Brazil '07 - Ready to Come Home

Sunday, 3 June 3007

Here's an email I sent to my family tonight:
And once again, what a fun time we've had. The things that have happened this last month in Brazil have been typical of our experience here with the usual glitches in the system... although it's nice that we've always have variety in that the problems change from week to week.
So as for these past two weeks, in addition to the cold and rain outside, it also been cold and wet inside! As I told you in the last email, we were without water for 24 hours on the 21st of May. It stopped running when I was almost done with the hand washing on Monday night - which uses a lot of water - I guess I wasn't supposed to do that, cause I used up the water before the pump in the well could fill it up. (I didn't know until then that we get our water from a well...) So I learned that we have a water container on top of the house that holds well water, and I used it all up washing clothes and broke the pump. After the gardner/fix it guy Jose Maria came to fix it on Tuesday night, we naturally, being Americans that expect things to work, thought it was fixed! We went out to eat while they worked with the well and the pump, and came home to running water, but were puzzled by the pool of water all over the floor in the kids room and water droplets that were still dangling from the ceiling. Hmm. We put towels on the floor, were grateful to have water again, and thought things were back to "normal" (whatever that means here.) Buta few days later on Friday morning the 25th (luckily after I finished washing the dishes) the water ran out again. I was pretty bugged, so we just decided to get out of the house and we went to a park and then took Corey to the bus station so he could go to Sao Paulo to teach a GMAT class that night and Saturday morning.
We survived the night without running water and the next morning, May 26th, Jose Maria came again to fix the water pump. I heard the hum of power from the pump running on the roof, and he left for a while - I figured he was done and that the pump it would fill up the container again, stop pumping, that some small thing hadn't worked on Monday but that now it was really fixed. But... soon after he left I was outside sweeping when I heard water splashing behind the house. There is a faucet back there that Wesley like to turn on sometimes, so I thought he had been back there and I went back to turn it off - but the water I heard was actually coming out from a drain hose under the roof that I had never noticed before. "Hmm, never seen that before...where is that water coming from? I think the container is full...where is that guy?" I walked into the house to check on the ceiling of the kids room, where we noticed our first day that the paint and cement had had obvious water damage - nothing was happening there but I did hear something in the bathroom. I peeked in to see water dripping from the ceiling light. That explained the wet floor that I found in there last week when the kids room was wet - I thought Wesley had just gotten into the sink water as he does on occassion (that kid likes to play with water...). I wandered out back again, still coming out of the drain hose... as turned to walk back inside I saw water trickling down the wall as it came out of another window to the roof/attic where the container was... I hadn't noticed it before, but I could see the container up in this window, and I could see where it was indeed overflowing. The water was coming out pretty fast - this is not good - I continued to pace around helplessly - Where is that guy?! Back into the house and there, sure enough, it started to pour out of the ceiling light in the kids room.
Now it would have just gotten the floor wet like the previous time Tuesday night, but a few nights earlier I had rearranged the beds and bunk bed into a fun sleeping cave in an attempt to keep the kids warm at night with their hot little bodies working together for the collective good, so the three beds that had been along the walls of the room were now lined up down the middle of the room under the light, where the water started to pour, getting blankets, pillows, and mattresses wet. The kids who were playing in there sweetly pointed out the obvious - "Mom! Our beds are getting wet!!" My stressful and paniced reply from seeing the inevitable coming to pass was to yell " I know!!!!!" I tried to move the mattresses out of the way, but that just made the water splatter against the wood boards of the bed which got everything just as wet. I started to grab and drag things out of the room, and told the kids (who were just staring at the pouring water and telling me everything that was getting wet) to pick up the stuff that was getting wet and get it out! Joe ran and got a big pot which filled up after 30 seconds, we tried to get the kid's things off the floor - we got most of the toys, socks, shoes, but left the papers, random kid litter and other dirt all in the wet mess. We got out all absorbant items except the queen mattresses, which we pushed until they were enough out of the way and off of the floor that they didn't get too wet. And then we just listened to it pouring in. I figured the situation was out of my hands and there was nothing I could do, so I went and sat on the couch and shook my head in disbelief. As for the kids - the water helped inspire their next game, and they all went outside where Melodie was the Rain Princess and they played their imaginary adventure game with water and flooding. I got online and tried to email our land lady with no luck - and I couldn't call because Corey had the cell phone and we don't have a land line here. I didn't think Jose was coming back, I just sat in a dampened despair until I saw the water coming down the stairs into the living room area - then I figured I better go squeedgie it into the bathroom, which I figured I'd do until the land lady checked her email and sent for help. But luckily after 25 minutes of rain, (eventhough I hadn't gotten a hold of him or anyone), Jose returned, I heard the pump get turned off, I continued to squeedgie the water out of the room and into the bathroom. The water drained into the room for another 10 minutes and then dripped for the rest of the day. The room eventually got clean and dry enough that the kids were able to sleep in there that night, but it did smell like a damp and wet amuzement park ride for the rest of the day - It made me think of riding the Pirates of the Carribean at Disneyland.
So when Jose came and turned off the pump, I didn't ask him about if it was fixed - I didn't say anything to him cause 1) I don't speak Portuguese very well and because 2) when Corey and I have attempted to communicate with him, I think his brain turns us off ("Oh no, these Americans are going to try and speak Portuguese to me again!!!") and he just extends his arm with a "thumbs up" signal. Thumbs up is a common and frequent sign here in Brazil, replacing many different hand signals that American's use, such as when when we wave "hello", shake hands and say "how are you?", tap our mouths with a napkin and answer a restaurant waiter on how our meal is, or engage in small talk with strangers - Here in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, all of that is replaced with the simple "thumbs up". Ethan gave the thumbs up to a surfer in Camboriu, who then returned a thumbs down - Corey interpreted the sign language for me: I thought Ethan was saying hi, but was informed that his thumb up had acutally asked "How are the waves" and the thumbs down returned signaled they were poor. So the thumb has great many meanings here, and when the fix-it guy Jose holds out his thumb, I usually wrongly think he is telling us or asking us if everything is A-O-K. But then we'll try to ask him a question or explain how things are and he doesn't say anything, he just keeps holding out his thumb, but now more forcefully, like he's trying to keep us at a distance - it's more like he's trying to ward off a vampire with his fingers in a cross sign "Stay back! Stay back!" Pretty funny, so we just give him the thumbs up when we see him, even when things are thumbs down.
SO - that was on Saturday while Corey was gone. We survived and cleaned up the room, dried the mattresses outside in the sun that day, and since they were already wet, I had a good reason to wash the kids bed sheets which really needed to be washed. Corey came home that night, arriving back at the Campinas Rodoviaria (bus station place) at 7:40 that night.
Then, at the start of the next week - lo and behold, Monday morning May 28th, Jose Maria come to check on the water, we give him the thumbs up in an effort to tell him "we have water" ... but I'm not sure what his interpretation was, anyway after a minute we hear the pump going. Hmm - I remember last time I heard that sound the kids room got flooded. Then Jose left - that means he's not watching it or be able to turn it off when it's full! It was on for quite a while and I started to pace the floor with worry and said to Corey - it's going to overflow again... - we gotta turn off the pump... how can we turn off the pump? I worried and rang my hands for a bit and was sure there was going to be water running out the roof drain hose in a matter of minutes. Instead of just predicting the events, I went outside to check, ...and the water was coming out. "Corey!!!" (It was nice to have him there to share the problem with). I looked at the attic window and water was trickling out from there too - I ran inside to look in the bathroom which is the next place it comes and there it was, into the kids room for the final pouring place, and we moved the mattresses just in time to save it from a direct shot as the water started to come in. "AAAGGHHH!!!! THAT'S IT!!" Corey and I started to haul the mattresses outside again, and we both looked at each other with defeat in our eyes, we're tired of this, and we each said "We should just leave!" Then our defeat turned to joy and we thought - "That sounds great! Let's leave this place!" We decided enough is enough, and we're not going to take it anymore!!!! We'd made it 4 months, but we were going to pull out the white flag - cause we surrender! We give up! Good bye Chacara! No more cold nights, no more huge power bills (that's a story I'll let Corey relate sometime - but something is wrong with some power here - they think with the pool pump (we hadn't used the pool for over a month and weren't in charge of maintaining it or knowing if the pump was working anyway)... and there was a huge bill that the landlady insisted was our responsibility to pay, we said she should atleast split it since it's her pump or whatever that has the problem that caused the huge bill...anyway, turned us sour) So "Chacara Ouro Verde", it's been an adventure, but we aren't going to deal with you anymore. It sounded great and easy - we'll just grab our stuff and leave and let someone else clean up the water and mess. So we stared to load up our things and were both in jolly good moods.
So we had officially decided the what: we are leaving. Now the how: where should we go? A hotel? GMAT friends? Let's stay in Barao Geraldo... there was a couple from the ward with a little 5 year old girl who last month had offered for our family to stay at their place so we could be closer to the city... let's try them. So Corey gave them a call. They was no answer but Corey left a message. Corey had to go into town for a phone call, so we decided since we have such a small car and will need to take several trips, we'd load up the car and Corey would swing by after his call and see if they got our message and if it's okay for us to stay over.
We soon found out that our belief in finding a better situation for ourselves somewhere else for the next two weeks was rash. ... It was just such a nice feeling of freedom to say "We're outta here!!!" that we jumped the gun too quickly without thinking things through. The couple that invited us to stay at their place saw our things in the car when Corey went by and were excited that we'd be moving in so soon! I hadn't seen their house, but as Corey was dropping off our bins of things, he groaned inside and thought "this isnt' going to work...." Corey came home with an empty car and told me what he thought - we decided to call again and tell them nevermind, but the husband, Nayie (sounds like Nay-EE, don't know how it's spelled) said we should come, Corey said no thanks, Nayie said "I'm on my way to help you bring your things", Corey said "No, it's okay, it's not that good here but it's better because if we came there'd be too many people..." Nayie said "see you in 15 minutes". So he came, we tried to withdraw our request to no avail, so we all went in to town so I could check it out and then officially say "No thanks". Their place is smaller than our chacara (which I think is 800 sq feet inside) and although they were very eager for us to stay over and were very very insistant (I hope they don't apostatize cause we retracted our request to stay with them) we insisted we were going back to the chacara. We really didn't want to share our daily life with another family for the next two weeks or even for one night - (they insisted we stay one night to try it out). It was kinda hard for us to get out of the situation we'd just put ourselves in, but managed to do it by consenting to letting the kids sleep over (except for Wesley) and Corey started getting Nayie involved with his English software business and gave him some work to do with that. We tried to take the kids home with us, but the kids said they'd like to sleep over so we let them. They had a 2 month old cute little black puppy that the kids fell in love with and wanted to stay and play with, plus a hamster too. Poor Hyrum is so scared of dogs, I think the smaller the puppy, the more he screams. But Hyrum wasn't about to be left out of the fun, so he stayed too, and with the kids not in the car we were able to fit all our things in and take them back to the shack. We went by a store on our way home at 10:30 and bought a comforter blanket for our bed. The kids have blankets, but Corey and I have been freezing but were reluctant to spend money for something we were only going to use for the next two weeks, but Corey went and bought it and it is amazing what a difference a warm and good nights sleep does in changing one's outlook on the world. The kids slept over and as for Corey and I, we woke up refreshed and ready to endure to the end at the chacara. Corey went to town and picked up the kids the next day around 11:00. Nayie and his wife asked us what Candy was, cause the kids kept chanting "Candy! Candy!" and that is probably what they ate most of the time. I think there are too many cookies and treats in Brazil.
So one more thing and then I'll end this email - Corey went to Argentina this weekend - He left Thursday night May 31st and came back tonight, Sunday 3 June, at 7:30. He debated for a long time whether he should go - there was a BYU Management Society Latin America Meeting (is that right Corey?) with BYU Alumni from Chile, Brazil, Argentina etc. all coming to this meeting to hear a speaker and do whatever else they do, and when he first heard about it, he felt he needed to go to it, but didn't want to, and he put off buying the ticket until Wednesday night. He said he mostly wanted to take me to see Buenos Aires, but I didn't think there was a way for us to leave the kids again for that many days. So he kept hesitating and I really didn't want him to go away again either but thought he should if he felt it would help with his business opportunities, anyway, When he finally decided to go I was feeling very very stretched after the past two weeks events with the chacara and being a little nervous about how things would go here, and feeling like I've reached my limits - so I had to cry for a bit (a lot of my emotions also probably has to do with the whole pregnancy thing too...) and my emotions were still on the surface the next day, Thursday, when he left. He was going to go to Sao Paulo for the night with Favio, Luis, and some other people for some business speaker thing and then leave early the next morning for Argentina. He didn't want me to stay alone at the chacara, so arranged for me to stay with Fabio and his family for a few days in Sumare - which I didn't really want to do either - but as Corey was about to leave with Fabio and Luiz for Sao Paulo, I was silently thinking about dear Mary Willaimson Hibbert (darn those pioneers and the things they sacrificed, don't leave us with any excuses!) and how she ran the farm and took care of, what, like 12 kids? while Ambrose went on a mission to England - or any of the other early church members sending off their husbands on year long missions abroad. So Corey and I were thinking the same thing, cause as we said goodbye, he said "Aren't you glad it's just for a weekend and not for 5 years?" and I shook my head in disbelief at how they were able to do that. Then Corey said "....and I'll be taking another wife when I get home" WHAT?!?! Again I shook my head - how did they handle so many trials and sacrifices? Talk about getting stretched - how did they do it? Corey went to put his suitcase in the car and then came back over quick and said "Hey! I got great news! My mission has been cut back and I'm actually only going to be gone for the weekend! And I don't have to do the polygamy thing!" I thought that was funny for Corey to say, but still sobered me up and over the weekend I was wishing I were stronger with my set backs and trials. But I guess that's why we're here on earth, to learn to be strong by going through these experiences. So, end of story, I'm glad I'm Corey's only wife and that he made it back safe from his trip.
And since it's 3:00 a.m. Monday morning now I better finish this off. So this might be my very last email from Brazil! I think we're gonna make it! We are very very very very very excited to be back in the US of A! We'll be coming into Virginia on Wednesday morning at 7 a.m. Here's our itinerary:
United 0860
Depart: Sao Paulo, Brazil GRU 10:10 PM Jun12
Arrive: Dulles, Virginia IAD 06:57 AM Next day Jun 13
Non-stop 9h 47m
4,736 miles traveled Dinner, Snack



