Saturday I started off the day with a trip to the temple. It has been a few weeks since I've gone, cause they were closed for maintenance for three weeks. Then last week they were opened, but I wasn't able to go cause Corey was returning from Rio with the kids. So it was nice to go again today. Then I came home, made a corn cake and woke up the kids and we waited for Corey to come back from teaching his GMAT class so we could head out to the Festival Junio.
What is a "Festival Junio" you ask? I'm not sure. From what I could understand, I think it originally started as a Catholic Saints festival. I don't think it's an official holiday, you're just supposed to have a carnival sometime in June. I got a facebook message telling everyone to dress up as
caipira folk, their version of silly country people (google translates caipira as "rednecks") Well, we don't have any costumes here so we just came as we were. But they had lots of straw hats to share, so the kids had fun with that.
Wesley took Sophi out to the square dance. He's such a cute brother.
There were little different booths for different things - Bebidas (drinks), a table of treats (that's where my corn cake went) and a table of side dishes, but we were so full we never got around to trying any of those. Our favorite was the Churrasco (bbq) booth. Delicious steak and chicken. Although I think after we return to Utah, our whole family needs to go on a meat fast... we've had so much meat these past 3 months, it might be a little excessive. Hyrum had a few skewers of chicken hearts.
We gave one to Natalie, I just wanted to see if she would think they tasted good. She chewed up one and then spit it out. So I'll take that as a no.
Down at the field they had games set up for the kids - a bounce slide, a rodeo bull, fishing pond, pin the tail on the donkey, ring toss, etc. The older kids loved the bull ride.
"It's harder than it looks!"
The little kids played the games, and if they did all 4 games they got to go pick out a prize.
Lily helped all the kids get their prizes. And then I think she grabbed a few extras.
This little plastic bunny full of tiny sugar beads kept Natalie and Sophi busy for about an hour.
They got some in their mouths, but also spilled a lot on the floor. They picked up some of those and ate them. Nice.
Then Sophi decided to use her hat. Good approach. We put a pile for Natalie on the plastic chair.
Corey and Ethan played a little bit of soccer.
Hyrum was nice and played with Natalie a lot of the time. He and Mel playing with Natalie and her "baby" in the ball pit.
Kids going down the bouncy slide.
Natalie and her baby.
(Her baby needs a bath, but I might wait until we get back to Utah)
Our friend Zeb had a little group discussion going on with some of the wonderful people in the ward. They were all visiting for a good hour, not bad for a gringo!
Wesley taking a break from the square dance
Sophi, you having fun?
And that look on Sophi's face right there is the one that lets me know it's time to get this little girl in for an eye exam. Did I mention that the pediatric opthamologists were booked until October 22nd? I am going to try and call a different office if there is one, but they said there are only 5 in the whole state. I might ask around, cause that just seems ridiculously far away. I'm gonna pray for an early appointment.
We were there eating and playing from 11 - 4. The parties never end around here.
Sophi striking a dance pose.
It was a good time, and then we headed home. Corey and I spent the rest of our evening trying our best to be prepared to speak in sacrament meeting tomorrow. First task - write a talk. Then, try to figure out how to say it all in Portuguese. It went pretty well I guess. Corey had Rafael proof read his talk. I just used google translate and copied quotes from the LDS Portuguese website. They all know I don't speak, so I didn't mind too much if I mess up. One more Sunday, this is our last full week, we are excited to go back home. I'll be able to plan for that and think about it if we survive the American cake night and talent show on Wednesday evening.
