Twinners

It's nice having 11:30 church. Actually, today, I thought it was at 11, so I was calling kids to head to the car at 10:40 and Wes wondered why I was going so early. Oh, that's right, it starts at 11 thirty! So then Corey and I both cleaned around the kitchen a bit and the kids played outside. I had gotten Peter dressed in a plaid shirt, but then he wanted a tie on, which didn't look quite right, so Wes helped him change and ended up dressing him as his little twin. Down to them both wearing white socks! 

Corey said says that's a fashion no-no, but they pulled it off pretty good.

Posing for the camera. 

Abi was wearing a black and white dress, and they kinda looked like they were ready for a school dance. I took a picture of them, but her eyes were closed and they both didn't like how they looked so they deleted it. As the Johnsonfiles says, when it comes to photos, everyone is only looking at themselves, right? Sophi and I and Natalie were wearing black and white too, and I said that we were going to the black and white ball, and then Abi got the song "Cruella Devil" stuck in her head.

One of our highlights after church is having Peter come show us the picture he colored. He is our favorite little man, and yes Peter, Heavenly Father does have a plan for you!! 

After church, Abi wanted to watch My Fair Lady, so we did and that was fun. Then at 4, our friend Gabriel came by with his daughter Valentina (3rd to last pic) and Valentina's husband Michael. Gabriel is Angela's husband, our friends from Chile, who saved us when we were trying to fly home in 2011. That is one of many fun memories with their family (and this is one of my personal favorites). Gabriel was here to drop off his daughter up at BYU Idaho last week, exciting for her! So it was nice to have them here. After dinner was in full swing, I snuck upstairs to rest for a little bit. When I woke up, the kitchen was cleaned up and the house was pretty quiet. I asked Corey where the kids were, and they were playing "Try Not To Laugh" and watching old family videos. Mel has been working on getting all of our family pictures and videos together on one shared online album that we can all access. It was pretty funny watching those old videos! Joseph had come up for dinner too and was laughing at the videos of his youth. We remember that life when Joseph, Mel, and Ethan were the ones in junior high, and Abi and Lily were the toddlers. A few thoughts we had: Time sure goes by quickly! And also that Corey and I have been doing this raising children thing for a long time! And here we still are, about to add one more kid and start all over again with her. It's a good way to spend our time, and there's no one else I'd rather do it with than Corey. We're only missing two kids tonight. It's fun when as many of them are here as possible. We talked about family, and encouraged them to think about the life that they want in the future, cause pretty soon, right NOW will be the "remember when" of the videos we'll be watching, cause time keeps marching on. The semester just ended for Joseph at BYU, but he is going Spring Term and that starts up again on Tuesday. Last night he taught the kids a game called "Animal Sounds ~ 

I came to film it for a minute, and then I went to bed. 

They weren't too loud, and I'm glad that they are all friends and enjoy spending time together. I have a busy week of carpool, taking every day to cover for a friend who covered for me when we were in Florida. I might take advantage of it being my birthday soon to see if I can get my helpers to help out. Corey is taking Lily to jazz band and Joseph said he'll take the jr. high carpool for me, so that is nice. 

Campinas to Florida to Utah

On Wednesday night, our friend Zeb's flight left first around 8, so Corey took him to the airport around 5 and took our luggage with hopes that he'd be able to check it in early. They wouldn't let him, so a friend stayed there and watched it while he came back to pick all of us up. We left around 8. First task - return the cars.

We loaded the kids into the van while Corey talked to the rental people, doing whatever they needed to do for 30 minutes. (Things just take longer here!)

The kids kept getting drinks of water and eating their complimentary candies, and finally they were done and we got in the shuttle to head to the airport. Natalie fell asleep on the drive to the airport, so we carefully placed her in her carseat into the shuttle, then onto the smartcart - she was able to keep sleeping until we had to check her carseat.

We said goodbye to our friends, they all helped us out so much, Thank you! We will miss you!

And now the moment is here, we're on the plane headed home! How does it feel, kids? I think they're excited.

The stewardess' brought around some i-pad type things and the kids watched movies and played games. We enjoyed a nice dinner at 1 a.m, except Abi and Lily were already asleep. Then we told the other kids it's would be good for them to try to go to sleep too. Are you comfortable Wes?

