Visit Home

My list of things I'm going to do during our first visit home.

1. Buy 20 lbs of bacon and eat some every day we are in the USA.
2. Buy 10 jars of peanut butter and repeat #1.
3. Go to Target and Somerset Mall with the express purpose of buying nothing. I simply want to walk around in awe of all the things I could buy if I wanted to.
4. Drive anywhere with no fear of having to maneuver the Hill of Death.
5. Wash dishes in a dishwasher.
6. Enjoy all the land and space we have in Michigan where there is nothing except wildlife and flora and fauna.
7. Make it 30 lbs of bacon.
8. Starbucks House coffee. Grande. Black.
9. Recycle something.
10. Enjoy the smell of Michigan.
11. Seeing options for underwear that are NOT thong related.
12. Speak English without folks staring at me.

Kids lists to follow....

Go for it kid...

Before reading any further, I'm behind in posting pics of all the wonderful things we've done in May and June. I apologize...but only a little.

See, we are busy living it all and doing it all so that we can capture the video and the pictures. So, I'm truly too busy having fun and making memories to post it all.

HOWEVER, I promise to do better. I've actually developed a plan and carved some time out that isn't at the end of the day (when I'm about to fall over from exhaustion!) when it'll be effective to put up the photos and articles. :)

Today's post is a little different though.

I try to answer the elusive question "Why?"

1. Why did you leave all your family and friends?
2. Why Brazil?
3. Why leave your job?
4. Why leave your house?
5. Why uproot your children like that?

My answer is simple. 

Why not?

This usually gives people a smooshed up face and then out comes the avalanche of additional questions. 

1. Well, er, ah...I mean, isn't hard? 
2. Aren't your children sad and confused?
3. Aren't you tired?
4. What will you do when you get back to The States?
5. Don't you miss everyone?
6. What DO YOU DO all day?
7. How do you get around? I mean, you don't speak Portuguese right?

etc. etc. etc.

So then I ride their wave of confusion a little bit with them. Almost like I imagine a surfing coach rides on the same board with you. Helping you to try and get the feel of the balance needed.

I begin to provide some easy answers to the questions above.

1. Yes. It's been very hard.

2. Sometimes the kids are sad. Sometimes the kids are confused. We have amazing conversations though. And I am learning so much about being in tune with my little nuggets. It's really cool how much they are teaching me!

3. I'm exhausted. Like a "Newborn-Baby-At-Home" exhausted times 100.

4. I haven't thought about what we'll do when we get back to The States. After all, we are living in Brazil and I'm just starting to figure that all out.

5. We totally miss our family and friends.

6. If I gave you a list of all the things I do all day, you'd be exhausted too. Suffice it to say I'm currently the walking mortar of our family unit.

7. I don't speak Portuguese, this is true. Currently I'm using A LOT of charades and Portu-English to communicate. [See #3 above].

Feeling a bit peevish about providing these basic answers I started thinking about why we did move to Brazil. First, the obvious answers popped up.

1. Great career option for Hubby.
2. Great sabbatical for me.
3. Fiat provides some wonderful financial incentives for this type of experience.
4. Brazilian weather = fabulous!

After these initial answers, I have to go a bit deeper into my mind (soul, third eye?). The next level really looks a bit more selfish, but after conferring with Aaron, he's definitely in the same space. I feel confident listing them here.

1. Avoid "Groundhogs Day" in previous lifestyle.
2. Amazing experience for our family and our children - even the hard parts.
3. Fulfill dreams of travelling.
4. Fulfill dreams of actually LIVING somewhere else, not just vacationing.
5. Exposure to learning and living in another language.
6. So many studies say that people, especially children, who have international experiences are more empathetic, more ambitious, more aware, more _______.

As I dig even deeper for answers, I seem to circle back to the beginning answer of "Why not?"

Finally, this morning I came upon a TEDx talk that provided for me, THE BEST answer. 

As humans, we don't want regret. Or, more specifically, we don't want to have guilt about regret. I know that many times when making a decision I ask myself "When I'm 70, how do I want to remember this going down?" That gut reaction of what my future self might say about my current self is where I truly begin to find the answers to my current questions. My future self provides clarity through the quagmire and also says, "Hey, don't fret about the fact that you didn't get the pounded silver handles on your new cabinets. Trust me, when you're 70, you won't care about that anyway." High-five Future Self! Got it!

