the haunting

All weekend this blog has been haunting me.  It's a whole lot of pressure.  I kept thinking, "crap, I started a blog!"  It's like getting a pet, so fun in the beginning, but then it starts to eat, poop, whine and bark.  Ask any of my siblings and they'll tell you I was notorious for poor treatment of pets - never intentionally of course unless you count swinging the Hailey's cat around in circles by her tail.  But I was young.  I learned to control that urge.  I've always loved my pets, but I was like a teen mom heading off to party (in my case a sleepover) and the last thing on my mind was feeding Corky.  So this is my new pet. Love it, but have to wash my hands every time I touch it...I'm mostly kidding...about the blog.

So it's Sunday.  I have had a wake-up-confused-and-groggy nap and my weekly piano playing is behind me.  This was the first Sunday where I've played all the hymns myself!  I'm quite proud.  The only reason this happened is because the lady that chooses the hymns couldn't get the themes from the bishopric member so she could choose the said hymns.  By Tuesday, I pulled a Tawanda (Fried Green Tomatoes reference) and took matters into my own hands.  Apparently the bureaucracy that plagues all of Brazil spills over into our church affairs as well.  So I chose the hymns - and the easiest ones I could find.  They threw a wrench in my plans and told me Come Follow Me isn't a sacrament hymn (I disagree) about a minute before I was supposed to play it.  So I did a quick change to a sacrament hymn that I already knew.  Look at how I just roll with the punches!!  Anyway, I suddenly feel like blogging again - sans stress and a little sweaty and dry mouthed from my monster nap.

Ben & Thomas had a camp out in the hammocks last night.  Ben reports that it was like sleeping on a cloud.  I think he'll make a good sailor!  These pictures are totally staged; the boys weren't really sleeping.  Thomas has his father's "eye condition" that makes it so he can NEVER keep them open for a picture with a flash.  We tried probably ten times.  The minute I woke up this morning I headed out with my camera to try to get some real candids, but they were already inside playing video games. Darn them!

Yesterday we had a fun get-together with some friends at the Churrascuria Sao Bento.  Here's a PERK: Brazilian restaurants cater to kids big time!  Sao Bento is a big banquet hall that has an amazing playground for the kids outside.  We ate delicious picanha, fried bananas & rice and had some nice company while the kids went wild outside.  After lunch we had a good old game of American football.  Turns out the Swedes were some of the best players!  Ben had the last play - and it was very cool.  Trust me.  We were actually there to watch the airshow that Embraer had scheduled that day, but it was a little cloudy so there wasn't much airplane action.  We did see the employees of Sao Bento put out a brush fire that started about 30 feet down the hill from the playground!

I need to think like a blogger when I'm taking pictures.  I'm realizing my pictures kind of stink.  I don't have a single picture of me or Henry...he was off in an amazing tree with a 20 foot circumference. I didn't measure it, but I don't think I'm exaggerating either.  I'll do better next time.