Tipity-Tapity

Some kids need expensive toys to be entertained. They may require game systems and all kinds of craziness to keep them from being bored. Not our girl! No way! All she requires is some leftover packing material. To be specific... bubble wrap! Once she has it, there is no one stopping the tipity-tapity tap dancing! Enjoy the video!

Future Star

Sometimes it is fun to watch Elisa and guess what she will do in the future. Her interests and vocabulary at 2 and a half years blows me away. She is especially interested in animals and music. Maybe she will be a veterinarian who plays multiple instruments in an orchestra or rock band! Hard to say, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Just to give you an idea of some of the things she knows she can name off probably 30 different kinds of animals. As far as musical instruments go... she knows the sounds, shapes, sizes and positions of the saxophone, flute, bassoon, violin, cello, bass, guitar, piano, trumpet, french horn, trombone, tympani and the drums (courtesy of Baby Einstein's First Orchestra).

Check out this video to see our future star in action...

A Month Away

You've all heard the saying "time flies". After our time in Porto Alegre, Brazil and being the daddy of a 2 and a half year old I really believe it! One month from today (January 27th) we will board a plan and leave the place we have called home since March 9, 2004.

Jennifer's parents were here for a visit last month. They left on November 27th to return to the States. We marked in our minds the date of December 27th (today) as a half-way point between then and when we leave Porto Alegre. It is hard to comprehend that we are at the half-way point.

Today, Jennifer and I were talking about how we only have a few more weekends left to spend with a particular couple that we are close to here. Some of those weekends are already spoken for, so there really isn't that much time. It made me have the thought "we are running out of time and I don't feel like I have had enough". I know it is time to "move on", but saying all the good-byes is tough. Especially when you want to do it right and make an effort for it to be meaningful and not just a one-armed hug and a "tchau".

Well, those are my thoughts for today. I'm sure that I will have many more to share as January 27th grows nearer. Until then...

Fresh Garlic

Since living in another place for the last 2 weeks Elisa has picked up a few new things. I had never realized this before, but she had never been introduced to garlic until this last week. In our house we had a little pot where we kept garlic and onions. Due to a completely different kitchen set-up now we just have a bowl of garlic and onions on the kitchen table. We use garlic and onions to cook a lot, so they are always out.

Last week Elisa started asking about the garlic. Every meal that she is eating at the kitchen table she talks about the garlic. Today she picked up a little clove and was playing with it at lunch. She pretended to eat it while she was playing. She would give a little nibble like a rabbit eating a carrot as quick as possible. Elisa is an extremely picky eater. So, the though of her actually taking a bite out of a raw garlic clove just didn't enter our minds. BUT SHE DID! I seriously wish I had the camera out! The look on her face was priceless. Jennifer and I did the best we could not to laugh as she exclaimed that the garlic was yucky and attempted to pull her tongue out of her mouth! She scraped and clawed at her tongue trying to get the garlic taste out. It was something to see. She finally took a drink of milk upon my urging and felt better about it. After a couple of minutes it was forgotten about. Of course, tomorrow when we are sitting at the table eating I'm sure she will have second thoughts about experimenting with the garlic. I will let you all know if she decides to take a chomp out of the onions.

(just to make sure we are understood - she didn't eat the garlic, just bit into it and that was enough!)

Christmas in Brazil

Christmas in Brazil is quite different than Christmas in the U.S. It isn't too difficult to stick to our typical American traditions because Brazilians do a lot of the same things. We went to see Santa at the mall (several times), we made Christmas cookies, we had a tree and hung our stockings and we played a lot of Christmas music. However, there are several things that they do differently.




Some observations:

• Brazilians have a Christmas feast at mid-night on Christmas Eve. After they eat they open all their presents. Sometime Santa Claus appears to hand out presents. Depending on where you are in the city you can actually observe this happening through apartment windows. It is neat to see.

• Santa is at the mall just like in the U.S. However, besides taking requests for presents he collects the pacifiers of children who are ready to be rid of them. Some times the children giving up the pacifier can be 8 or 9 years old. This isn't as neat to see as it is strange.

• The Mall is decorated so extravagantly. It is a true wonderland. This year they had a Christmas tree that was several stories tall inside the mall. It had a path with a tunnel going right through it! Elisa asked to go there and check it out about 50 times over last last several weeks.
  

• Brazilians do Christmas trees (fake - I've never heard of a real one here). They do a lot of the decorations we are used to. However, they don't do stockings. This is something that is just starting to take off here.

I think that is enough of the observations. Let's get on with the Christmas pictures...

Santa Claus & the Mall

Christmas decorations (we are currently living in Matt & Waleska's apartment, so we did what we could). Notice that the presents surround the Christmas tree! They can't really rest under it!


Christmas Cookies (making and decorating)


Christmas Day! (opening and enjoying presents)

We hope that you had a very Merry Christmas and that the rest of your year be blessed!

Bronwyn's Graduation

Monday night Bronwyn Blume graduated from high school. She has been one of Elisa's babysitters for the last couple of years. We are very proud of Bronwyn. We know that she will go on to do great things. She plans on attending ACU's nursing program starting in the fall of 2010 after some time with family and exploring the world. God bless you, Bronwyn. Congratulations!

Above: Bronwyn accepting her diploma. Below: the proud parents, Kevin and Benay.

The Poor Child Update

In yesterday's post I eluded to the fact that Elisa has struggled with the move. I think most of the difficulties were because of the lack of constant attention she wasn't receiving. One of us is with her most of the time (if not all), but that is practically impossible while preparing for and executing an international move. Before giving some details on Elisa's struggles I will say that she is doing so much better now that we are back to a somewhat normal schedule.