Larry Smith is the speaker in this TedTalk. I don't know much about him yet. I will be doing some research on him to find out more. I like his style and I like what he says. At the 12:40-ish mark he states:

"Go for it kid, just like I did."

Once you watch this 15 minute video, you will hopefully understand why we decided to come live in Brazil.

Larry Smith - Why you will fail to have a great career

DEFINITELY a great 15 minutes to spend today!

Max Turns 3 - Toy Story Style

Max turned the Big 3 on Tuesday, May 20th this past week.

His Preschool class doesn't really do class birthday parties at school, so we just had a big blow out for him at home...with the family.

We took lots of videos and pics, so enjoy!

Some things to know about Max:
1. He LOVES to be in his PJ's at all times of the day. So you'll see in these videos and pictures, that's what he gets to wear! It is his birthday after all!
2. He has a great habit of grabbing your face by both cheeks, oh so gently, and saying "I'm so glad you are here," then planting a big toddler smooch on your lips. It really is WONDERFUL!
3. His favorite food is anything chocolate and the homemade tortilla chips I make for after-school snack.
4. He loves to jump into the pool (See Pool Time Fun post for videos) and is actually very fast with his Spiderman intertube.
5. He has not gotten over his abject fear of stuffed mascot like people. Think Chuck E. Cheese type costumes. Max is still not a big fan.

Some great photos and videos of our exciting 3rd Birthday party in Brazil! :)


Max Opening Gifts


Celebrate Good Times, COME ON!


Max and his cake and candles




  Max Playing with new toys



  Max montage, Thank you Google!

Festa Junina 2015

What the heck is Festa Junina?

I was asking myself this very question until I sat down and did some 'Googling' to figure it out.

Here's what I found (in summary):
Festa Junina (can be known as festa São João) is a HUGE PARTY celebrating Saint Anthony, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Peter for their various parts in The Nativity and in bringing rain and good crops to the farmers. This party originated mostly in the rural and country areas where farming is prevalent. 

There is a lot of emphasis on quadrilha, which is similar to square dancing; and country-western type foods like corn, BBQ, sweets and popcorn.

People dress up in countryside garb, and may blacken a tooth or two to complete the look. Additional costume looks are pigtails, freckles, real cowboy looking clothes and definitely a cowboy hat and boots. One of the quadrilha dances involves a bride and groom, while others are coupled up to dance around the happy couple. 

At the school, it's a BIG party with the PTA having it as their biggest fundraiser of the year. The food was absolutely delicious and worth every minute of waiting in line. Nothing like having your Brazilian Meat on a Stick at a school function! With that beautiful BBQ smell wafting through the air...who could ask for more?!

Each grade has a special dance and works on it for about 2 months before this event. It is a serious deal around here. 

Which is what will make our videos and pictures even more entertaining.

 * One of our kids doesn't move a lick. Just stands and cries.
 * One is in a frilly dress which she hasn't worn since she was old enough to put her own clothes on. AND she nails the dance number too!
 * One is dancing her heart out and waving around a pink cowboy hat like she does this kind of stuff all the time.

In other words, it was a TOTALLY AWESOME DAY!


Charlotte Dancing Wonderfully!
She has on a beautiful purple and teal dress, about center screen.
At the end of the last video, Char is asked to go grab her parent and bring them to the dance floor to dance with them. AARON ROCKED IT OUT! Unfortunately, my phone was full at that point and I couldn't capture the amazing dance moves that Aaron and Char were sporting. :( Suffice to say, the two of them looked AMAZING!


Max NOT Dancing :)
You can see he is the little boy on the far left side.




Izzy's Beautiful Dancing
Izzy is on the center right of your frame with a pink cowboy hat and teal plaid shirt. (The video on my phone is far from ideal. Just another reminder of a purchase I'll be making back in The States this July... :) )





Regular photos for your enjoyment. :)

Homemade Peanut Butter

I know I'm a bit behind on posting pics of the kids...working on it, I SWEAR! 

But I thought I would share this morning's adventures in my kitchen.

