to sleep on real beds last night (Thurs. night). Woohooo!!!

Today, Friday, was a holiday so we took the time to drive to a “fazenda/farm) outside of the city. The kids played outside and rode horses.

Then we walked around the big park here in Campinas (Lago Taquaral). It is huge and we now know that on all holidays and weekends people just hand out at the parks and do exercise. I am amazed at what a big mix of people there are. There is not a certain stereotype that I would say , “This is a Brazilian person.” (white, black, asian, etc). We do attract attention as we go around, with our mega stroller and 4 kids. There are not many people with four kids. As I walk down the street with my stroller and three kids grabbing on to the sides of it on ropes that Jaime rigged, I know that I am definitely not in the US anymore. There are sidewalks everywhere and I am loving the walking and closeness of everything. I am understanding a little more Portuguese every day. I am amazed by how God takes care of us even in small ways that he knows that we need. I know that we will be depending on him more and more each day as we get acclimated to this new country. For now we are all happy to be here and I feel like this is where God wants us.