Yesterday after church, we were invited up to Sumaré for dinner. And I'm bummed that my camera's battery went dead before I got a group picture of all of us. But I guess it gives us a reason to get together with them again! We were invited up by our friends
Rafael and
Nathy and Rafael's mom,
Sonia. Just wonderful beautiful people, just a small example of the wonderful Latter Day Saints here in Brazil.
Nathy, for example, made and brought us over a lovely lasagna dinner last Sunday in between sessions of conference, driving over here with her family to deliver it. Lasagna here is made with ham instead of beef, it was delicious. Hyrum ate it up, and back at home he always says he hates lasagna, so now I know how to make it for him. And then the next day, Nathy and Sonia came again to cook us a delicious stroganoff dinner - Nathy had arranged to come and teach Melodie a few Brazilian recipes. They are too good to us. The dinner yesterday was at Sonia's house. The little kids enjoyed playing with Rafael's and Nathy's beautiful little girls at a park by their home...
That swing is a little small for you, Wes.
Most of the time the big boys sat around wondering and asking when we were going to be done, as if they had somewhere to be or something important to do at home, silly boys. It was a lesson of different cultures for them. Here people aren't in a hurry to go somewhere so they can do their party/dinner think and then leave, NO! They stay and enjoy! Speaking of that, on Saturday there was a birthday party going on over the cement wall west of us. The music started blaring at 10, so I thought it was a day party. But around 5:00, when I could hear the party was still going strong, that I said to myself "Oh, that's right! I'm in Latin America!" Come on Tiff, you know this stuff... the
wedding in Chile? or the
ward Christmas party there? Yes, now I remember again.... that this isn't the US where the longest any party would go is 3 or 4 hours, oh no. I started just hoping that it wouldn't go until 2 am. Thankfully it was over by the time we were going to bed, phew!
Anyway, Hy and Wes were anxious, but Melodie was good and patient, she gets to come again. Hyrum and Wes... well, I'll think about it.
Natalie had a great time exploring the world and being a messy little goof. After eating more than our fair share of food and then a few more bites of meat (then a few more), we sat and let it all digest and had fun talking and laughing about life in the US and Brazil.
Corey was searching for advice about his idea to go to the Amazon. They said no one goes to the Amazon, ever ever ever, no one goes there for any reason, it is not a tourist destination. You go there, you'll find someone who will say they will give you a ride in their boat, then they go to the middle of the river, rob you, and throw you overboard to get eaten by Piranhas. That happened to someone they knew, but they got of lucky and were left alive on the other side of the river, where there were crocodiles and anacondas waiting to finish him off. But he got lucky and survived. "I guess if you really want an adventure...." Rafael said. But wait, if we think what we're doing now is an adventure, and it's normal to them, but they think the Amazon would be a big scary adventure, then yes, maybe that would be a bit too much of an overdose of adventure for our family to take on. We can't handle the mosquitoes here, honestly, what were we thinking, going to the AMAZON? So anyway, that idea is officially off of Corey's bucket list. Then they shared a few more stories that cemented our new decision to not go. Like of people dying. Cause you know whenever there is a story about Brazil, it's about how someone went there and then died, just go watch that medical drama
House MD. I havent' seen it, but Rafael joked that it's a show with people that die from mysterious health diseases, and at the end when the mystery is solved, they discover the dead guy got it from when he went on a trip to Brazil, of course. ;)
Rafael served a mission in Florida, and one of his companions,Scott, who lives near Rio, was in Sumare for a visit and was at the dinner with his wife and cute kids. He and his wife have a cool business throwing parties out near Rio -
Castelo Encantado. Check out some of those pictures! We were very impressed! We told them we can never let our kids have a party like that, cause then they'd come to expect it, and we couldn't keep up with that kind of demand. But still very cool. And since the Amazon if off our list, we have a new destination to go to - Maybe we'll go hang out with Scott and
Beatriz at some gorgeous beaches near their area. Corey's thinking that or maybe Iguazu. Should be fun!
