what next?

I know if I try to give you a play by play until I'm caught up to date I will never keep this up.  So, I'll use lots of pictures and few words to make the next three months as painless as possible.

The first thing we did when we got to Brazil is clean.  I thought the landlord just left our house filthy, but turns out it only takes a few days for houses to get that dusty.  We spent an entire day sweeping and mopping - it's a big house...oh, and unpacking our 20 duffel bags.

Then to the nitty gritty...school supplies.  I bought all the school supplies I would need back in the US, but unfortunately they are in the air shipment which will take a MONTH AND A HALF to arrive!  So we find a paper store in a mess of one way streets and spend a small fortune on wacked-out school supplies.  Nothing looks the same and it's often super flimsy and very expensive.  In my blog I will be referring to PERKS and QUIRKS about Brazil.  I don't want to always be negative, but some things must be said.  QUIRK: Brazil's stores specialize way too much!  For instance there will be an entire store dedicated to plastic trash cans, or a store specializing in fire extinguishers, or in this case paper.  You buy pens piece by piece from a glass case!  Two hours later, with a screaming two year old (the abacus was the cure) we left with little in our pockets and 1200 sheet protectors - they are way into those.  So much for not many words.  I heart OfficeMax.

Time to celebrate Ryan and Lucy's birthdays.  They got the shaft this year!  Without a working oven or a single useful kitchen tool, we resorted to a bakery birthday cake.  It looked beautiful but wasn't that great.  Lucy turned 2 and Ryan turned 36!  How did we get that old?  I'm one of those old ladies that tells the young ones that "life goes so fast".  It really does, but they won't listen just like I didn't.

First day of school!  Our kids are going to Esfera International School.  We are really happy there aside from an occasional hiccup.  The kids have half of their curriculum in English and the other half in Portuguese.  Yikes!  It's been a confusing first 3 months, but they are starting to get it.  I'm so proud of them.  I know how my head hurts after just 3 hours of all Portuguese at church once a week!