Children are pretty perceptive. When things start to disappear or get carried out the door (garage sale) or get boxed up they sense something is up. Elisa got this load and clear. Our whole family felt the weight and stress of this move - including little Elisa.

Although the people that we had watch her while we were working on things are some of her best friends the situation kind of freaked her out. We followed some advice and did the best we could to explain that we were "going to live in another house soon" and that she would see "Grandmommie and Granddaddy soon". It was good that we had her say "good-bye" to the different rooms of the house, to the moving truck and to the house. We will also take her to say "good-bye" to the mall, to the parks she knows and to other frequented spots. It should help her cope. I don't think she really got it though, until she went into the house when it was completely empty. Then it was like a light bulb going off - we don't live here anymore.

To add to the stress she has been hitting a real accident prone stage. Five times in just a couple of days she smashed her head really good. Once she rolled out of the new bed she is sleeping in at Matt and Waleska's house (we learned how to keep that from happening the hard way - sorry, Elisa), twice she walked straight into the sliding glass doors at the old house while they were closed, once she feel face first into the sidewalk while trying to run down a slight slope (really, really bad) and once she feel backward off of a chair at a store - slamming the back of her head against the tile. The poor thing was really beat up. I think that the new surroundings made it hard for her to sleep well which caused her to be tired whick in turn caused her to not be as coordinated.

There have been some fun things though. As noted above, Elisa is sleeping in a different bed now. She is in a queen bed! We had to line both sides of the bed with chairs so that she would roll off onto the floor. She has discovered, though, that she can get out on her own when she wants. This hasn't been to troublesome, but we have caught her sneaking around the apartment when she is supposed to be taking a nap. I thought I heard her quietly walking down the hall the other day. I found her in a back room, squating on the floor, messing with something unimportant. I just watched. After a couple of minutes of playing she looked up and saw me. She smiled great big and said, "Hi! I woked up!" We get that a lot these days. She gets herself up in the morning now, comes to our room and announces "I woked up!"

She is enjoying the Christmas season and is looking forward to Santa coming tomorrow night. We thanked God for Santa in our prayers this evening. After we said "Amen!" Elisa said, "I love Santa Clause." She really does. I'm sure that he is going to reward her well for all that she has suffered through the past few weeks; the poor child.

Overdue Update

Sorry we have been out of touch for so long. It has been pretty crazy around here with the move and all. Hopefully, this update will bring you up to speed on what is currently happening in our crazy world.

The Move:

The moving company showed up at our door step on Monday the 15th to start packing our goods. We had 2 guys (Alex and Ricardo) working with us all Monday and Tuesday. The driver of the truck (Solomão) showed up on Tuesday to lend a hand. All in all, things went well. We had a couple of minor hiccups like most moves do (but nothing that couldn't be handled).

We worked pretty hard trying to get it all done in a timely manner. By the end of the week we were dead tired. Here are a couple of moving pictures:

The moving truck out in front of the house.

Packing away!

Sascha taking it all in.

Santa is getting the feeling that he will spend this Christmas in a box!

The moving truck pulling away from our house.

Elisa had a difficult time understanding what all was going on during these days. She hung out at the house some on Tuesday and had a chance to say "good-bye" to...

her bedroom...

her bathroom...

the view from the loft...

the moving truck...

and our house.

The hard part of the move is behind us now. On Tuesday evening (the 16th), 1 day ahead of schedule, the moving truck pulled away and headed off to São Paulo. Our goods will stay in storage there until we head to the States at the beginning of February. We are currently staying in the apartment of the Rehbeins while they are on furlough. Thanks Matt and Waleska!

Summer Colors:

One of the many things that we will miss about Porto Alegre is the beautiful flowers and trees. Every season has an incredible array of colors. Here are some pictures of the red and orange flowers of the Flamboya tree. Enjoy!

I think this is enough for one post. I will be back for more tomorrow. You can be looking for updates on just Elisa, Christmas in Brazil and Bronwyn Blume's graduation. See you then...

Relocation Update

It is getting difficult to find time to blog. There is a lot going on, but almost too much to sift through and mention in a post. I do have the time now to share some details with our faithful readers a "relocation update".

In preparing for a move of this magnitude there are certain things that really set things in motion. You can talk about the move all you want for as long as you want, but before you do certain things all it is is talk. So, here are 4 huge things that we have done recently that puts this beast on the road of no return.

1. We turned in our 30 day notice to the real estate office and owner of the house we are renting that we will be moving. Once this is done there is no turning back. We, at the very least, will be moving out of our house.

2. Last Saturday (and continuing until we don't have anything left) we had a garage sale. We made the decision to sell a lot of things that we either don't need or could easily replace in the U.S. This will make the move much easier. It is hard though, because in many ways we feel like we are already in the camping stage (no dining room table = lots of picnics on the living room floor; dismantled bed = sleeping on a mattress on the floor).

3. This week (on Monday) we bought our one-way airline tickets from Porto Alegre, Brazil to the United States of America. Again, this is huge and makes everything that is happening so much more real.

4. Today (only an hour ago) we hired a moving company. They will be here on the 15th of this month to pack our belongs and load our container. They will store our belongings until our departure date on January 27th, then they will put them on a freighter and send them to the States.

We can tell that Elisa is a little troubled by all this and doesn't really know what to make of it. Please keep us and especially Elisa in your prayers as we continue moving through this transition. We need wisdom, peace and unity as a family. Thanks in advance for remembering us.

Over the next several weeks I will do my best to keep you all up to speed on what is happening. Don't read to much into a lack of blog activity. We are just really busy.

Peace.