24 July, 2009

Tchau


Tchau, Mama!

Tonight I'm up alone-Noah and Soph are zonked out in their newly bunked beds. Paul, too, is in dream land after being up very late last night and dutifully fetching our service door key from our porteiro early this morning so I could get our milk delivery behind the locked door. That could be a whole other post-the Brazilian double door system (service door versus social door) and milk delivery (possibly the best thing ever), but it will have to wait for another evening when list making, packing, and ironing aren't consuming my time. Tomorrow I leave for Seattle for an Everyday Math conference-stimulating, no? I'm excited for the trip. Just having traveled with two little ones I realize what a luxury 16+ hours of sleeping, reading, and otherwise doing whatever I want to do in my little airplane seat will be. Paul will be alright-today we stocked the fridge, yesterday we had this new member of our family delivered, and Katty will be here Monday-Thursday 9-5 to lend a hand. The weather has been just plain awful here-cold and rainy-and Seattle's forecast looks HOT and sunny-the perfect last minute escape before we head back on August 3rd. I've promised to return with bags filled with mac and cheese, Coffeemate creamer, and Hungry Hippos (which I may regret later). Noah's promised to remind Paul to pick up the milk waiting in the morning and Sophie declared she'll "watch my earrings and necklaces" so I feel like I can leave confidently-knowing my accessories are in good hands.

Sophie is the New Shirley


Sophie has become rather taken with Shirley Temple lately. I think she first learned about her when I would randomly sing "Animal Crackers in My Soup" (at least the two lines that I know) and eventually showed her this video. She's probably seen the video close to 20 times now-usually watching it 4-5 times in a row before all of us (except for Sophie) tire of it. Sophie often uses the same expression "Oh my goodness, oh my goodness" just like her hero and throughout the day often comments on Shirley's behavior ("She stands on the table!" and "She bangs her fork!" are favorite criticism) in the aforementioned video. As much as I get awfully tired of the same video and song week after week I am certain that Shirley beats Hannah Montana in our house any day of the week!

21 July, 2009

Happy Birthday Paul!

We celebrated Paul's birthday yesterday at the local chuhascarria (Brazilian meat bar) Poncho Verde. It is always an easy place to go-it opens early (6 o'clocks is early in this area), always has good picanha, and the waiters are about the friendliest, best babysitters around. Not many people are back in town yet, but we met up with a few friends and their kids and had a great time!
This handy brochure tells you exactly what part of the cow you're enjoying-the illustration with the name of the part (in English and Portuguese) is very helpful!
The green button above means "go" (as in, bring on the meat!)...flip it over and it is red for when you've had enough.

Noah uses his tongs expertly to get some meat!

Sophie's getting the hang of it too!


Happy Birthday!!

16 July, 2009

Night at the Museum

Noah and I went out for a little Brazilian culture and history today. We went to the Museo do Futebol in downtown Sao Paulo. I was pretty impressed. It was well done - even to a gringo who speaks and reads limited Portuguese and his 5-year old son.

There were lots of good photo-ops at the museum, which is in a building that is attached to the Estadio Municipal in Pacaembu. You could actually walk right out into the stadium from the museum. The problem was that when I pulled the camera out to take some pics of Noah, it had a dead battery. So photo below of Noah and me is the only evidence of our trip. The photo was taken in a penalty kick cage. It's just like those speed pitch cages at baseball stadiums in the U.S. Only here, there's a virtual goalkeeper trying to stop your ball. Standing in line for about 30 minutes and watching other people kick demonstrated that the keeper block about half of the attempts. Noah's kick? As they say, GGOOOOOLLLL!!!!!

Web Show 49312

14 July, 2009

Photo Dump

I cleaned out the photo card on our nice camera. The one we left here in Brazil. I get it-Paul's totally right-we can't cart this nice camera across the world only to have it break. But, to be honest, I was less than impressed with the quality of our new camera's pictures. I like my lightening fast shutter and never-see-red-eyes button. Here are a few favorites from the cleaning session:



Okay, this is from our new camera, but it is so stinkin' cute I couldn't resist. Clearly.
Who needs organized summer camps? We can scuba dive right in our apartment.
Sophie' s working on her poker face.

Some people have chardonnay-I have Katty. And chardonnay.

At the risk of this turning this into a blog about our great kids, I must admit that everything, everything is SOOO much easier this year. The language, the culture, the shopping-everything-is much easier. I'm sure we'll have lots of adventures and ahem, experiences-but thankfully not every hour of every day. This is good for me! And...I'm this close to buying a dryer for our apartment. Returning from a month long trip with 8 suitcases of wrinkled, sometimes dirty clothes will do that to a girl!


12 July, 2009

And We're Back!

After a whirlwind trip to Austin and Virginia (with a few days in Ohio) we are back in Sao Paulo. Thankfully, our flight back to Brazil was much smoother (minus the two hour delay taking off) than our trip to the States. The kids slept most of the trip and by the time they were waking up we were landing. Paul wrangled our 8 70 lb. suitcases without too much trouble (much easier than the 19 we had last year when his arm was in a sling!), we caught a taxi, and we made home without too much traffic. While Paul and the driver were unpacking the trunk of the taxi the kids' favorite porteiro (doorman) came over to help. Noah and Soph greeted Natty with big hugs and we were in the apartment in less than a minute. The last few days have been spent unpacking, organizing, grocery shopping, and general regrouping after being gone for 30 days. The kids have transitioned well. Truthfully, I was a bit worried. During our last days in Virginia, we heard lots of "I want to stay here" and "Why do we live in Brazil?". In the airport both kids cried for a few different stretches, missing all of their grandparents and cousins. It is difficult to explain to them that we have not been living in "real life" for the last month-real life isn't filled new experiences, sleepovers, late bedtimes, ice cream, and FUN everyday. Just when you visit after a year of being away! We are planning to return at Christmas and I think that helped ease their minds a bit. Leaving for 5 months is a lot more manageable than a whole year! Even for us adults. We had a great time, but it is nice to actually put clothes in drawers, have a bedtime routine, and cook dinner. Both kids were hoping to start school the day we returned to Sao Paulo, but we have three more weeks before we head back. We contemplated a trip to either Buenos Aires or the Amazon, but quickly realized we should take advantage of these quiet weeks to run errands, tend to appointments, and generally relax before things get busy again. We may make a trip to Campos do Jordao, but it would only be for a few days. We only had a camera the second half of our trip, but here are a few favorites:

The cousins (minus Olivia)


Sleepovers


Williamsburg

Fourth of July Fun