Colorado....Here We Come!!!!

Yes, we're leaving tonight for the U.S. and Colorado. I think I have everything packed that we need. PLUS, we've got a whole suitcase that is empty to fill it up with "goodies" from America. We're excited to see friends and family while we're there. My parents are flying in from North Dakota on Thursday for a few days, so that will be great.

We're also excited to eat some food that we are missing. I'm excited to get to the Houston airport and find a Starbucks. Then my lunch request for when we arrive in Denver is Chipotle. I'm sure by Monday we'll have eaten Chinese as well. :) There aren't any Mexican restaurants here, and the only Chinese restaurant they have here is called "China in Box", that we haven't tried. So I have a feeling we'll be eating a lot of Mexican and Chinese food the next week.....and of course we'll have to go to Red Robin for a cheese burger.

One of the things I'm looking forward to most is going to church and of course worship. All that I can say is that Jared Anderson better be leading worship at least one time when we're there. (Jared if you're reading this and you're out of town for any reason, could you please re-arrange your schedule to be in church the next 2 weekends??? PLEASE???? Thanks.) Sorry, just had to put a plea out there. :)

My only worry is if the airlines are going to let me take milk past security for Camden. He's lactose intolerant and allergic to soy milk, so he needs special milk that I can't just buy in the airport. And he needs more than just 1 sippy cup full for 2 days of travel, so I have an unopened and sealed container of the milk he drinks with us and 2 sippy cups full. Hmmmm. I'm going to try anyways. Before we've taken formula, but he's been off that for a long time and last time we tried he wouldn't drink it. SO, pray that they let us on board with Camden's milk.

Well, we're off. I'll keep you updated on the milk situation. Oh yeah, also pray that Camden sleeps well tonight on the plane....Thanks!!! :)

The Final Pics of Camden's Room

Ok, down to the last pictures of the house. I still don't have one of the front. I'll make that another post, another day. I'll also add a pic of Camden.....just because. :)



Here are 2 more big blessings. Like I said before, usually houses here don't have ANY storage space or closets. You have to buy them separately and install them yourself, then take them with you if you move. Well, in Camden's room, the owner left 2 HUGE "closets", that are very nice.



And here's Camden....

More pics of the house

We'll now continue with the tour of the rest of the house......

Here is our bedroom. We got all of this furniture from Renato's parents. BLESSINGS!



Right now, this is what we have in our office/guest bedroom. Another big blessing in this room is the desk. The owner left it here for us. Thank you owner!



Here is the guest bathroom. Both bathrooms are identical, this one just has less "stuff" in it. They are nice bathrooms with big showers. The only problem is there is NO storage space at all. For some reason, every house/apartment I've lived in since I have been married has had pretty much no storage. I guess I should be used to it by now. :)





Now onto the dining room. We purchased a new table and chair set, and "buffet" table. We bought the buffet table because I needed a place to store all of my teaching books and materials for teaching English, since the dining room also serves as the classroom.



Last but not least, the living room. This room is actually pretty large. There are 3 big blessings in this room. The couch, love seat, and TV are all from Renato's parents. Thank you my dear mother-in-law and father-in-law!!





OK, I didn't do Camden's room yet. I'll save that for next time. I also should take a picture from the outside of the house, even though there's not much to see. You can only see the front gate. That's how houses are in Brazil. There are no front yards open to the street. The tall gates or walls surrounding your house are what you see. Let me tell you how much I miss how beautiful front lawns make a city look. I'll get used to this eventually though.

So, next time we'll continue on with our tour.....

Pictures of our House

I've finally gotten time to take some pictures of the house we're renting. It is SUCH a blessing! Also, I mentioned before about furnishing the home, and how we didn't have anything. Well, thanks to Renato's parents wanting to buy new things for their house, we received many items we needed from them. This was a HUGE blessing!



I'll start with the kitchen. This is a picture of our kitchen entrance, the stove, and sink. If the stove looks small, that's because it is. It's so small a medium sized pizza touches on the sides of the oven. No turkey roasting in this one! Brazil does have larger stoves, but we went for cheaper, not bigger.



In Brazil everyone needs to buy their drinking water, so we had to buy the water dispenser, which is more expensive then I thought it would be. We also had to buy a microwave, which are about 4x's more expensive then the U.S. Ouch!



Here are 2 huge blessings! The kitchen has cupboards and shelving, which in Brazil, you usually have to buy. Yay! Also, we got the fridge from Renato's parents. Yay again!



More storage and cupboards. Praise God!

Ok, I'm just going to do the kitchen for now. My computer is acting funny. But you at least got a glimpe of part of the house. Yes, it's all tile, which has good points and bad points. (bad=VERY cold floors, good=easy to clean)

Stay tuned because there will be more pictures and blessings to come!

Happy Mother's Day Grandma!!

Camden's new game is to climb onto or into everything he can. Here are some pics of the new game. Happy Mother's Day Grandma! See you in 2 weeks!

Camden is helping us pack up to move to our new house!



Camden is helping Mom do dishes. :)



Isn't this a great picture?

Beyond Frustrated

OK, I have to take a minute or two to vent a bit. I just spent the past 55 minutes ironing 3 sheets and 4 pillow cases. FIFY-FIVE MINUTES!!!!!!!!!! ARRRRGH!!!!

I had never even attempted to iron sheets before. Taken directly out of the dryer, they aren't too bad. REMINDER: NO DRYER IN BRAZIL! And since we've been living with Renato's parents, his mom has ironed all the sheets, basically because it's her home and she just does it. Well, I bought 2 sets of sheets a few weeks back in preparation for moving into our own house. I washed them yesterday. Today I was simply going to iron them. How hard could it be anyway? (How I laugh at this statement now, not a funny laugh, but a very frustrated one!)

I first did the pillow cases. Not bad at all. All the sheets were VERY wrinkled though, so even the pillow cases took awhile. Then I tried my first top sheet. A little difficult to not get it dragging all over the floor, but I threw it over my shoulder and continued to iron. I only did one side, already folded, so it still had wrinkles, but it folded into a nice little square. (Just like Renato's mom does it.)

Then came the dreaded fitted sheet. Oh. My. Gosh. Prior to attempting to iron it, I could never even fold one. Every time I tried really hard to fold it nicely, it still seemed to end up in a ball of chaos. Well, lets just say it had me VERY close to using some not so "nice" words. I have no idea how I even did it. It looks awful, but I at least got it into sort of a square when folding it. Argh!

Have you ever tried ironing sheets...........or for that matter a fitted sheet? Well, if you want to become frustrated beyond belief, just try it. I think that the fitted sheet will soon become the item of laundry that will get the "wrinkle releaser" sprayed upon it. (A gift from my friend from CO.)

I feel much better now. I really needed to get that off my chest. Now I can go about my day without thinking about ironing any more sheets. Until next week, anyway. I think I'll go Google, "How to iron a fitted sheet" and watch some demonstrations. Hopefully next time it won't be so frustrating.

Cha de Panela

Cha de Panela, in English it's literal translation is Tea of Pot, but actually it's the name for a Bridal Shower. :) I'm so blessed that 3 1/2 years after my wedding, I had another bridal shower thrown for me. :)

I mean it when I say that, I AM BLESSESD. I don't even really know these women very well. Some of them I've only met 2 times. Others are family. But they all came together to help me with a few things I need for our house we're renting.

Praise God! The paperwork went through and we are moving into the house this week. Yay! Saturday, Renato and I cleaned it up in the afternoon, so all is ready.

Yesterday there was another big party here at Renato's parents' house. (It's soccer play-offs and they've had a "super-bowl" type party for the past 2 weeks. I mean, HUGE parties, with a TON of food, and LOTS of people!) The women (friends of the family) decided to help me out and throw me a shower because I have NOTHING when it comes to things needed for a house.

This was such a blessing. Like I said, I don't even really know these women. AND I don't speak their language. But they got together and we had a fun "Cha de Panela" while the men were watching the soccer game. (Actually the TV was on where we were too, but the volume was turned down.)



Bridal showers aren't the same in Brazil as they are in the U.S. I got to attend another one when I was in Belem, and instantly noticed the differences.

1st-In the U.S., the girl who's shower it is, is held in a place of honor and it's a very special day for her. Not in Brazil. It's a day to humiliate the girl. I'm not joking. Here's a picture of me and what they did to me during the shower. (I got off super easy. You should have seen the girl at the shower I went to in Belem!)



2nd-The games they play are different. I was blindfolded and had to guess what each present was while it was still wrapped up. They even made me do it in Portuguese! THEN I had to guess which woman gave it to me. I had 2 tries. If I didn't guess it by the 3rd try, they got to humiliate me some more. Fun, fun.



3rd-They dance. Yes, they dance. But first, I was supposed to dance....by myself... with no music. Fun. Now, I've been known to bust-a-move, but it was all just a little odd to me. I wasn't feeling the groove.



In the end, it was fun, and I got to know all the women much better, and I got some things I need for my house. So I was blessed. AND I got a kiss from a pretty handsome man, if I do say so myself!

Holidays

Today is another National Brazilian Holiday. Some things I've learned since living here in Brazil, are that Brazilians love to have parties, and lots of holidays. Today just happens to be Brazil's Labor Day. Lucky them, it lands on a Thursday, so they get 4 days of vacation. It seems like every other week they have another holiday. The whole country shuts down for the holiday. No stores are open, so make sure you have your groceries for the day!

The school kids are pretty lucky with all the holidays. The school year is different here. The seasons are opposite, so the new school year starts in February and goes through the beginning of December, with a winter break in July. (I know, it was so weird for me to write that July is in the winter here!) They also just go to school either in the morning or afternoon. So their school day is about 5 hours long. Nice. I kinda wish I could teach public school here, but I "retired" last year. :) (with no benefits!)

Anyway, the holiday today is no different for me because I don't work an "outside" job. The only difference for me, is that I can't go shopping today to look for house furnishings. There is always tomorrow!