I think all the kids slept pretty well, although Ethan told me later how terrible it was cause he asked for a drink of Guarana but they gave him CocaCola, and then he fell asleep and it spilled all over his shorts and soaked his socks, so he had a miserable night cause he felt sticky and wet. I think he had it better than Corey or I though. I knew it would be bad, so I wasn't surprised, but boy, my ankles got so swollen. I think they're gonna need a few days of elevation to recover. And as for Corey, he saved my life, cause Natalie had a little bit of Coke for dinner when we were at Angela and Felipe's house... and that might not have been a good idea, cause she was seriously awake and full of energy until 3 a.m. Maybe it was the little power nap she had in the drive to the airport, I don't know, but she was on one. There was like no leg room and I would have died if I had to hold her still during the whole night with my pregnant self. Corey saved my life by taking both her and Sophia for our un-restful night's sleep on the plane. Sophi slept on the floor when Natalie was on her high energy kick climbing all over the chair. She finally gave in, but we were going to be getting up early - we landed at 7:30 Florida time / 8:30 Brazil time. That's just five and a half hours of sleep for Natalie - and that's not good.

After we landed, we went though customs and that wasn't bad at all. Although it always makes me laugh to see Corey hand over a 10 pile stack of passports. "School trip?" he was asked. Nope, just our family. After going through there, Corey and the older kids went to check in our luggage for our next flight... but that wasn't until 5:30... yes, this is going to be a long layover. How will we cope? Corey was able to check in the luggage (thanks Delta!) while I stayed with little kids who made a big mess with crackers and drawing papers. And when he returned, he said "Grab your stuff, I got us a room!" What? A hotel room? Wow, brilliant! Yes, there is a Hyatt hotel right there in the Orlando airport.

The view from our room - I love seeing that flag!!

Corey got two pizzas for the kids and they watched tv and Corey and I, well we got to go lay down and sleep!! This was the best idea ever! Natalie didn't eat any pizza, she was too cranky and tired. I went and got her from the kids room and she fell asleep right away.

The kids were thirsty - and were happy when I reminded them that we were in the US now, and you can drink water from the tap here! Drink up!!

After a good nap, we got ready to go catch our final flight.

Unfortunately it said it was delayed for 2 hours. Doh. Wish we hadn't checked out of the hotel yet, but we're not going through security again. So time to sit and wait kiddos.

They did pretty good (with the help of some hamburgers, fries, and chocolate milk). Nice crown Hyrum. Zeb forgot his hat at our friends house, so Wes was in charge of keeping that for him.

Ethan really liked the eye masks from the Azul airline.

The delay turned out to be just 50 minutes, not 2 hours, so that was good. We were on the plane at 6 and soon in the air. Natalie was once again full of high energy. It was a long 4 1/2 hours...

She was just constantly moving - She kicked me out of my chair (wanted equal treatment) so luckily Sophi was willing to sit on Corey's lap and I scooted over by him. Natalie wanted the window seat (open - close - open - close...)

Playing peek-a-boo with Abi in the chair in front of her.

I didn't know if the plane would be landing from the south or coming from the north. But figured it out when I saw the Y on the mountain!

 Kids! There's BYU! We're almost home! 

There is our home! Little Cottonwood Canyon! Although Abi was disappointed she couldn't see her school or our house.

On the planes' decent - that was when Natalie decided to fall asleep. She crashed hard, face down in the seat. Sleep child, sleep.

My parents and Corey's parents and his sister were all there ready to help us load our baggage and transport the kids home. My little sister had decorated our driveway - so nice for America to welcome us back!

We walked in the door and after ooh-ing and aah-ing about the house and how it felt the same as before (it is the same!) they went straight for the Lego room. This chalk writing on the driveway spoke truth - "Home is where the Legos are!"

As they played, we reminded them that it was late, not just for Utah time - but it's like 2 am in Brazil... Aren't you guys tired? Let's go to bed! I'm glad we have a day to recover tomorrow before the 4th of July festivities.

Classic Skating

Two weeks ago on the 18th of March (perhaps as a warm up before his Las Vegas adventure...) Corey took lots o kids and our 3 Chilean friends to Classic Skating for some fun. They had a ball. The highlight of the afternoon was when Natalie met Ariel and Rapunzel.

Corey said their costumes looked really legit and wondered if the Disney corporation/trademark was okay with people out there posing as their copyrighted characters. It was really fun.

Corey had a lot of work to do as always, but soon was in full fun father mode and they had a great time skating, timing each other in an obstacle course, and stuff like that. Cata got the most tickets of anybody

Angela said she had only gone skating two other times in her life, and broke her leg both times. She made it out injury free this time with the help of the skater (the walker for skating).

That isn't the best pic but that's the one Corey sent me, I shall update later. Also Corey has a few videos that he hasn't uploaded yet but I'll update with the links here later.

Las Vegas

Corey and the kids and our 3 Chilean friends headed down south yesterday for a few days of fun in the sun. They left after church to go to St. George, where they spent last night, and then today they are going the last little bit to arrive in Las Vegas. They will be there for two night and are coming home on Wednesday.

