Grandparent Visit: Week 2

Week 2 of the Grandparent's visit was pretty eventful. We had an opportunity to go check out some of the city, walk around the new mall, have a churrasco (Brazilian bbq) with some good friends, eat incredible Brazilian pizza, visit the Chácara, go to a birthday party, visit the Salgado family again and celebrate Thanksgiving.

It has been a fun two weeks with the Grandparents. We were sad to see them go yesterday, but we know that we will get plenty of time with them soon enough. We have a little less than 2 months before we leave Porto Alegre.

Here are some pictures of the last week of the Grandparent's visit... if you would like to see the pictures in a little larger format, just click the "view all images" button at the bottom of the slide show.

Grandparent Visit: Week 1

Elisa's grandparents arrived here a week ago and we have been having quite the time! We have played and read books and been to the mall several times (to look at the Christmas scene). We have celebrated Mommy's birthday and gone on an overnight trip. All this has been in just the first week. Below is a slide show of the fun we have had so far. Enjoy! (to see the captions just put the mouse on each picture)

Daddy's Little Girl

Elisa is definitely a Momma's girl, but I have to post these pictures of her showing affection for her Daddy. I love it when she takes my hat off my head and puts it on her own. There's nothing much cuter than this...

The Drama Queen

I wouldn't say that Elisa overreacts to everything, but she does have a streak of drama. She has a way of letting you know that she doesn't agree with something. It can be anything, but her response is the same... "I don't want ______ anymore!"

Things we have heard lately include:

"I don't want juice anymore!"
"I don't want milk anymore!"
"I don't want to go pee pee on the potty anymore!"
"I don't want to wear clothes anymore!"
"I don't want to take a bath anymore!"
"I don't want to go for a walk anymore!"
"I don't want to eat anymore!"
"I don't want to wear sandals anymore!"
"I don't want to sleep in the bed anymore!"
"I don't want to go bye-bye in the car anymore!"
"I don't want to (be) tickled anymore!"
"I don't want to see _______ anymore!"

I think you get the picture! If she doesn't want something; she doesn't want it for infinity! Sometimes she throws out some funny ones that really make me laugh, but most of them just make me roll my eyes. What a little drama queen.

MOMMY IS BACK!

Jennifer finally made it in early this morning. What I can remember her telling me (I was still mostly asleep) was that the airline put her and 3 other women who were with her in a hotel and paid for their dinner. They went to bed around midnight and received a phone call around 1:00am telling them to check-out of the hotel and take a bus to the airport at 2am. Their flight to Porto Alegre left at 4am and Jennifer walked in our front door at approximately 6:55am. I think she was in her pajamas and in bed by 7am. I expect her to sleep for most of the day.

I am sorry that she went through all she did to get back to us. But, I'm so glad that she did. Especially for Elisa's sake. I know that little girl really missed her mommy and had high expectations that she would see her this morning.

Mommy, we love you and we are glad you're back!

Without Mommy: Day 5

Praise the Lord we are finishing up the last day!!!

After we woke up and got rolling this morning we hit the grocery store. I had to buy all the ingredients for this really awesome cajun chicken pasta dish. We plan to have some friends over for lunch tomorrow so everything needs to be buy and ready by the time Jennifer gets home.

The store went well. We swung by the pet store on the way to the car (again!) to take a look at all the sleeping puppies and kitty cats. Then we went home and I got to figure out how to watch Elisa and run up and down the stairs trying to get all the groceries to the kitchen from the car. It wasn't too bad.

Lunch came around and Elisa ate nearly every morsel of her grilled cheese, pretzel sticks and apple slices. Then she went down for a nap.

My friend Spencer dropped by for a short visit and some prayer time. That was really good for me. I needed the encouragement. I really haven't had much contact with anyone in person (except for Elisa) this week.

Shortly after Spencer left I heard Elisa upstairs. I wasn't too thrilled, because she had only been down for about an hour and a half. For many parents this amount of time would be great, but I'm spoiled. She has taken a minimum of a 3 hour nap every day this week! I let her hang out in her room (she wasn't complaining) for another 30 minutes before I got her.

As soon as I got her up we called Jennifer to see how things were going. They had just arrived in São Paulo after the 3 hour bus ride. She was expecting to depart São Paulo sometime around 7:30 and arrive in Porto Alegre around 9:30. Cool! That was earlier than expected!

After talking to Mommy we decided to hang out at the mall again and check out Santa Claus, the Christmas tree and all the toys. Elisa was particularly interested in checking out the goofy elf guy (real live person) doing his swaying dance! Every time I think of that guys swaying back and forth trying to make kids smile in such a ridiculous way I laugh out loud. I will be sure to take Elisa and Jennifer back to look at the display next week with camera in hand so I can post this guy's dance. You will lose it!

So, I get Elisa loaded up in the car to go to the mall. When I hit the button to open the garage doors (one for the house and a gate out at the street) one of them fails to open. I tried again and it moved only about 3 feet. Our doors our solid. They don't roll up to the ceiling like most do in the U.S. of A. The one that is connected to the house is solid wood and very heavy. It was simply broke. I get out of the car and hit it here and there, trying to jar it loose. Of course, the 2 year old in the car is yelling at me, "Are you hittin', Daddy? Are you hittin'?" I think she asked/yelled about 20 times! Despite what you might think, it didn't help the frustration level or the situation.

I decided to leave it. I grabed the stroller and ran it upstairs. Then I went down and got Elisa and got her settled in the stroller. Before too long we were out the front door and on our way to the mall (it is 3/4 of a kilometer away from our house).

We spent about 2 hours walking to the mall, hanging out at the mall and then walking home. It was a good time. I think Elisa had a blast. Especially when we split a soft-serve icecream cone from McDonald's. She loves icecream cones!

After we got home we played and watched some Discovery Kids before supper. Due to her skipping a much needed nap earlier I was determined to have her in bed by 7pm and I succeeded.

Once she was down I decided to check out the partically open garage door. There is no way you can work on something like that with a small child around. It is hard enough to do the dishes when she is around! So, I thought I spotted the problem. I grabbed a screwdriver and did some messing around and "POP" a piece that had gotten caught fell back into the place. The garage door is down and fixed at no expense! I have to say that I am relieved. I had a dream earlier this week that I got my hand stuck in this very door when it was closing and it lopted off all the fingers on one of my hands. Nice, I know. Sorry for the details, but aren't you glad I am currently typing with 2 functional hands! I am.

So, Elisa is down, cleaning is done and Jennifer is on her way home....

Oh, wait! I forgot to mention the bad news! Jennifer called right before I was going to take Elisa upstairs and get her ready for the night. The first thing she said was, "Bad news." I knew what it was immediately. Nothing runs according to plan when it deals with airplanes in Brazil! Her flight had been canceled! The next available thing isn't leaving São Paulo until 1am! And it isn't even confirmed! So, at the earliest she won't get here until around 3am - TOMORROW! I have already changed our lunch plans for supper on Sunday early evening. Hopefully, Jennifer will get here sooner than expected and she will have time to rest before Elisa demands to see her. When Jennifer called she wanted to talk to Elisa real quick. As they were finishing Elisa yelled out, "BYE BYE, MOMMY! SEE YOU IN THE MORNING!" Well, if I can't get my wife back yet at least I have an adorable 2 year old to keep me company.

Without Mommy: Day 4

We are officially tired of not having Mommy around!

Elisa and I (mainly me) were pretty bored this morning so we took off for a little walk around the mall action. It was raining this morning, leaving our options of things to do limited. Going to the mall turned out being a pretty good move. They had just gotten all the Christmas decorations out! They don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Brazil, so usually around November 1st all the Christmas stuff comes out. I love this time of year here. It doesn't feel like the States because it is disgustingly hot, but Brazilian shops and malls do it up right with the decorations.

Elisa and I walked around admiring all there was to see. We walked from one end of the mall to the other and back. At the far end they had the Santa set-up. Elisa looked at him and gasped "Wanna say 'hi' to Santa Claus, Daddy?!" It was so cute. She crept up to about 10 feet from him, positioned herself behind one of my legs and yelled out "Oi!" through a pacifier and clinched teeth! I told Santa that we would come back at another time to take a picture since Mommy wasn't with us.

Santa was at the base of a large Christmas tree that was 3 stories in height! There was a little walk way that actually went through the tree. There were all kinds of fun things to see that had her little eyes practically popping out of the sockets! We will probably go back tomorrow morning!

Lunch was pretty uneventful. Elisa took nearly a 4 hour nap, which allowed me to get more cleaning done. That was really helpful. Thanks, Elisa!

In the afternoon we played for a bit and read a couple of books. We watched a couple of little shows on Discovery Kids and had a chance to talk to Mommy on the phone for a few minutes.

After Elisa went down this evening I watched "Speed Racer" then finished up what cleaning I didn't get down earlier in the day. I had planned on cleaning the garage real good tomorrow, but frankly, I'm a little worn out. Actually, I'm a lot worn out. I will probably make cleaning the garage and cutting the grass my two major projects for next week. The house is already immaculate and that is all that matters!

Jennifer gets home tomorrow and we just couldn't be more ready. Unfortunately, she won't get here until sometime around 10:30 or 11pm. By then Elisa will have been asleep for a while. She won't get to see her mommy until Saturday morning. Oh well.

Here is a great conversation that Elisa and I had early this morning:

Daddy: "What would you like for breakfast, Elisa? Would you like oatmeal with sprinkles or toast?"

Elisa: "Elisa wants yogurt!"

Daddy: "You can have yogurt, but you need something else with it."

Elisa: "Elisa wants yogurt with sprinkles! That's a good idea!"

Without Mommy: Day 3

Today was a pretty decent day for us. We played, got some things done and we got out of the house a couple of times.

We started off a little slow because I was expecting a guy to come a repair part of the ceiling that decided to come falling down last week. Our back sliding glass door has drywall around the frame that started to crack and come loose. I made a call to get it fixed about a month ago. We didn't get anything set up until last Thursday. The same day that I talked to the repair guy the dry wall gave way and came crashing down. Thankfully, injuries were avoided. It happened to fall when Jennifer and I were out on a date. Elisa was asleep upstairs. The crash of the drywall falling woke her up and scared the babysitter half to death!

Here you can see where the drywall just decided to fall and crash to the ground.

Anyway, the guy who was going to come didn't make it. We rescheduled for next week. So, Elisa and I hung out around the house until 11 or so. Before lunch we made a break to the store to get some essentials and check out the pet store. She loves looking at the puppies and kitty cats. Once we are settled in the States we might need to look into getting her a furry buddy.

After a hearty pbj sandwhich Elisa took another awesome 3 hour nap while I hit the cleaning duties. On thing I wanted to get done was final preparations for our backyard swimming pool. I don't do too much during the winter to keep it clean. So, for the last month or so I have been trying to get it ready so we can swim. As hot as it has been this week we might get some pool action in on Friday. I had seen some debris in the pool from the upstairs window. When I went down to fish it out I saw that it wasn't what you would call debris. It was what you would call a dead baby bird! I don't know what it is with the birds around our house, but I have picked up a lot of their dead bodies since we have lived here. This was the 2nd dead bird since Sunday (the first one wasn't in the pool).

After cleaning duties I decided to do some blogging. I wrote some of my thoughts about the U.S. Presidency on our other blog. If you care at all you can check it out here. Yesterday I felt moved to write about the things that I will miss about Brazil. You can read about that here if you would like.

Elisa woke up from her nap around 4 o'clock. We played for about an hour and then decided to go on a walk. We walked around the track at a nearby park for about 30 minutes. While we were walking I noticed a lot of dandelions. We had a fun moment of me trying to teach Elisa how to blow the seeds. She is so cute. Her soft breath didn't even phase the dandelion seeds.

We got home around quarter til 6 and started watching a Baby Einstein movie. She ate, played and then got ready for bed. Like clockwork she was down at 7. Now I'm blogging and will give Jennifer a call in about 2 minutes.

We had a pretty good day - no accidents. We are making it, but really missing Mommy. Countdown to her walking in the door: Approximately 50 hours.

Without Mommy: Day 2

We had an uneventful day for the most part. There were events, but it doesn't feel like much happened mainly because we didn't leave the house due to the heatwave today. That makes the day go by a lot slower.

I got some major cleaning done (as I have planned each day of the week). Today's task was dusting the main floor and downstairs. I hate to dust, so this was big! I was also able to sweep and mop the downstairs floor. Having a child that takes 3 hour naps can be helpful.

Today's high point: I ordered Domino's Pizza for lunch today. Today is 2 for 1 Tuesday and my wife is out of town - what do you expect? The high point isn't that I ordered the pizza, but that Elisa ate it! She had a whole slice of cheese for lunch and another whole slice for supper!!! If you don't already know, this child is a very picky eater. I am pumped that she had 2 slices today!

A second high point was that Mommy called! We love talking to Mommy even if she can only speak for 4 minutes and 52 seconds!

Today's low point: We took some major steps backward in the going to the big potty deal. She had a few accidents. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day. We actually prayed about it before she went down this evening.

That is all there is to report today. I plan on spending the evening switching back and forth between the BBC for election results and a movie. Speaking of movie: I watched "D Wars" last night. Absolutely the worst movie I have ever seen. I don't think they should let that cast, the director or even the dragons be involved in movies again. It was pretty dumb. Okay, I'm done. See you tomorrow.

Without Mommy: Day 1, Part 2

So, everything went according to plan. We actually ended things a little early. I just put Elisa down for the night and it is just now 7:45. Good deal!

I really wanted to put another post out there for today because of some great Elisa quotes and funny things she did. I will do my best to recap, but they pretty much went like this:

Quote/funny thing 1:
As I was drying Elisa's pull-ups after she peed on them a little while sitting on the potty she said, "my panties are all wet." I said, "just on the outside. You can still wear them." Elisa: "My britches are all wet." Me: "No, they're dry." Elisa: "That's cool!"

Quote/funny thing 2:
As we pulled up to our house from taking Claudio home (7pm) Elisa shouts "we're home!" Then she said, "I sleepin' in the car." I looked in the rear view mirror to see her lay her head to the side and close her eyes, pretending to be asleep. I laughed out loud which made her laugh too. It was really cute and funny.

Quote/funny thing 3:
We always say a prayer before bedtime. Most times when I put Elisa down she wants me to pray. Tonight she prayed. This is her prayer almost word for word:

Me: "Dear God..."

Elisa: "Thank you for this day. Thank you Mommy went on airplane. Thank you for Aunt Benay and Garrett and Giovanni. Thank you Garrett has clothes and teeth. And thank you for Benay and Garrett and Giovanni and Carys."

Me: "In Jesus' Name"

Elisa: "AAAAAAAMEN!"


I wish I could record everything she says. There was one thing today that she said that made me laugh and I can't remember what it was. All I remember was that her reaction to my laugh was "I silly!" She is indeed... one precious, silly, little girl.

Without Mommy: Day 1

Jennifer and I woke up around 5:40am to get her ready and out the door to catch a 8am flight. She went to a beach resort in São Paulo state for a missionary women's conference. We expect her back late Friday night.

I have to admit that I have been dreading this week a little. I love spending time with Elisa, but not having my the other half of the tag-team is hard. I really do think that people who are single and want to adopt (I know a couple) have a little crazy in them. They deserve extra blessings from the Lord for willingly taking on the responsibility of child rearing alone. I have done this thing a couple of times for a couple of nights, but we are doing a Monday through Friday stretch this time. It will be all good though. I have a plan: a schedule of meals and activities.

I must warn you now that this week I will be rambling about each day's events/activities. Jennifer took the camera, so no pictures. Sorry.

Today hasn't been too off the wall. Elisa woke up at 8am. We ate breakfast together and then watch a little Baby Einstein movie. I realized that we ran out of gas (to heat the water and work the stove/oven). So, I ordered more and we waited about 25 minutes for it to arrive. The gas was delivered and off the "guys" went in their big green truck. Then Elisa took a bath and we got her all dressed.

Around 10am we were out the door to pay our monthly bills. We got to the bank and paid the bills and were on our way to Blockbuster to rent a couple of movies by 11. After Blockbuster we picked Benay Blume up. She dropped us off at home and borrowed our car for the afternoon because her's is in the shop (again... sigh). Elisa played for about 30 minutes while I made us lunch.

Today's menu: 4 Cheese Ravioli w/ Red Mushroom Sauce and Green Beans.

After about 10 minutes of sitting at the table Elisa was begging to take a nap! I started using her desire to "need to rest" as leverage. "Take 2 more bites of noodles with cheese and one more green bean and you can go up and sleep in your bed." It worked. She was in bed taking what I hope will be a nice 3 hour nap by 12:15.

I plan on picking up around the house for the next couple of hours (iPod attached to my person of course). Around 4:30 (or whenever the car returns) we will be out the door to pick up Claudio (every Monday I give our dear friend Claudio a ride home from work. It is about a 3 hour excursion). Elisa loves to play with his daughters, so that will be a good way to end the day. We should make it home between 7 and 8 tonight. She will eat and go to bed by 8:30.

Hopefully tonight I will plop down on the couch (if my chores are done) and watch what will probably be a bad popcorn movie. I rented "the Incredible Hulk" and "D-Wars". We'll see. The main thing is that they are flicks that will probably keep me somewhat entertained until I want to go to bed - which with luck will be around 11. The other thing I have dreaded about Jenn being gone is that I can't sleep when she isn't here. It is the worst.

Well, that is Monday (even though in reality it is only 12:45pm right now). Stay tuned for walking at the mall, painting and if we are lucky... breaking in the pool for the first time this season.

Halloween in Canela

This year for Halloween we went to the little town of Canela (about 1 and a half hours away from Porto Alegre). We love this little town. The food is amazing and we have a hotel that we love to stay at. We went with our good friends and teammates the Blume family which made things even more fun.

Our main reason for Halloween in Canela this year had to do with the food. There is a pizzeria there that is awesome - if you like that kind of thing! It is called "Toca de Bruxa" or the Witch's Hat. All the staff dress up in costumes like it is Halloween and the place is decked out like a non-creepy dungeon. It is a lot of fun. Plus, there are something like 100 different flavors of pizza that they bring to your table - all you can eat!

We enjoyed the hotel grounds and got caught up with old friends...

Jennifer & Giovanni on the hotel grounds.

Anderson working on a pile of sticks.

We got dressed up in our costumes for Halloween at the pizzeria...

Elisa the Frog & Sascha ready to eat some pizza!

Elisa the Frog and Steve (Anderson) from "Blue's Clues".

Carys and Elisa waiting for the ride to the restaurant.

We had fun at the pizzeria...

We ate until we wanted to puke...

We hung out in the hotel room...

We experienced bad bug bites...

It looks broken, but it is just a little bug bite gone crazy!

and we played with our friends...


Even with the outrageous bug bites that Jennifer experienced it was a great get-away to celebrate Halloween with our good friends.