Peanut butter, as we Americans know it, is VERY expensive here. Take a look at your jar of Planter's All Natural no-mix peanut butter and imagine paying $12 for it, ON SALE! I'm not exaggerating, that's what we got.

Of course, I've splurged. I mean, we cannot live without peanut butter, we are a family with three small kids after all. But I got to thinking, making your own can't be that hard. And a bag of shelled peanuts is like $1 here...so there has to be a way.

Enter this find : Homemade Peanut Butter

BRILLIANT!

So, my morning went like this:

1. Kids on bus.
2. Yoga
3. Roast 2 cups peanuts on baking sheet for about 8-10 min at 350 F
4. Oven only works in Celsius...wing temperature setting.
5. Sip coffee.
6. Put in peanuts and set timer for 5 min.
7. At 3 minutes in, smell burning.
8. Run to kitchen and pull on oven handle to open door.
9. Break oven handle, complete with interior heat glass coming out and 'broken' screw from handle falling down somewhere into inner oven workings.
10. Finagle way to open door using two pot-holders and a spatula.
11. Find that peanuts now look like coffee beans and house smells..interesting.
12. Trash peanuts.
13. Figure oven is still on and now I can still open/close door - try again.
14. Reduce temperature, significantly.
15. Roast 2 cups peanuts on baking sheet.
16. Stand by oven for about 1 1/2 minutes to roast peanuts.
17. Sip coffee.
18. Take out peanuts and make recipe. Turns out ok, not as smooth as I like, but definitely has the right flavor.

GREAT! I'm going to try this with cashews, but not roast them. Clearly I need to turn off the oven to cool for a bit so I can try and put it back together.

1. 2 cups cashews directly into food processor and follow recipe.
2. Hhhhmmmmm...after adding oil and honey, it's not smooth. Maybe just some water...
3. Blend.
4. BAD IDEA to add water after oil for peanut butter - but this cashew toffee candy is going to be DELICIOUS!
5. Decide this might not be the best morning for peanut butter making and start vacuuming instead. I'll need to wash the floors too in hopes to try and rid the house of burnt peanut smell before anyone gets home.

By the way, it's now 9:30am here.

How's your morning going? :)

Casualty of home economics

Frosted Flakes

A really exciting thing for us in Brazil right now is when we find something that is a little USA with some Brazil.

I was never a big Frosted Flakes fan in the US, but it was nice to see something familiar.

Additionally, we have found that as Max get's older, not only is he working on his Portuguese here in Brazil, but we will still have to help him out with his English too.

Have you had your Frosted Snakes today? ;)

Moving In Day!

Never have I been so happy to see a vacuum in my whole entire life!

The vacuum signifies:
1. Our air shipment arrived in Brazil and is unloaded in our new condo.
2. I can vacuum! Brazil doesn't really believe in vacuums like we do in the U.S. This is more of a broom/sweep country. To this girl, THAT just don't cut it!
3. I am standing INSIDE my condo and not in THE HOTEL!!!

So whilst it is just a Dyson...it's the most beautiful Dyson I have ever seen.

Now...if I could just figure out the damn electrical conversion stuff and plug it into the right outlet to turn on...ahhh...I'll label that as Phase 2 Moving In activity. ;)

We did receive our sea shipment as well. So everything we packed to come to Brazil has officially made it into our condo! Just about every expat and Brazilian has said the following to us:

"You find a condo in 3 days, the owner accepts the offer, AND your stuff is here before 3 months? WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?" Apparently, things NEVER go this quickly in regards to moving and shipping. All I can say is THANK GOD! Because 12 weeks in hotel rooms, eating out every meal - NO CAN DO AMIGO!

Kids did a great job on moving in day given that it was total chaos and lots of stuff. They were great little workers and able to help unpack stuff. Truly, all three of them did a great job. AND Char lost her bottom tooth during the day! It was pretty funny when she came out of her room all bloody and smiling! HA!

So we rewarded them with some major park time at our condo park - YEAH! AND some pool time in the three outdoor pools. Aaron had them all line up and taught them how to dive into a pool correctly. Max had his own version of 'correctly'.

He would line up with the girls.
They would dive in.
He would stutter step around to the stairs and walk down them.
Then, he would jump in from about the second step, which is already in the water.

He was more on the 'wading in' side of things instead of the 'diving in' version.