Routine (or Anything But)

Life has settled down a bit over here.  I started doing schoolwork with Seth this past Monday, after he had had a two week break.  I think it is going quite well, and so far I've been focusing on his journal work and a reading and writing lesson, and we are done before I have to make lunch.  On Wednesday my plan was to do some math, as I haven't gotten that into the routine yet.  However, he woke up with a high fever, and slept or spent waking moments in the bathroom.  He has improved since then, thankfully, so we carried on with the schoolwork in spite of adversity.  He does not know quite what to think of his mom as teacher, but I've already discovered he likes to be challenged (as in, "give me a harder word to try spell mom").  We are, of course, doing a lot of "free study" which involves looking up multiple animals we have discovered here.  The exciting news since I wrote last is that we have now added Praying Mantis and Rhinoceros Beetle to the animals we have seen.  Oh, and bats!  We have only seen them the last three evenings, kind of at twilight (sixish).  And we cheer when we see them, as guess what bats eat?  MOSQUITOES!!!  We love bats at the moment.  And this evening I think is the first evening I can say the mosquitoes are not too bad (they typically start getting bad around 4 in the evening).  I think they were extremely bad the week after we got here because of the crazy rainfall.  Now it probably has not rained in a week, so maybe that is why they seem to be improving.  We can hope, right?  And our children definitely would rather be warm than bitten, so although it seems crazy, we do put leggings on after their baths in the afternoon.  Oh, that brings me back to our "routine."  After I make our big meal for lunch, some of us end up napping (usually just Lyla, sometimes Hazel, once Seth), and we end up tidying up, shopping, taking the awake kids to the beach, etc.  Then somehow, before we know it, it is 4 in the afternoon, and everyone takes a shower or bath and dresses in evening clothes.  By evening clothes I mean clothes that will keep mosquitoes from biting as much as possible.  Then it's gourmet sandwiches for supper and off to bed for the kiddies.  Then Shaun and I take out our drinks.  A bottle for him and a bottle for me.  Ha ha, just kidding (he usually drinks his beer at lunch!).  Then I try see if I can convince anyone to talk to me on skype, and practice some Rosetta Stone.  Or type a blog.  Or see what I'm supposed to teach Seth tomorrow.  You know, relaxing stuff! And I have to admit, we turn on the one air conditioner that cools our room and the kids room when they go to bed, so many of these evenings I relax on our bed in the delightful cold.

So things are slowly falling into place.  We hope to go to Recife next week and buy a few items we need that should be a lot cheaper there.  In a few weeks, when our kids are healthier and feeling a bit more comfortable here, I'm going to see about sending Seth and maybe even Hazel to school here once a week, for subjects such as gym and art.

Also, someone mentioned to me that there had been a few people asking if I would be interested in teaching them English.  This typically looks like 2 one-hour classes a week to a small group of adults.  The reason this interests me so much is that it could pay for a maid!  Right now it would seem odd to pay for a maid when Shaun and I both aren't working, but believe me, that would definitely ease our (my) transition.  And hopefully soon Shaun will be out of the house more (not as in I don't want him around, but he wants to get working), and then I won't have his help as much doing everything around here.  And I know I rely on him a lot.

So, like I said.  Settling in and getting our bearings.  Healthwise we are all improving, we are praying daily that the trend continues.  Our Portuguese is.... better than even a few weeks ago.  And we feel really blessed with the friends we have here already, who are all trying to ease our transition and include us in their family life even.

I'll leave you with a few pictures of this past week.  We went to a wedding last night that was scheduled to begin at 7.  We thought we were late at 7:05, however, people started trickling in at 7:30, and the ceremony started at around 8:15.  It was probably 35 degrees in the church, and we didn't get home until 11.

Seth's wormhole.  In case anyone wants to know what to look for after  a kid plays in a sandbox.

Lyla's eye was almost closed for over a week.  This is when it was already on the mend.

Still happy :)

Our good friends, Sandro and Djane, at their terrano on a relaxing Saturday.

The church around 15 minutes after the ceremony was supposed to start.