latest happenings

I am at the point where I can't remember why I have a blog. But for those of you who are still reading, here's the latest downloads from the ol' camera:

Back before it was FREEZING, a solitary mosquito viciously and brutally attacked all exposed parts of Grant in the night. Poor kid looked like he had the mumps:

Joe's parents came for a visit. We had a wonderful time showing them around this crazy life we lead. They flew all night, then we picked them up and drove them 4 hours to a place in the mountains called Campos do Jordao. They were troopers.
Grant met a sheep. ("Hello, sheep. Tudo bem?")
We hiked by a waterfall
We went into town and had some chocolate quenche cremoso. Its like drinking melted chocolate. Ahhhh... Que romatica!
We stayed in this crazy hotel
Grant and Carter wrestled on a trampoline. Joe and Brooke and I took a flying leap on a zipline...I still need to find that picture.
Back at home, we went for ice cream in Santana de Parnaiba. I actually took this picture so you could see the dog on the roof at the right of Paula's head. Dog on a roof! Ah, I love Brasil.
We went to Embu (twice) and had a hotchee doggee (once). If you can't tell, this particular hot dot is topped with relish and mustard. Oh yeah, and potato chips, and corn and mashed potatoes! Paula thought it was gostoso. Right up her alley :)
We took them back to Rio, too. I still need to find those pictures too. All in all I think they had a great trip!

Back to our normal life, Every saturday, Joe and Grant go to this crazy huge distribution center for frutas and legumes and flores. This is just the part they open up for individual sales (it is massive!):
Here is a small sampling of the selections. The place is an assault on the senses. You have fruits and veggies as long as the eye can see, the smell of the fresh fish market and pastels being fried up, and fruitmongers yelling at you from every direction. But the good news is, they are also constantly shoving fruit in your face for you to try. Its better than Costco on a Saturday.
A cool orchid we got that actually smells good
Grant sneaking some of our day's haul
We also went to a wedding of our darling friends'. They were so cute. Unfortunately my camera (or me) didn't get very good shots of the whole thing. Here they are with the flower girls...
And here are the REAL housewives of Alphaville (and Abhi). I read somewhere it's Tuesday. This one's for you, Marcie :)

I intentionally left out the picture of me feebly trying to cha-cha with the groom's father. I'll let you decide why.

Rio!

We took a whirlwind 24 hour trip to Rio this weekend.  We scored a room on copacabana beach, above.
Through the clouds, you can see the statue of Christ the Reedemer on the mountain.  It didn't occur to us that the same clouds would be a problem when we got to the top of the mountain.  Oops.

Oh well, the mist gave the whole thing kind of a cool effect, anyway...

I used to think the statue was a little creepy.  But then I learned it's not creepy, its just art deco.  That made me feel better

People actually hang glide off of this mountain.  Crazy people, anyway.  

On top of Sugarloaf mountain.  Sugarloaf is actually two peaks with a cable car between them.  I really just wanted to see a monkey while we were there.  And lo and behold...

I just didn't know he would be the size of a squirrel.
Cute boys!
Some views from the top: copacabana beach again....

...flamengo beach....
...and ipanema.  Wahoo!

Santos! and other random goings on

A few weeks ago, we had some friends from Brooklyn here visiting/job-hunting, so we took them to the beach closest to us, Santos.  Grant had his first real ocean swim, we had a nice lunch, we went to the aquarium, and we took a ski-lift to the top of the mountain, where we got this picture at sunset.

Joe and I were a little scared on the ski lift but Grant enjoyed himself.

In other news, these are the three musketeers.  They were born within 8 weeks of each other and they play at least once a week.  I love watching them interact.  Grant said his first words...Papa and Dada in the same day.  Where is the love for mom??  :)

We often joke around that we live in a bubble.  Our town is gated, privately secured, blah blah blah, so that it is unlike the rest of Brazil.  In fact, we rarely lock our doors.  Well the other day we were driving and it was raining until we got to our town limit and then out popped this rainbow.  It made me laugh that here was this rainbow watching over our little bubble.

For Erin

Of the three dark blue ones, can you guess which one is mine, Joe's, and the artist's?  (I should point out that the color of these vases are Azul, not JetBlue :)

Gramado!

Best.  Vacation.  Ever.  Or at least since we have been in Brazil.  Over Carnivale, we skipped all the parades and madness and flew south to Porto Allegre.  From there we drove to Gramado, a community up in the mountains that was settled by Germans and Italians and it is B-E-A-U-T-F-U-L!  It felt more like Europe than Brazil.  

By some stroke of luck, we got hooked up with an amazing room at a super nice resort.  Here we are on our balcony....

...and Joe and Grant by the pool

Gramado is famous for having a bunch of chocolate factories.  Here is one of the chocolate shops and its impressive display of chocolate eggs.  Everything tastes better in egg form. 

Pillow fort!!

We also got hooked up with a guy who drove us all over and showed us around.  The first place he took us was a steam museum.  Totally lame, right?  It turned out to be really cool.  This was my favorite part.  If you know me, you know I have a fascination with factories.  I looove factory tours.  But in most factories you don't get to see it all.    So at this museum, they created a mini-paper-factory where they inserted a little mini bundle of wood, processed it in a little mini processor, dyed it in the little mini-vat, and ran it through a bunch of mini-weights and dryers and voila!  a mini-sheet of paper!  So geeky and so cool.  (PS, the significance is that the whole "factory" was run by steam)
We went to the top of an observation tower that looked over this amazing valley full of cliffs and this waterfall
We found a Grant-sized train
Probably the coolest thing we did...  I have always wanted to see glass getting blown.  I think it is a fascinating and beautiful art from.  At this crystal factory and gallery, they do demonstrations and it is amazing to see the artist do his thing.  Well, due to our "connection," they even let Joe and I blow a crystal vase each.  They are delivering them to us tomorrow...I am so excited!  
We also went to an early Italian settlement in the middle of nowhere.  This was a flour mill.  It was so serene.  Joe and I kept dreaming about moving to the country.  

Nossas coisas

Well, our house is finally starting to feel like a home.  Our stuff got here at last and is mostly unpacked and life is much more...comfortable.  It seems kind of silly, I mean, its just stuff,  but there is something about your own belongings that finally makes you feel at home, not just a never-ending stressful vacation.  So here are a few pictures of our house.  Even with the stuff, its still a little empty due to moving from a 1 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom house.  Here is the front again (btw, that is not our car, but it might as well be -- we have the same one)

Living/Dining Room:

Family/Playroom (sans all the toys that are typically everywhere):

Grant's room:

Kitchen:

Master Bath: