Thumbs up Dude!!! Mom and Sierra photo op!

Sierra's first Brazilian dress, she's sooooo happy. Look, she's modeling!!!

We made it to mass today finally for the first time. Given the language barrier and lack of attention to time, before today we were always either late or early. Today, however, we made sure we made it. I understood about 15% of the homily, in Portuguese, but the music was phenomenal! And the order of mass is the same around the world, so I could essentially follow along. Here are a few pictures from this morning before we left.

Hope this finds everyone healthy and happy. I'll catch up with more later. Much love....

Just thought I'd add a few more shots. We're keeping our fingers crossed for a nice weekend. I'm working on this electronic/digital movie project with my kids right now at school and the days fly by. I'm giving them 2 weeks to finish the project. I need them to have it done by the 11 of Oct. as the 8th grade travels to Curitiba Brazil the week of the 16. The trip will involve additional projects and assignments, so they need to finish this one first. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

The project after Curitiba will involve some type of community service as we are having the kids analyze "Quality of Life" as defined by multiple factors: education, environment, leisure time, habitat, economics, love/relationships. Curitiba is ranked 3rd best quality of life or place to live in Brazil. I am anticipating working with the area of habitat as I think it would be a phenomenal experience to work on something with the fahvelas (slums) here to rebuild or build housing. I'll keep you all posted.

Until then, here are a few more shots. Some from the balcony of the apartment. I need to pinch myself sometimes when I sit out there and realize what a beautiful landscape I have with the trans atlantic rainforest in my front yard, the atlantic ocean across the neighborhood next door and the mountains just behind me.

Natural wonders are breathtaking. Our God is an awesome God. The picture of the domelike structure is the Rio Cathedral. I find it rather unique architecture for a church. Don't you agree?

Muitos beijos para minha amigas e minha familia! (ha, the Portuguese is coming along!)

Greetings and kisses to all! I can't believe it's the middle of September all ready! The time is flying past us. I looked at a friend's blog this past week and she had several pictures posted. It was really fun to read and view, so I decided to add a few more shots for you all to eliminate the boredom of my words. The first above is taken from our balcony overlooking the pool area. Sierra is on the left and a "friend" from the apartments is on the right. The way that children are able to communicate absent of language continues to amaze me. Two weekends ago at the beach she spent an hour and a half playing with a young girl in the waves, using what little Portuguese and English the other knew and laughing a playing the whole time.
Likewise, my Portuguese is coming along. This past week I had several drs. appointments (all routine, trying to have a dr. before any type of sickness appears and I'm in a pickle to find an English speaking dr.) and I was able to communicate with the office staff IN PORTUGUESE with relative success. There have been a couple of other times that I found myself in a conversation with a vendor or a waiter and I'm understanding what's being said, MORESO, I'm responding--correctly! It's a really cool feeling. I still have difficulty comprehending given the Carioca accent. For example, Joe and I got into a taxi yesterday afternoon to pick up Sierra from a play date. I said the name of the street, Pacheca Leao. The taxi driver responded, blah blah Chocolate. I said, Que? He repeated, Pacheca Leao....The whole time he was saying the same name I was saying and I thought he was saying Chocolate! UGH! It was funny once my translation device clicked in my brain. I laughed, padded the cabbies shoulder and said, Sim, ta, obrigada. Every day is still an adventure and a learning experience.
The second picture above was taken tonight as Sierra laid on my bed and wrote in her Journal! YEah!! She's writing almost every day. Either journaling or letters to friends/teachers at school. You all must know that the writer/English teacher in me is quite proud of this new found pattern. Not to mention the fabulous archive of her experiences here that she is creating for a lifetime.
The third picture above was actually taken the first week we were here. This is the infamous day that Sierra fell into the water fully clothed because the waves were stronger than she thought and she didn't outrun them. I love the shot of her and Joe with niether of them knowing I was taking the picture and the ocean in the background is of course just the perfect landscape for such a shot.
Sierra has a running count of the animals she's seen. It started with the Toucan at school. I had seen two chirping to each other outside my classroom and then feeding each other, and she saw one the following day near her classroom. Then she was able to see this other four legged creature that is the mix of an anteater and a raccoon. I'm not sure the name (Lontra?), but they are very common and pretty cute. I remember seeing many of them at Iguacu Falls in 1995 while traveling. They are perfectly harmless and fun to see. One of Sierra's friends' mom's fed it a donut so the kids could see it before it shyed away. But the BEST animal spotting to date happened yesterday afternoon on the walk to Sierra's friend's house RIGT OUTSIDE our apartment building, crawling on the powerline was a MONKEY!!! Sierra had been waiting since our arrival to see a monkey. We were walking, something caught my attention, I looked up, thought it was a squirral and at closer look...IT's a MONKEY! Very cute, striped tail, little white face and just running along the electrical wire trying to get to a spot close enough to jump onto a tree! It made our day.
School is going great, for both of us. I had the ultimate teacher trial today I must say. The past week I have been planning with the middle school technology teacher for a week in the computer lab to teach the kids how to create imovies and podcasts. The collaboration and working out details was time consuming but exciting. We arrive at school this morning to find no power! The ultimate teaching using technology fear. In the storm we had last night/this morning a tree landed on two of the main power lines leading into school and we were without power for most of the day, the kids never did have computer access today. We are still not sure if the problem will be corrected tomorrow or not. We modified today and have a modified plan for tomorrow should we need it, but we are keeping our fingers crossed that the electricity will be fully restored by the morning. You have to laugh to keep from going crazy.

This week marked one month in Brazil. The time is going quickly; we are all still adjusting, yet starting to actually feel "at home", which is a great feeling. The weather this week has been cool and rainy. Coming from MN, I have gotten a little bit of grief from a few friends for claiming that it is cold. However, for anyone who has lived in a more humid climate, it is known that a wet cold is different than the dry cold of the MN winters. But, no, there isn't any snow--except in the bad dream I had last week. It has snowed in RIO! What a nightmare! I guess I am missing the beach as we haven't been since last weekend and this weekend isn't looking promising. :-)
Experienced my first fire drill at school this week and I had to laugh when we were congratulated for clearing the buildings in 11 minutes! I remember days at Oak View when we were encouraged to speed things up because it was taking 90 seconds to clear the building. We were celebrated for getting the kids all down to the soccer field in 11 minutes! Perspective I tell you is an incredible thing!!!
I am attaching a couple of pictures today. They're from a couple of weeks ago, but I figured it was time to put another shot or two for people to view. Vicks is still waiting for a picture of a hot Brasileiro in a sunga (speedo) but I have informed her that she will have to wait until the weather gets a little better. Until then...you all get a shot of Sierra with her birthday cake and another of Cocovado (Christ the Redeemer).
We have made friends with our portiero (doorman), Washington. He speaks like Donald Duck to Sierra (in Portuguese). You all didn't know Donald Duck was bilingual did ya? And he is adding English words to his vocabulary. It is kind of sweet when we walk by and he says, "HeLOW." with a big smile. I told him the other day that his English was coming along nicely and he got very embarrassed and said, NO!!! It is nice to come and go to such a friendly face. Perhaps one day I'll have a picture of Washington to add to the blog so you all know who we are talking about.
As I sit and think about what else there is to add here, my mind is drawing a blank. We have been thinking of all our family and friends celebrating the "end of summer" as this weekend is Labor Day in the states. Ihope you all got the chance to enjoy a barbeque or two and maybe some bocce ball in the yard with those close by. We are anxious to see if Brazilian Independence is anything compared to our favorite American Holiday--The Fourth of July! We'll let you all know after next weekend.
Much love and biejos (kisses) to all!