Happy New Year!

I noticed a few days ago that my last post was December 28!  That wasn't actually three weeks ago, was it?  Didn't the New Year start yesterday?!  My goal is to post once a week, but to be honest when I have sat down in the evenings the internet has been horrible, so I have been unable to upload pictures or sometimes even load up the page.

The most exciting news of the year thus far is the birth of my new nephew, Nathan Charles.  And although I know it has nothing to do with me I was extremely excited that it happened on my birthday!  What wonderful news to wake up to.

Here I am with my newest nephew:

I can pretend, right?  I don't know what is up with my teeth.  I brushed them before I went to the hospital.

Anyways, for some reason, maybe because of this exciting news, my birthday was unexpectedly hard.   But I made it through.  And then I made a conscious decision to phone people here in Brazil and make some social plans.  I need a life :)  Okay, I'm somewhat joking, but I think generally on my birthday whoever phones or wants to, comes over and it's sort of an open house.  And I serve a few pre-made appies from Costco and just have some rye and coke available and everyone is happy!  We did have a nice evening skyping with Shaun's parents and his sister and her husband, but having a few people over wouldn't have hurt.

I will tell you some of the things that are holding me back from having a "party" in the evening.  First, if we have people over in the evening they are expecting a delicious barbecue with a meal to go with it.  This is not a North American barbecue.  This is a crazy amount of meat roasted over a charcoal barbecue and handed out in strips over a number of hours.  It is a bit intimidating for me.  We have a perfect fireplace barbecue for parties, and it is so big we have only used it once because it takes a long time to heat up.  The next thing is we generally put our kids to bed significantly earlier than Brazilians, and Brazilians take their kids with them everywhere, so I know all the kids will be up into the evening.  Which would be fine I know.  We have relaxed a bit in that department, trying not to stress out when the kids aren't in bed on time, but in general our kids are happier when they're in bed at relatively the same time every night.  The third thing is our lack of chairs and tables, plates and utensils.  We have none.  Even Hazel's birthday was a little awkward.  And we don't have enough pans for a lot of dishes, and the pans we have are small.  Okay, so what was my point?  I haven't felt ready to have a large group of people over, but I think I should have invited some people over for cake... they don't know our little non-invitational plans we generally make for birthdays.  So Shaun's birthday is coming up (in March), and I'll make more of an effort for that.  I'll let you all know how it goes.

     

Two more bits of exciting news to catch you up with.

We were all issued our Certidão do Estado Legal here in Brazil!  Could it be possible this can allow us access to our bank account?  I think Shaun is scared to try.... however it did allow us to do one other exciting thing....

Enroll our children in school here!  Seth, Hazel and Lyla will all begin school on February 4.  In the primary grades they attend school approximately from 7:00 until 11:00.  We really were unsure about whether to send Lyla, as she is only four in March, but know it is probably the best way for her to learn Portuguese.  We will see how she does, and see how much I miss having her around.  Right now I'm feeling like we should de-register her....

I also noticed on the school calendar we got that the kids have a full month off of school from the middle of June to the middle of July.  I commented on this to a friend, and she said it is because of the World Cup.... the government has ordered all the schools to take a month off.  In general their school has two weeks off in July 

I was attempting to upload the three weeks of Jonas that I missed, knowing that you all want to watch him grow, but my internet connection won't allow me.  I will try to do something in the morning, when our internet connection seems better.

So as I wave my magic wand (otherwise known as the mosquito killer) and enjoy a glass of fine wine while Shaun and Seth are experiencing a bit of Brazilian culture firsthand (they went night fishing with flashlights), I hope you will forgive the tardiness of my blog posts and chalk it up to the fact that I'm living in a country which does not know the meaning of alacrity.  But then again, neither did I until I looked it up just a minute ago...