...And maybe I will send out another email this week of our anticipated schedule of our road trip from DC to Utah, if we are able to get that all planned and figured out. We'll see. Love you all!!!!!!!! See you soon!

Brazil '07 - Camboriu

Sunday night I made a little paper chain link count down to the flight home - we are all ready to get back to the states, but are enjoying our last weeks here. 21 days left, 3 weeks from tonight we'll be boarding the plane in Sao Paulo for a long 9 hour flight back!

Corey's ankle is doing remarkably well - it is still tender and hurts, but he was able to walk around without the crutches 4 days after hurting it (he tore a ligament while he was playing outside in the dark with the kids) and didn't take the crutches at all to Camboriu. We did a lot of walking, especially the day at the amusement park, but he was a champ as always.

Two weeks ago we went to Sao Paulo for a night before heading south to the state of Santa Catarina. Corey went for a BYU MBA information session thing with his friends - There are two of them who are coming to BYU this fall, so that will be fun to have them as visitors in our country, we are excited to help them get settled in for their 2 years at school. In Sao Paulo we stayed at the temple hostel, which was 3 bunk beds in a room. The kids were so excited when they saw it! I felt like we were at a church camp, but the kids got busy staking out their spots, it was funny - they are so easy to please and all pronounced "this is the best hotel ever!" ! I was able to go to the temple Thursday morning before we flew to Florianopolis.

Our final destination was Balenario Camboriu, a beautiful beautiful city that was about an hour and a half north of Florianopolis. Camboriu was a lot different than Campinas, Rio, or Sao Paulo - it felt like a different counrty. We think it is what Rio must have been like 20 years ago. It was clean, no grafitti, there were hardly any windows with bars, it looked like a great place to take a vacation, and we want to go there again someday with all of you! Okay? It will be fun! It is a resort town that mostly attracts tourist travelers from Argentina. The peak season is summer (which is November through February here) so we got lucky to be hanging out in the off season - we had the whole beach to ourselves! The city is a cove with 3 miles of long beach and Atlantic rainforest. I'm attaching a Google Earth placemark to where our hotel was, and you can get a small idea of the city from this aerial view. We spent Friday in the hotel hot tub and took a quick walk down to the beach.

Saturday we went to Beto Carrero - Brazils version of Disneyland.

It's got an amuzement park, zoo, and shows. 

 

The African Mysteries show was amazing, these guys were jumping and tumbling all over the place and playing with fire and did the limbo under a bar of fire that was one foot off the ground - the limbo bar was resting on top of what looked like two bottles of beer. It was awesome, the kids were really impresses! 

They also had an elephant come out to dance and after that 9 tigers performed tricks. Corey and I were really nervous for the tiger tamer and were glad he wasn't eaten alive. Seems like 9 huge tigers vs. 1 punny human would be a no-contest in favor of the cats. He sure seemed confident there holding his little whipping stick, didn't look like much protection to me. Pretty amazing though. It was fun.

Sunday it took us a while to find the church. The Taxi driver was asking all his friends, strangers on the street, some people didn't know of any Mormon church and insisted there must not be one in their city. We saw some Jehovah's Witnesses on the corner and Corey was sure they would know where the Mormons meet, so the taxi driver pulled over and Corey asked them. They knew and pointed us in the direction but we still couldn't find it for another few minutes of doing circles around the block (lots of one way streets in Camboriu). We finally found it and it was a huge 2 story new chapel, beautiful building, elevator inside, after being worried that the Church hadn't made it into that corner of Brazil yet we were glad to see such an established ward. Seems like more people should know about it. It was a very affluent area and ward, again much different from the ward we're attending in Barao Geraldo in Campinas.

The members very nice and it was great to be at home right away even though we're a continent away from all of you. I love the Church and the gospel. The Spirit was sweet and familiar, I still don't communicate well, but they were so nice. Corey felt bad that people kept asking him if we were members - I had forgotten to pack his razor so he was not freshly shaved. I also forgot to pack clothes for him, so he didn't have a white shirt to wear. Poor Corey had to wear the same dress shirt that he had been wearing for 4 days since the MBA information session in Sao Paulo - Sorry Corey! I forgot to pack a lot of things, but we survived somehow - a family of 7 with everything packed in one big suitcase and two pack packs. Mom- talk about being minimalists, huh! Corey has a friend, Jeff, who is on a little tour of South America with his fiance Kasey - they've gone from Chile to Uruguay to Brazil - they met up with us in Camboriu and the two of them had more luggage than our family, which made me feel embarrassed and impressed by us at the same time. We had some food with them at the beach. Here are our messy kids:

So Monday was a beautiful sunny day and we spent most of it at the beach, the kids had a great time.

I left the video camera in Campinas (upset at myself for that) so we didn't get any video footage, but will try to preserve the memory somehow, cause it was seriously the best beach I've ever been too - seems like the kind of beach that vacation going people search their whole lives for. It was beautiful and the time to just relax there was a gift.

Tuesday we visited the beach again at the most southern end of the cove where some members of the Camboriu branch live, Neidson and Ana Bastos and their daughter Caroline.

Caroline is 10 years old and was so cute with our kids. 

We walked along the beach and Melodie had her work cut out for her trying to go through so many sea shells so quickly as we walked.

She found some good shells though (she calls them "she-shells" which I think is funny, but she thinks that's their appropriate name cause mermaids wear them.) We had dinner at their house which was very nice of them - and makes us feel like members of the Mormon Mafia ~

It was Casey's birthday, so we sang to her (and Ethan)

We could go anywhere in the world and more than likely find members of our church family that would take us in and feed us and do anything for us. Again, isn't the church wonderful?

Wednesday we walked to the northermost part of the cove where there was another beach right next to the rainforest, this beach had big rocks for the kids to all climb on, and the sand was a different texture, more like lots of broken sea shells more than dirt. The kids buried each other and we had more time just enjoying the view. 

Thursday we went for lunch with the Bastos family again, where they made a special sea food lunch for us - we ate shark and shrimp while the kids enjoyed french fries, suckers, and cotton candy - they have a cotton candy making machine. 

Neidson makes a living for himself throwing birthday parties, most of which are huge events for 1 year old children, so their house is a totaly party house. They showed us pictures of the parties they've set up - lots of balloons and carved styrofoam figures of Tarzan or Cinderella. They looked like quite the events, and we've decided that someday we'll probably have to throw real parties for our kids - although hopefully they won't go till 5 in the morning, like they told us a party for an 8 year old girl did. I tell ya, latinos know how to party. (The wedding Corey and I went to 2 years ago in Guatemala - they were dancing till 3 in the morning, we called it quits around 1 a.m., but it didn't seem like anyone else was giving up any time soon). After the nice dinner and party at their "Casa de festa" they took us to the bus station where we barely caught the 4:40 bus on time to leave for Curitiba.

After a 3 hour ride, we arrived at Curitiba and drove to the house of the Familia Araujo. Bro Araujo is an area authority there in Brazil, we stayed at his house, he has 5 grown children, one of whom is Fernando who was the one who arranged the GMAT class that Corey taught. He is going to go to BYU next year with his wife and 2 kids. Corey says he'll definitely be accepted, he's really sharp, he served a mission in Provo, but his wife is nervous as she doesn't speak English. I know how she feels. Corey's enjoyed teaching the GMAT. There are atleast 6 people from his classes that are going to be at BYU this fall, of the ones he knows about there are 3 from Brazil and 3 from the Argentina. I think he's doing a great job waving the banner of BYU.

Well, after Curitiba, we flew back to Campinas where Fabio and family met us again (they were the ones who watched the kids when Corey and I went to Rio). They are great, we owe them big time and hopefully will have lots of opportunities to return the favor when they come to Utah this fall. So back in Campinas life is like before with the usual glitches in the system: Monday night the water quit for some reason, so we couldn't wash dishes or flush the toilets. Luckily it rained all day Tuesday, so we caught water in pots, pans, and buckets and were able to flush toilets, yay!

 No, we didn't wash dishes with that - we just ate off dirty dishes. Sueli sent someone over and the water was working by Tuesday night, so it was just 24 hours.

We are also out of gas to the stove. You order it in these 10 gallon gas "bolon" containers - we've had to fill up once while we were here already, but this time we weren't able to explain the address well enough I guess cause they never came. We might try a different company or call a friend to explain better. But as for now we are starting our 3rd day without a stove. But I'm grateful for the people in our ward who let us borrow their microwave! So today I did nuke some eggs, but mostly we're on bread and jelly right now. Did you know that they don't sell peanut butter here in Brazil? Maybe there is a specialty store somewhere that has some, but none of the regular grocery stores, I thought that was really weird, Peanut Butter, like that's one of the family food basics. So we're looking forward to coming home and to seeing all of you - looking forward to family gatherings, phone calls, for that matter even having a telephone land line, wireless internet, Peanut Butter, Malt O Meal cereal - o yeah, oatmeal, Great Harvest whole wheat bread, milk in a gallon container (they sell it in cardboard boxes here, about 1 liter), Costco, hobbies (scrapbooking!), walmart, the list could go on... The kids are looking forward to visits with Grandma and Grandpa Wride and Grandma and Grandpa Hibbert, excited to have neighbor kids to play with, they are excited to have their toys again, especially Legos and plug and play TV video games, visits with cousins (they are excited to meet your family dog, Jersh), wrestling with Uncle Neil, and of course Primary at church in English. Every Sunday when they come into Sacrament meeting (which is last) we ask them "How was Primary" and they will say "Good, but we couldn't understand anything, it was all in Portuguese!" - it's especially funny to hear Ethan say that, he seems so disappointed that none of them have learned English yet.

We love you all and love to hear from you, we'll write again soon. Love you!!

Brazil '07 - Fall in Brazil

Monday, 9 May 2007

Hey hey hey - Well, "fall is in the air" I guess... I think winter is like fall too here in the tropical zone, so I don't know what season this is. Today is exceptionally colder than usual - I might have to break out the pants and long sleeved shirts, which I packed away 2 months ago cause shorter sleeves and pant legs = less hand washing and less time drying on the line. But maybe since it's colder they won't be outside in the dirt as much and so won't get as dirty. Yay! So tonight Corey is going to Sao Paulo for a BYU meeting thing, we might go with him - it's noon here and we're still not sure if we have a place for me and the kids to stay, so we might just stay here and then he'll drive back tonight with his friends and then we'll all go to Sao Paulo tomorrow to catch our flight to Florianopolis. We are flying in there (only $500 round trip for a family of 7 - it was cheaper to fly than to take the bus, great! Hooray for Gol Airlines!) We are going to be staying an hour-ish north of Florianopolis in Balneário Camboriú at the Costa Sul Beach Hotel, where we'll be able to enjoy the beaches, the local cuisine, and the nightlife. Yes! We hope it's not too cold, cause the kids have been looking forward to the beach, but we might have to forgo splashing in the waves and just play in the dirt. Here's a link to our hotel. http://www.intervalworld.co.nz/web/cs?a=1503&resortCode=CUL&parentResortCode=CUL
So, that will be fun, we'll try to drop a line or two if we have internet access.
As for life here, Corey tore a ligament by his ankle last Thursday night when he was outside playing with the kids. He's able to hobble around on it though and we are praying for a quick recovery. We went on a date last night, Eliziane watched the kids for us. The temple is closed for 2 weeks for cleaning, so we didn't know what to do with ourselves. We just went to the mall and hobbled around - him with his hurt ankle, me with my aching pregnant hips. I tried to not wobble so much, cause then we'd really look ridiculous holding hands and both limping. We sat on a lounge couch overlooking the food court for a while and just enjoyed the time to sit and talk uninterrupted. After a while, Corey said "Well, it's not the celestial room, but should we say a prayer?" I thought that was funny.
That's all for now, love you all.

Brazil '07 - Rio and Birthday BBQ

From an email I sent to my family and friends last night...

Hello Family (and friends!) -

Big news last week - on Tuesday the 24th I went in for an ultrasound - and we are having a GIRL!!!. Melodie is very excited, and the boys have decided they don't mind either, although they say it with scrunched up noses like their trying to avoiding getting cooties from even hearing the word "girl". Today Mom sent me an email where she reminded me of a time when Beka was babysitting the kids at BYU? (tell me if we got this right Beka) and Joe drew a picture of our family but had too many kids. Beka asked him to name everyone and then asked who the extra child was. Joe said it was "Angela" and she hadn't been born yet. Maybe Joe knew something we didn't? Corey and I haven't decided on a name yet, I'm going to get my working list going, and hopefully we'll decided before we leave the hospital this time. Poor Wesley didn't have a name for 2 weeks after he was born, and Hyrum was Wesley for a week, and Ethan was William for a few days... we seem to struggle naming these little ones.

So what's up here in Brazil... The days are going by quick, and even the kids are surpised when we tell them it's time to go to church again, that being the only consistent regular event with a place/time/date in our family schedule right now. April flew by for us here, hoping May does too, cause we are excited to see you all again! We got our visa's renewed without a problem, so are going to be staying until we fly out the evening of June 12th, arriving back in DC at like 6 in the morning I think on the 13th. Things are going great for Corey business - he's been mostly programming for the past week since we got back from Rio and has been greatly blessed and helped in writing the technology. As he tells me every hour or so with great satisfaction in his handsome voice, "It's going very, very well!" and that's all I can tell you. I wish I understood all the great things he's coding, (although I don't mind just taking his word for it)... I just feel bad that I can't appreciate his brilliance like someone who knew what in the world he was talking about. But he'll have to wait for those reactions when he gets back to Utah and can show his incredibly clean code to all his friends.

So Corey, Joe, Wesley and I went to Rio (pronounced "HEE-o") the 20th and 21st. Fabio and his wife watched the other three kids - they all said they had fun, but I had a hard time leaving Hyrum who I thought wouldn't understand why we didn't come back to get him when it was time to go to bed. But I made Mel and Ethan promise to take care of Hyrum, and then Fabio drove us to the airport at 7 a.m. I thought we were running late, but had pleantly of time (like an hour and a half) to sit around the airport and wait. Wesley entertained himself and us by throwing a ball around and playing kick soccer with other passengers in the waiting room. He's a cutie and has a crowd of admirers everywhere he goes. We flew out on Gol Airline, the Brazil version of Jet Blue (the founder of Jet blue served his mission in Brazil and has helped out their company). We left Campinas around 10:30 and after a short 40 min flight landed in Rio de Janiero.

The person who we thought would pick us up at the airport wasn't there so we got a taxi. Nice driver. Corey did a little small talk with him, the other 3 of us just looked out at all the cement buildings and the ocean bay and we drove to the down town area. The streets in the city are very small, many are pedestrian only, including the one that our hotel was on - there was a person at the end of the street protecting it from cars, but they removed their street cones to let our taxi pass, and the taxi drove down what seemed like a small alley with people walking up and down it and then it stopped. "We're here!" I wasn't sure we were really at a hotel, but we took his word for it, got out in what seemed like a back street alley and the fronts of all the buildings were supposed to be on the other side, but we walked over to a iron-barred gate, walked inside, and there we were in the Itajuba hotel lobby. Nothing fancy, but comfortable. We had a room with a lock, so we felt safe with a homebase and have lived to tell the tale. We decided to go find lunch, all we had to do was walk out the lobby door and there were tons of little food shops there in the street - ("alley" to me). We just started walking, Corey seemed to know where he was going, but I was lost after taking a few corners - just a big urban jungle to me. It's beautiful and busy and huge and small - the hills/mountains shooting out of the ocean and land are amazing to see - We didn't go to the beach or to the famous mountain Pao de Acucar. We wandered around for a bit trying to see if we could find the Church Employment office building where Corey was going to be teaching the GMAT class that night, but eventually gave up and then decided to find place to eat. We wandered into a three story, narrow and vertical restaurant - we climbed the stairs to the 3rd level, and ordered some food that was too complicated a process (it was some talian restaurant where you make your own lasagna and design your own salad - for each one all you had to do was pick out 8 ingredients from their list of 30+ - we didn't know what they were and had a kinda hard time ordering for ourselves, and asked Joe if we could just share a bite of ours with him and then buy him some fries at McDonald's after, so that we wouldn't have to try to figure out what to order him.) After fries and ice cream at McDonald's we got a taxi that drove us up to the Cristo Redentor statue.

It was a beautiful drive up, I could imagine I was driving in the canyons in Utah or the tree lined streets in Virginia. When we were at the top, the clouds were passing over the statue of Christ - Joe couldn't believe how big it was - it doesn't seem as tall in the pictures. 

I was sure to get a picture of Wesley - he was cute as he look at the statue holding out his hands like Christ.

I don't think I caught it on camera, but hopefully one of the pictures will turn out cute, cause I still need to do Wesley's ABC book - we might use Brazil for Z - Wesley's ABC book is going to be a big baby travel-log: with DC, Palmyra NY, Niagra Falls, Teotihuacan Mexico, now Brazil... that almost 2 year old had certainly gotten around!

After seeing the statue from the top, we took a drive back down where there was another view of the Pao De Acucar mountain and the bay area. 

Then we went to visit the family that Corey stayed with last time he was in Rio, The Morais family. They were very nice. Joe was quiet and shy while Corey and I visited. They had their little one and a half year old granddaughter there. Wesley and her fought over some toy balls, later they reconciled when she gave him a tender kiss on the lips, and Wesley was stiff a a board, it was so funny to see the expression on his face! Way cute. We left and walked to a mall close to their house - we took the escalator up to the 8th floor (everything is vertical here) where we looked out over the ocean and the Pao de Acucar.

We had some icecream cones and then headed to the hotel

We had about 25 minutes before Corey had to be at his GMAT class at 7, but they taxi driver's we asked for a ride said it would take an hour to get back to our hotel in the center - it was a Friday night, lots of streets were closed and crowded with people, they suggested we take the metro. Ok ~ so off we went, we caught a train and got off at the stop they told Corey (I'm still not understanding much, so I'm glad Corey knew what he was doing. Or did he? Sometimes I think he's just rolling the dice and seeing where we end up!) But we got off at the right spot, and our hotel's street was just a short walk away. It was really crowded with people - eating at small tables that had been set up for the night and weren't there during the afternoon - people were dancing, music playing, I'm sure lots of drinking going on, and they were were walking right into it, Me holding Joe's hand and Corey with his bag around his waist and Wesley up on his shoulders. We looked at each other, telling each other with our eyes that we knew we looked a little out of place.... In the hotel Corey got his GMAT books and was off to class. Me and the kids colored as we watched Woody the Woodpecker in Portugues and jumped on the bed.

The next morning we got up early to check out and we went on a walk to where Corey taught his class. The people who were there were so nice. Corey has said before and said again that the best thing about visiting different places in the world is meeting the members of the Church. There really is an instant bond of brotherhood. What a wonderful thing to be members of this wonderful Church! They were great guys, and Corey felt so happy to meet them and help them step closer to reach their goals to go to school at BYU (Corey loves waving the BYU banner!) and we hope to be able to greet them when they come to Utah in a few years. They took us to the bus station and we bought tickets for a return bus ride home - we barely missed the Campinas bus at 1:30 and thought for a few minutes that we'd have to wait until the next Campinas bus at 10:30 at night. After 10 minutes of trying to figure out what to do, Corey remembered we could just go to Sao Paulo, which had lots of buses to it, and then when we get there we'd catch a bus to Campinas, which run every hour. Of course! So at 2:00 we were off to Sao Paulo, 5 hours later we got on a bus to Campinas right away (didn't even have time to buy a doughnut) and we arrived in Campinas at 8:30. Fabio and his wife drove both our cars to pick us up with the kids all lined up in the back seat, it was good to see them. And we headed home. A quick trip, but it was fun.

The Tuesday before, Corey had originally bribed Mel, Ethan, and Hyrum to stay home by offering them something he knew they could not refuse, saying "Do you want to go to Rio (with an expression on his face that said "boring!") with Mom and I on Friday, or... (his voice starting to sound excited now...) do you want to go to McDonald's for a Happy Meal with me tonight?" (BIG smile!!) He told me later that Mel and Ethan were congratulating themselves, sounding very content as they ate their fries, saying "We made the right choice, huh! Joe didn't!" Corey said it was funny, they were so proud of themselves.

This week the kids have drawn many pictures and made many little things out of paper to use in their play. Ethan and Hyrum were especially funny as they've played Super Heroes this week. Hyrum was Superman for 2 days, and then Ethan protested saying it was his turn, and was able to convince Hyrum to be "Blackness!" - that's a character of Ethan's creation - he wears all black and simply called "blackness". I'm not sure what super powers he has, or if he's a good guy or bad guy. But Hyrum started being Blackness on Wednesday the 25th, and for the next 4 days the kids played and slept in the same clothes - Ethan in the blue, Hyrum in the black.

It was hot, and I tried to convince them to not wear their "secret identities" (aka Sunday clothes on top of their super hero clothes) but they insisted they were not hot and walked around all day with two layers of clothing on, occasionally shedding their secret identities to be the superhero. I had to shake my head each time Hyrum would have to go to the bathroom and come to me running in place trying to not wet his pants, and then we'd run into the bathroom and I'd have to take off 1) secret identity pants 2) superman's underwear 3) Superman's pants and finally 4) Hyrum's underwear. Luckily "Blackness" only wears shorts, so no tight superhero underwear to pull down on those days. Hyrum always seems to wait until he can't hold it anymore before he comes and says he has to go potty, so I gotta be ready to jump up at a moment's notice. Today it was funny, I was at the computer, and he came over, didn't say anything, wasn't looking at me, was just over by the couch running in place. Hmmm "Hyrum, do you have to go potty?" Hating to admit it, he says "yeah."
I had a fun birthday on Saturday - the big 31. The kids drew pictures for me during the morning in between their superhero play (I told them I wanted pictures of Hello Kitty, and off they went to work drawing Me and Hello Kitty having a birthday party together and making me cards in the shape of presents - they are all so crafty!) We stayed at home during the morning, and after lunch we went to Sorocaba for our first official Brazilian BBQ at the house of a MBA friend of Corey's, a girl named Daniele. Sorocaba is a town about an hour and a half south from us. The kids had lots of fun on their swing set, (notice Hyrum as "Blackness" on the right...)

 Also they played with their two dogs in their dog run.

The kids liked it, I'm not sure the dogs did - they had their ears down the whole time. They were courtious, but didn't seem to appreciate the mess the kids made - spilling the food and water, moving their wood crate beds around, man! Corey and I enjoyed the visit and seeing all the amazing plants and fruit trees they had growing in their garden - let me see if I can remember them all: Sugar cane, avocado, some brazilian version of raspberry kinda fruit, figs, guava, passion fruit, pomegranit, mango, manioc (a root, kinda like a bitter potatoe, but good when it's deep fried!) and this really weird big fruit called Jaka (jackfruit) It was really weird - it looked weird on the tree, it looked weird when they killed it and cut it open - it looked like they were disembowling an animal, It was really weird!

It's guts felt really weird too. The fruit inside it had a texture like a banana, tasted like a banana/pineapple, Corey called it an alien fruit in crocodile skin. 

But the drink was truly "divine" as Corey told them - the drink of the gods. We wish we hadn't gotten so excited about the drink though, cause after eating a ton of meat and lunch, we didn't have room for so much beverage. Wesley helped us out a bit, drinking two cups of it, but the other kids wouldn't come near it. I enjoyed the first glass, drank the second glass more slowly, and when they gave me another full glass, I just hurried and chugged it down to try to get it over with - too much food! We were stuffed and didn't have to eat again until today! (just kidding).

Well, it's late, I'm off to bed. Hope you don't mind that these emails are so lengthy. Love you all, I'll try to write more... I haven't been writing in my journal except when I copy over these emails, so I need to write more, I feel I'm not documenting as much as I need to. Like today when the kids played whatever imaginative game they played all day - flying in their spaceships that they've made out of chairs and towels, flying to wherever it is they fly. 

Here is a picture of Wesley saying Cheese with Joe and Ethan by the pool (see picture #5) - the pool aka "the ocean" - Joseph was the Water King I think, and Ethan was the Ice King, each wearing their paper crowns and paper necklaces. Ethan they admitted they looked more like Indians, but they didn't care. They were so funny to watch, I loved it and got some of it on tape, we'll show it to you when we get home. Love you all, see you soon! -Tiffanie

Brazil '07 - Temple and Birthday

Thursday, 26 April 2007

Eliziana babysat for Corey and I tonight, and we were able to go to the temple together for an endowment session. I was proxy for Maria Ignacia Costa, b. 1806 in Minas Gerais, Brazil. It was a nice session. Before we went, we went to the Itaguami Shopping Mall and shared a plate of meat and beans. Neither of us were that hungry - Corey had already eaten out at the Itaguami food court with his friend Oli Silva who is helping Corey get his idea patened here. I wasn't hungry cause I had been muching on a box of chocolates. (I bought two boxes of Garato chocolates on Tuesday after the ultrasound, and pretty much have eaten them both myself - what a pig! What can I say, the chocolate is helping make life bearable.)


28 April 2007

Today is my birthday, I am 31 years old. We went to a BBQ at an MBA friend of Corey's house, Danielle. She lives in Sorocaba, it was fun and delicious

Brazil '07 - It's a Girl

Tuesday, 24 April 2007

I have felt the baby kicking for about 6 weeks now. Today I went in for an ultrasound and guess what, IT'S A GIRL! Melodie is very excited, and Joe and Ethan have decided it's okay too. Corey thought it was going to be a girl. I thought we need to have another girl eventually, but didn't know if this baby would be one. But we are all excited. I'm going to have to start working on my list of names.
The hospital where I had the ultrasound was interesting, didn't look like a US hospital, and I never would have thought it was one if I had walked past it. It looked more like a foreign country's embassy office in downtown DC. I was waiting for about an hour before they saw me. Joe and Mel and Hyrum had come with me, I thought they would be able to come up with me, but they stayed in the lobby, where my helper Lillian was waiting with her two kids. She's not quite my interpreter, cause she doesn't speak English, but she knows what needs to be done, so she's like my Portuguese Mom and talks to people while I stand there. But at the front desk they probed my language skills a bit, then said I speak good (for 2 months) and gave me directions as to where to go to up on the second floor. That was the hardest part, but I made it, waited, and then was able to understand what the doctor said as we looked at our little girl. So I"m just over 20 weeks along, half way there. I think being here in Brazil is making the pregnancy go by quicker, cause instead of just sitting around waiting for my due date, I've got a half way mark taken care of cause I'm sitting around waiting for our flight home. We got our visas renewed last Thursday, the 19th, so we are good to stay until June 13th. I think our flight is the 12th in the evening, we arrive in Dulled June 13th at like 6 a.m.

Brazil '07 - New Car

Wednesday, 18 April 2007

Letter to Family after finishing week 9 in Brazil -
Hello Family -
A great miracle this week - so we've decided we never want to see the Volkwagon Santana again (Corey said Santana sounds a lot like Satan) and so we decided to sell it back and rent a car. After looking up prices though, we hesitated since it would be about $79 a day just for the car, not including gas and other unknown come up expenses. Still we decided to do it, it is better than having to deal with a dealership again or worrying about car repairs. So a friend of Corey's, Marcos, who took the GMAT class 2 years ago, sent Corey an email to say hello and ask if there was anything Corey needed. Corey asked Marcos if he could pick him up from the bus stop in Sao Paulo and take him to a car rental place. Then Marcos said that he just got a new job and with this new job he gets a company car, and so we could use his other car if we wanted. What a blessing! So the car dealership made some money on us, but it all belongs to the Lord anyway, right? So they were ripping off God, not us, and God is making it balance out with the money that we'll save from not paying for a rental car with Marcos' car. Isn't that nice! The Lord who works mighty miracles that seem small. So now we are loving it in our little 2 door compact car - it drives like it's in one piece, unlike the Santana, and doesn't rattle and shake when we drive it on the dirt road. Corey and I sit in front, and the kids all sit lined up in a row in the back seat. Corey said he never thought he'd be so excited to drive the kind of car he drove in high school - he's having flashbacks of being 16 and cruizing in the black Volkswagon rabbit... (timewarp)...only he's in Brazil (how'd I get here?), and has a wife and 5 kids in tow...(What!?! When did all that happen?!? I'm just a kid!)

We've all been safe and sound this week. Swimming as usual, plus the kids have been doing lots of art work, which leaves the floor covered crayons and colored pencils that fall off the table and tons of scraps of paper (sometimes a full sheet of paper with a small part cut out, then discarded... I'm trying to teach them to "use it up" but it doesn't seem to be registering). Ethan drew a great picture of Jesus on Sunday - he looked at a card with Del Parson's red robed savior and drew it so well, Corey and I were especially impressed with the nose - complete with nostrils. Melodie is the most dedicated artist. The boys will always jump down and run around to do something else for a bit then come back, but Melodie stays until the job is done, working non-stop comping up with some little amazingly creative thing that hatched in her little brain - yesterday she made a paper Hello Kitty doll that's head was big enough to also a pocket (she had stapled another Hello Kitty shape behind it) with a space inside where she proudly showed me was stored: Hello Kitty's paper brain, Hello Kitty's paper heart, and Hello Kitty's paper "guts". (They learned the "guts" word after squishing caterpillars and asking me what the green stuff was... "guts." I said.) It was really cute, and now all the kids are making pocket people with all the stuff that goes inside. Ethan made Jesus pocket and I helped him draw the brain, heart, and "guts" - I guess we gave him so much praise for the great Jesus he drew on Sunday that it is his new trick for attention. He's a great little artist - his most frequent piece of doodle work though is Superman, complete with the little black curl coming down the middle of his forehead. Since his "Superman Birthday" Ethan has been starting to twirl his hair in front a lot. I first noticed it when he would be coming to ask us for something, so I thought he was just nervous, but then he'd do it at other times when he shouldn't feel nervous so I thought he was fidgeting, and trying to get him to not fidget I asked him to not twirl his hair. "Why do you do that with your hair?" He then explained to me that he's trying to get it to curl like Superman's. I thought that was cute. - I guess it's worth a try! His hair is pretty straight though, and so he's a little envious of Hyrum's hair, that has more curl in it. Hyrum will be all sweaty from playing outside or after swimming, and Joe and Mel will pull him aside and help him get a Superman curl, which makes Hyrum feel very proud. Hyrum wears Ethan's little Superman costume more often than Ethan does now. Hyrum was jumping off this little area from the patio onto the grass the other day, telling me he was going to fly over to the pool. 1-2-3- jump! And he'd fall on the ground. "Oh! Try again" he'd say. 1-2-3- fly!! Down he'd go. "Almost Hyrum! That was great!" "I'm gonna do it Mom!" I could tell by his face and actions that he really thinks he can fly, just not sure how it's done. It was so cute. I watched him again, said good job, and he was not frustrated, just smiling and saying "Almost!" to himself. Also yesterday he was outside waiting for Superman to come, showing me the palm tree that Superman would shortly be landing by. He just sweetly and matter of factly said "I'm waiting for Superman." We rented Superman the movie and Superman 2 from Blockbuster, so Superman has become a real person and is their current hero. And don't forget to put on the red Superman Underwear!
Great thing about Brazil this week: Cheap airfare to Rio - On Friday morning Corey, Joseph, Wesley and I are going to Rio de Janiero. We were going to ride the bus both way for 5 hours each way, but the airfare is really cheap to fly to (a little more to fly back), so we are going to fly in and take the bus back. The other three are going to stay with our friends Fabio and Adrian (who are coming to BYU in 4 months). We will just be in Rio Friday and Saturday, coming back Saturday night. A friend of ours from Sandy (Jared and Jerusha know him - Christian Napier) is in Rio right now for a business trip, so we are going to meet up with him for lunch and a visit. Joe and I are excited to see the Pao de Acucar mountains. I'll attach a picture that Corey took last time he went there in January. So should be fun, we'll send you all some pictures of that next week.
Love you all-
Tiffanie

Brazil '07 - Don't Whine

Wednesday, 11 April 2007

Here's an email I sent to my family today:
Hi there one and all -
We are still alive here - although Wesley did have two close brushes with death. I detail one below, the other was one was on the Saturday of Conference in the evening when we were out swimming, me and the kids, Corey was on the patio working. Welsey wanted to get out so I put him out and watched him walk up to where Corey was. "You got Wes?" I asked. "Yup." Ok. I turned to play with the 3 oldest kids who needed me to help them put some 5 gallon top cut off water "buckets" things that we use to wash the clothes on their heads and push them under water, in a kind of scuba diving helmet kind of game. It was funny, they were really excited they could breath air under the water, and we were all engaged in that when I hear Hyrum who was close by and bobbing around in his lifejacket say "Mom, Wesley is floating." I turned and there was Wesley, not floating, but down sunk under the water with his little arms reaching up for something to help him. There is no shallow part to our pool, it goes from about 3 1/2 feet to probably 6 or 7 feet at the deep end. I hurried over to where Wes was, pulled him out, he coughed for a bit and had a big look of shock in his eyes and "what, I'm mortal?" on his face. It was getting dark and with me playing with the other kiddos I hadn't seen Wesley walk back down to the pool. I didn't hear him splash in either (something I've always thought I'd hear if any of the kids were in danger). Corey came down, he hadn't seen him come down "he was just barely next to me..." They do move fast. So we are all very grateful that Wes was okay and that Hyrum was paying attention and spoke up. Little Hyrum, bobbing around and floating to wherever the tides of the pool take him, so again I'm so glad he was watching and that I heard him. I don't know if Hyrum knew what happened, but we kept telling him "You saved Wesley's life! Thank you!"
So that probably isn't the best story to start an email with, but really, I mean it, things are going just peachy. That's because I've adopted as my personal motto for life the maxim Elder Holland offered for happy living: No misfortune is so bad that whining about it won't make it worse. So no more murmuring for me! God is at the helm. We are commanded to be of good cheer, and to give thanks in ALL things - blessings and trials, so Nephi-living, here I come - "I love the wilderness!"
I will now proceed to relate to you a series of unfortunate events from the past two weeks that would make other people whine, but not me!! Well, actually, this was on March 29th, before conference and my life changing personal motto, so some complaining went on at the time, but now I look back and laugh. This day was a day that "the elements were against us", although it was moslty just the evening through the night, not the whole day. It was 4:30 pm and Corey was on his way to leave and pick up Eliziana, a sweet single lady in the ward who said she would babysit for us so we could take a date to the temple. But after he had pulled down and out of our yard gate he realized he couldn't get out of the gate of our street cause the remote had been lost. We kept it in the car ash tray thing, and Hyrum and Wesley had been playing in the car that afternoon, and we have assumed that they are the party responsible for it's disappearance. We looked all over and were getting after the kids the whole time "No more playing in the car! This car is a mess! (toys, cracker and cookie crumbs, paper and crayons...) You guys are little pigs!" That was mostly Corey who was searching in the car - I was up searching in the house and in the grass near the patio where the car was parked. I wasn't blaming the kids, I was blaming Brazil. If the people didn't have stupid gates to every house and street this wouldn't even been an issue. But they are all paranoid about something or someone for whatever reason that I haven't seen any evidence for. So after 15 mintues or so I told Corey we should switch - I'll look in the car, you go look at the house so there will be a fresh pair of eyes. I had looked everywhere and was just looking in the same places again so let's trade.
The car was still on during this time - we were sure we'd find it any minute and then Corey could leave to get Eliziana. So I went out the gate to our yard and was looking in the car. Joe kept asking if he could come out of the gate to help me look. I didn't want him to, knowing that other kids would follow him and their increased number would not help but hinder the search. But he kept pleading so I said ok. Joe and I looked, and like I suspected Wesley and Hyrum followed him out of the gate and came over to the car (which was still on). Joe went back up to the house to help Corey, Hyrum and Wes remained with me. All the doors to the car were open. Hyrum came in, and I asked him again "where is the remote?" pointing to the tray where it was supposed to be. Using charades I held out my empty hand and pushed the invisible remote's button. Hyrum trying to help said "Maybe it's in here?" and he opened the tray. He started to play with the switches and buttons like they do in the car, and I went to the back passenger side door to look around more. Hyrum was in the front passenger side seat and Wesley was running toddler laps around the car (which was still on....can you tell that this is not a safe situation? You know what's coming...) So this is the moment I lost my cool - poor Hyrum who was just trying to help the situation which we were all getting mad at him for causing, put the car into drive. It didn't move too fast at first, but it bumped into me and as I realized what was happening I tried to pull it to a stop - didn't work - I hurried to the front screaming "NO-NO-NO-NO-NO!!!!!!" I was able to put it in park, and located Wesley who thanks to God's grace was not in front of the car - he was off to the side enough that he wasn't hit or run over. Hyrum didn't quite understand what had happened or why I had freaked out. I turned off the car (should have done that at the beginning, huh) sat there breathing for a few seconds trying to bring down my heart rate. Breathe -
Then I came to my resolve: No more of this situation - I grabbed their hands, I was done searching, just forget it, and we left the car out of the gate and went in to our yard. Hyrum was crying and went and hid from me in a far corner of the yard, occassionally glancing towards me through his tears. I said sorry, but he wouldn't come to me. I went to the house, told Corey Wesley could have just been killed. (Eternal perspective moment: There are worse things that can happen than losing a gate remote). He told me he had called our friend Antonio to pick up Eliziana and they were on their way. I thought maybe we should cancel the date and just lock ourselves indoors for the rest of the day before we messed up anything else, but I got dressed, Antonio and Eliziana came, and we said bye to the kids. We had since been able to bring Hyrum into the house and made amends - I tried to explain how I was scared that Wesley or he might have gotten squished and hurt. We talked with Antonio about our landlady and how we could probably get a remote from her. We put on a DVD on the laptop and left - Eliziana told us to enjoy ourselves and take our time - Corey joked maybe we'd stay out till 2. (...remember that comment for our ironic situation later). We got a neighbor to open the gate, and left at 6:30 - two hours later than planned, and did not know how we'd get back into our place.
As we started to drive, the car temperature light was blinking - Overheating, Overheating 110' C. We stopped to let it cool, drove a little further, stopped again, drove again, and said a prayer that we'd get to the temple safely. After the prayer, I was ready to just drive on and ignore the light. But Corey was at the wheel and using common sense decided we should pull off and get water in the car. We had to fill it with water regularly, so we figured there was a leak or something and some water should fix it from getting too hot. We missed the exit, turned around, missed it again on the return, and on the 3rd pass took the right road and got to the gas station. They made us wait for the engine to cool for 20 minutes, during which time we talked that the issue with the remote was probably a test from God, and we didn't do very good - a C grade at best. Shame shame.
So they put water in the car and we drove to the temple. The car seemed okay for most of the drive, but as we drove up the hill the light was blinking again. So it wasn't the water... what else could it be? The temple was great, we were able to do a session (sometimes there aren't enough people for a session) and we did it in Portuguese - I understood most all of it, and felt proud of myself. I am getting better still at understanding people, but can't speak that well. I keep speaking Spanish.
So before we left home to go on our date, we thought we understood that our friend Antonio was going to go by our landlady's house and get another control to the gate, and we were going to meet up at the McDonald's parking lot at 10:30 for him to give it to us and we'd be on our way home. We had 20 minutes after the temple before it was 10:30 and we went to a restaurant for a bite to eat. (There is nothing open from 3-7 pm, but there are restaurants open from 8 - 12. Kinda different that the US. One time we tried to go out to eat for a late lunch/early dinner at 4:00 and nothing was open, the kids were pretty disappointed in their un-informed-as-to-the-ways-of-Brazil parents. We finally just went to a bread shop and got some great ham and cheese bread, yogurt juice, and cake and they were happy) So after our quick bite of food, we went to McDonalds. We were a little late so didn't know if we missed Antonio - we left our cell phone with the sitter so if he called that we wouldn't know.
We hung around at a video store nearby and bought some ice cream and chocolate candy at a gas station, and decided we'd just go home - we'd leave the car outside the gate to our street and just hop over the fence. So as we were pulling out at 11:15, Antonio pulled up. Yeah! We thought he'd just hand us the remote and we were good, right? But I guess we still have a language barrier preventing us from communicating things and understanding things correctly, cause he said to us through his window - "Let's just go by my house and get my wife and she'll come with us to get the remote." Ok~ so this is going to get us home later than planned... We went to Antonio's house and tried to call our landlady to tell her we needed a remote, but no answer. We called the babysitter so she could walk outside to the street to see if perhaps the gate was open, but she said it was closed. We told Antonio how our car was overheating - he had fixed it the first time when the accelerator cable was broken, and he fooled around for 20 mintues or so and found that there were some broken wires by the fans to the engine so they weren't on. We were able to kinda temporarily fix that and thought that would stop it from overheating until we could take the car in. So it was like 12:30 and we told Antonio we were just going to go home and hop the fence and pray the car would work the way there an not overheat and we'd talk to our land lady in the morning. They gave us a ladder to hop the fence - so I wouldn't do any damage to myself or the baby, very thoughtful of them. So we were on our way. We got home at 1, hopped the fence and again I was thinking "it's not the kids fault the remote is lost - it's Brazil's fault for having all these dumb gates!" What is their purpose? They don't keep dogs out, they don't keep people out - Corey's hopped the fence numerous times already after late rides home on the bus. I'm not sure what the purpose of all these locks and gates are... We were talking about what a great memory this will be someday, and Corey came off the gate he said "I wonder what all the other MBA grads are doing right now?" Right, they're probably not hopping a gate at 1 a.m. in the wilderness in Brazil. Then we talked, what are we doing here? Other MBA grads have normal jobs, right? It's not Brazil or the kids, it's us, what are we doing here? Maybe it's not bad luck or that the car is broken or that Brazil is broken, maybe we are broken! As that demotivator poster says - "DYSFUNCTION - The Only Consistent Feature Of All Of Your Dissatisfying Relationships Is YOU." The only constant is all of our problems is... us! Oh no! :)
So in the house Eliziana was in asleep with the kids in their room, we apologized for being out past 1:00 (she had to work in the morning), but I also figured that she is probably the least surprised by how our evening went - she lives here and knows that how things are in Broken Brazil. She did feel bad as she showed me Ethan's and Hyrum's broken glasses on the table - they had been fighting and she didn't see what had happened but there were the frames, each with one lense, and a lense loose from Hyrum's glasses but she couldn't find Ethan's lost lense. With how the day had gone, I was almost totally unaffected by the news, it seemed totally in line and according to the curse that had followed us. As we walked out to the gate so Corey could take her home (I went to help hold the ladder as they climbed over the gate) Corey told her we were just kidding when we said we were going to stay out until 2 a.m. She was very nice, said she could baby sit next Thursday too - we didn't know if she was serious, but she was. Isn't that nice! We are going to have regular date nights!
Unfortunately, the next Thursday we had to call her and cancel our date cause our car was in the shop - we took it in Monday and it was there until Thursday night. There were lots of things wrong with and the "guarantee" that Corey thought we had when we bought it (they would fix any problems for free during the first 60 days) didn't apply because of whatever reasons. So we paid up and they fixed all the things Corey told them to, or so we thought. One of the many things was a broken latch on the hood. Corey went to pick it up on Thursday night, and the bad luck that is following us followed Corey and passed on to his friend Luiz who took him to get the car. Luiz's car broke down on the way there - so they had to walk a little ways. They got the car and then Corey drove Luiz to his car and followed him to make sure he got to his home okay, and then Corey (with Hyrum & Ethan who were with him) decided to go to the grocery store to buy food and grab a bite for them to eat. As they were driving on the freeway, all of a sudden Corey said there was a loud sound, he couldn't see out the windshield, and the glass of the windshield had shattered (but was still holding together in the window). He didn't know what had happened but slowed down the car and tried to pull over to the side of the road. He said it was a heart stopper for sure, and by the time he pulled over he realized what had happened, - the latch to hold the hood which was loose/broken, hadn't been fixed and the hood got loose, blowing up like a sky-diver's parachute with the wind from the freeway, and broke the window and cut off his visibility. Someone pulled over to help him, they called a tow truck and called Luiz, and took the car to Luiz's house. Luiz was online and was able to tell me what was happening. I felt bad for Corey, and must say that I deal with such stressful situations better from a distance. Corey is a trooper leading us on this adventure.
Friday I asked Corey about the car, he called Luiz, Luiz called the dealership, Luiz called us back and told us they wouldn't be able to fix it because of the holiday. We totally didn't put it together that it was Good Friday, we were just like "Ugh! some silly Brazilian Holiday and now we won't have a car till the weekend is over..." On Saturday, Corey's friend Favio and his wife and kids came over to make us a good Brazilian meal. They had hoped we could come to their place, but alas, no car. Favio took Corey to the grocery store and I stayed with Adriana and we engaged in conversation. One of my small talk questions was, "So what holiday was everyone celebrating yesterday?" She replied "Um, Easter?" I felt silly and said "Easter, right! We have that one in America too!" I felt a little silly, we've just forgotton or something, I had read the families emails about easter candy and getting ready for the egg hunt, but didn't put 2 and 2 together. Duh. When the kids heard me and Adriana talk about "Easter was yesterday..." they all looked at me with worry and pain, the tears almost already forming in their little eyes as they asked "We missed Easter?!?!?" I told them that when the package from Grandma arrives we'll do an egg/treasure hunt with the goodies in there. They seemed okay with that. We were also lucky that the Primary bailed us out - after church was over they told all the primary children to go to the primary room. I didn't know what for, but then was told that it is an Easter tradition in Brazil to give the chocolate eggs to each other, so we scored big time with 5 big chocolate eggs as each of our 5 kids got an egg wrapped up fancy and like a huge present. The kids were all excited ("Jackpot!!") and looked like they had just sat on Santa's lap. I'm attaching some pictures of them with their eggs. In the last ones, Wesley dumped his Egg and wouldn't pose for a picture, wondering "why do I have to pose when the other kids are already eating theirs?" He left his on the floor and went after Ethan's chocolate until I gave up on getting a picture, took off the wrapper, and showed him the chocolate goodness inside.
So back to Saturday when Corey's friend and wife came over - Favio was in the first GMAT class that Corey taught in Brazil 2 years ago. He wanted to go to Business school but has since changed his plans and has applied to BYU's MPA (Masters of Political Administration) program and this last month he took the GMAT test again and got a good enough score that he was accepted, so they are getting ready to move to Provo this July. I get excited thinking about how much they will love the US - but I wonder if it will be a hard culture shock to get over like it's been for me here? I'm sure there will be differences that are difficult, but we are excited to share life in Utah with them when they come (especially Costco and Walmart!!!) They are excited and will have a great 2 years there. I'm sure we'll introduce them to all of you sometime after they come.
So Favio is interested in politics and hopes to serve in Brazil's government somehow after BYU. He reads up on US politics a lot and is up to date with Mitt Romney and such. As we were eating our lunch, Corey started bragging about our little policital historian (Joe!) and told Favio to "watch this" as he started to ask Joe questions that he himself doens't know the answers to (and neither do I) "Joe, who was the 13th president of the United States?" After swallowing his food, Joseph states: "Millard Fillmore." "What years did he serve?" came the follow up question. After a short pause and eyes looking up in thought, Joe said "1850-1853." Corey asked another questtion, "Who was his vice president?" "He didn't have one" Corey said "Huh? Every president has a vice president... go get your book?" Joe quickly returned and Corey looked in the book, and said with awe "he's right!" (Fillmore became president after Zachary Taylor's death in office from illness, thus he didn't have a VP). A few more questions "Who was president after Millard Fillmore?" "Franklin Pierce." Corey, trying to stump him said "What year was he born?" Joe thought for a second and said "1804" One last try for Corey... "What month?" Flavio and Corey were both threw their heads back with amazement when he said "November." He didn't know the day though, and so I'm sure that's next on Joe's task to teach himself. He's always wanting to impress Corey when he gets quizzed. It's pretty amazing, we adults couldn't believe a little 1st grade drop-out could know so much. I've warned Joe that he's going to get sick of us when we're back in Utah, cause I'm sure he's going to be our little side show - we'll take him with us to social gatherings with our friends and will say "Ask him a question about the US Presidents" and we'll all be amazed. It's so cute and fun, amazing what 2 months of almost complete isolation can do to a kid!
There are other stories that I'm sure we'll relate when we're home, but here's the last thougth for now -
Great thing about Brazil for the week:
For those of you who are avocado fans, I wish you were here. When I first cut into an avocado here I thought I was partaking of the fruit of the tree of life. It was a huge avocado, like they are as big as eggplants. It was perfect, no bruises, perfectly soft and green, delicious. Corey and I both love them. Brazil Avocados - A+
Love you all -
Tiffanie