Come and Gone....

I suppose no news is good news, right?  I promised a post in March to tell you how our February had gone, but seeing as February is ancient history, I'll keep this post current.  As much as we are in a tropical country which people may equate with relaxation, we are getting caught up in actual daily life, which is busy no matter where you are.

We notice more and more rainy nights, and even some days.  Signs we are heading towards "winter."  The girls took some time out to enjoy the puddles....

On one of the sunny Saturdays after Shaun's birthday, we headed to our friends' house to celebrate.  Jonas is drinking to dad too!

Seth loves to carry "Babyland" over to his bed before he sleeps for the night.

Jonas seems to enjoy Babyland as well.

Jonas never lost his baby hair, so the stuff he was born with just kept growing, leaving him with a wispy mullet at the back....

 

And a wispy matte at the front.  So we took matters into our own hands.

A little spiky, but it will do.

Seth had a major injury.... could've used stitches I think, although it doesn't look that bad here.  I'm trying to find the glue that doctors use instead of stitches for his next accident.

Palm branch house the neighbourhood kids built on the road.

Skyping with Uncle Randy and Aunty Lorene, and finding out the super exciting news that they are expecting a baby!

Then we had to bring the laptop outside to show them our new babies.  Red-footed tortoises. 

One of them Seth got for a birthday present when we were here four years ago.  We left it with the gifter, when we headed back to Canada.  Now we get it back, plus the gifter needed us to take care of hers for six months!  They seem to be settling in nicely.

He's working on crawling, however tiled floor can be a dangerous place to practice!

 

So life is good and busy.  The kids have been going to school every morning, and they all just went through "exam week."  It sounds like they all did as well as could be expected, in some cases better than expected.  There was a lot of initial anxiety as the kids settled in, which was hard to deal with, and I was second-guessing myself about forcing them all to go.  However, they are all able to chatter away in Portuguese and it makes me so proud to see all their hard work pay off.  The past 3 weeks there has been a day off of school a week, with a Saint's day, then Easter and Tiradentes, and next week is Labour Day (May 1st).  The funny thing is, as a private school there needs to be 800 hours of schooling a year, which works out to 200 days.  (Public schools have this requirement as well, but it is definitely not enforced).  Because of the World Cup, apparently the schools need to give a month off of school, where there is typically two weeks.  So the school can't take as many days off here and there as usual, and this year the school year goes until December 23rd, a week later than usual.  However, next week Labour Day is on a Thursday... I guess someone decided that to have a Thursday off is not a good long weekend, however, there aren't enough school days to take the Friday off.  What's a school to do?  Add an extra day of school this Saturday!  And give the parents notice the Wednesday of!  So our kids have five days of school this week and we get a long weekend next week.

Shaun and I are staying busy.  When the kids head off to school I typically do some laundry, and plan and then make lunch, which I've taken to calling supper because it's our hot meal.  I relax a bit with coffee and my computer, Bible study, and bemoan the fact that my dearest loved ones are still sleeping, because that would be a perfect time to catch up with them.  Sometimes we shower three times a day, and we all enjoy the cold shower now, surprisingly.  Jonas is eating still approximately every three hours during the day, which takes up a bit of time.  When the kids get home from school there's often a bit of homework, which they finish up in no time, we eat, read, sing, etc.  Sometimes I can't believe how long lunch takes.  In the afternoon, I am trying to do some English work with the kids every day.  By the time that is done, it's time for showers, walking to the bread store to buy bread, make and eat supper, read a chapter of an English book (currently Little House in the Big Woods) and head to bed.  It's a good life, yet exhausting.  I think it's still the heat that makes the days tiring, and I wonder if I'll ever get used to that.  Every day is equivalent to those hot summer days back home where everyone says "It's too hot to cook!"  However, our air conditioner is set to 23 or 24 degrees Celsius, and it feels cool to me.  I wonder how cold I'll be when I end up in North America once again, as I was talking to a friend who said her thermostat was set to 21... to heat the house up!

Take care everyone, and I'm not promising anything, except an attempt to be more consistent :)