On Saturday I felt a bit exhausted. The "this is insane" point hit me when I went to get a fork for a kids to eat with and once again saw that EVERY spoon and fork and knife were gone from the silverware drawer! I had a clean load of dishes that needed to be put away, as well as a completely full sink of dishes waiting for their turn in the dishwasher and I was just like "I just can't keep up!! It NEVER STOPS!!" So my already frazzled mood was topped off by not being able to leave the house for the Women's Broadcast. At 6:00, I gave myself permission to be excused and I went into my room where I gave kids a bath and had other interruptions as I tried to watch the broadcast on byutv. The first talk shared was about how we need to "Trust in the Lord, and Lean not..." She continued: "In English the word lean has a connotation of physically listing or moving to one side. When we physically lean toward one side or another, we move off center, we are out of balance, and we tip. When we spiritually lean to our own understanding, we lean away from our Savior. If we lean, we are not centered; we are not balanced; we are not focused on Christ."

I thought how I definitely am feeling off balance. I'm gonna topple over from being so dizzy. I need to slow down and take a breather. I've been running on all cylinders since Corey's February trip to Brazil at the beginning of February, followed by him being on business for two more weeks in Seattle followed up with several weeks with our house guests that are still here, on top of the whole 11 kids we have with all that they require and such... Just trying to keep this family afloat.... But I was not looking forward to a "break" by going on a trip. Maybe I could stay home? Oooh, that sounds nice. Yes, I did experience some relief when I thought of staying home and not going with them. Would that be okay? Corey would have all the older kids to help, plus Angela and her girls. If I ever did want to take a break, this is my chance. Corey was in his office working when I went in and asked if I could toy with the idea of staying home. "Of course" was his reply. I still felt a bit guilty, mostly for feeling like I was abandoning him. I called several friends to ask their thoughts and to help me be brave enough to let them go or tough enough to accompany them. But none of my 911 girls were answering their phones! I finally got through to Rachael, who thought I was very wise to recognize my limits and gave me permission to listen to and follow those feelings. Sigh, that feels good! Then I called Susan, who shared some thoughts and said they'd be fine, stay home and take a break! Then I finally talked to my twin sister (haha) Nicole yesterday morning (yes, it was Sunday morning and I hadn't packed but I was still not fully committed one way or the other...) and she said that if Corey was honest in saying he wanted me to do whatever would fill my cup, then I should stay home.

So, Sunday morning... we went to church (and I dressed Daniel in a new little onesie Sunday shirt I got! Isn't he so cute!!??) No Sunday shoes yet, so he's not totally ready for work yet.

Of course he can't be totally respectable in his slacks and tie when he's got a pacifier clipped to his collar anyway!

The kids stayed for the whole block with me. Corey came and got some things ready. When church was over we came home, I helped them pack up, I didn't pack for myself or Daniel, and soon they were ready and I let them leave without me. I still felt kinda guilty. So I snuggled with Daniel and we took a nap and woke up at 5:30 and called to see where they were at... I figured they were probably half way, and Corey told me they were just checking in at the hotel in St. George. Wow! Well, if it's that quick, I could still come down! I called my mom to see if I was crazy to think I should still go (I did have two cars at my use...) but if I did go down I'd need to find someone to take care of the guinea pigs. But my mother talked me out of that silly idea and I finally accepted that I was going to miss out on the fun but I was also going to have a quite clean house to myself for the next 72 hours. I've never done this!

So here I am, in a quiet and fairly clean house. Some of the things that are awesome: I haven't taken the garbage out at all today! I did the dishes today and will not do them again until everyone comes back! And I haven't had to pick up any shoes or coats or socks on the floor! I shampooed the carpets with the Kirby vacuum, and it looks nice. I didn't have to put out towels on the wet carpet cause no little feet are running around on it.

I gave the tub in the kids' bathroom a good shinning too, and realized as I scrubbed that I haven't done that since our last visitor Kiran was here last spring. I should probably clean it more than once a year, but I don't see it much so it doesn't bother me. Plus if I wait till it's nice and gray then even the teenagers notice and appreciate how nice it looks.

One drawback is that the house is so quiet that Daniel is a bit concerned and has become a bit high maintenance... if he is awake and I'm not giving him my full attention (or vacuuming) he's quite upset. Thus he's looked like this for a good part of the day.

Isn't that the cutest little "I'm freaking out" face you've ever seen? Silly boy. Please let it be known that this fit did not produce any tears, just a red face. He just wanted to scream at me cause he missed out on swimming. Sorry buddy, I can't promise that I'll make it up to you by doing anything fun here this week but don't you worry, I'm sure you'll see Vegas someday.

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