Enjoying Summer Break with Velcro Toss and Catch!

  So, I guess it's safe to say our kids are thoroughly enjoying their summer break from school!  Interestingly, it seems that now that school is on break they are much better at being creative and playing together.

  On furlough, a family gave this set of Velcro Toss and Catch to our kids but I'd been keeping it packed away until a nice day like today!  The kids sure had fun with it!

Both of the kids developed their own pitching style - quite intimidating, obviously! 

YAY!!!!

Passport Photo Renewals

Well, it’s almost time to renew our kids’ passport photos, which of course means new passport photos.  I thought I’d let you see what I go through to try to get one good shot of both kids! (we try to keep it fun!)

Mahalia and Friend

   So, the other day I was scheduled to do a photoshoot for a couple twin 1-yr-old boys who have never had their picture taken with anything more than a cell phone, but they had to cancel at the last minute.

   However, right at the scheduled time, a different neighbor family dropped in to visit us and so I got to do an impromptu photo shoot for them, just for the fun of it!  Their two daughters are really good friends with our kids and love to play together in our back yard.  Here's a picture of their 8-yr-old with Mahalia.

The Cavalgada - Cowboy Parade

This past weekend opened the county fair here in Rondonópolis, the city we moved to 3 months ago.  Our city hosts the largest fair of the state. To get everything started, they have a Cavalgada (Cowboy Parade) through several of the main streets of town.  It travelled a distance of approximately 4 miles, and ended at the fair grounds where they had an award ceremony for the participants.  

This cart was at the head of the parade. Religion is very prominent here. That is the Catholic matron saint sitting in front of the girl, and the plaque on the cart says, "Faith is the strength of our land."  

There were many horses, mules, cows, and bulls - all ridden by the cowboys.  What?!? Haven't you ever seen someone bridle a cow and ride it?

These bulls are massive.  They are different than the breeds in the States, and larger than any I've ever seen there, yet gentle enough to be ridden down the main streets of a large city with all the noise that goes along with a parade.  

There was obviously no age limit on the cowboys :)

Several of the cowboys had these horns that they would blow periodically. The horns have a low, gentle sound to them. 

It only took about 20 minutes for the entire cavalgada to pass us, but it was worth seeing!  

P.S. I thought this photo was funny: Us watching the parade, and those around us watching us!  (I guess you would have to have lived in a place where you are the obvious minority (or novelty) in order to appreciate the feeling. :)

Vala's Pumpkin Patch - Furlough Days

   Well, though our schedule has been very full with visiting our supporting churches, I thought I'd post some pictures and let you know that we are able to get out and do some fun activities once in a while.  

    We recently got to visit Vala's Pumpkin Patch near Omaha, NE.  Of course the kids loved it and we all had a great time!

  And what good would a pumpkin patch be without a pumpkin-eating dragon, right!?!!

Thought this was interesting: this is a string of all the pacifiers that they have found on the premises since 2002!

The kids also enjoyed playing all kinds of neat things including a giant spiderweb, slide, and bouncing pad!

 

Then we got to take a little train ride tour of some of the other parts of the patch.  They even had an old-west town set up for us!

Then they had this awesome machine: a mannequin stuffed pumpkins into the machine on one end and pumpkin pies came out the other!  Wow!  If this were real, I would pay whatever the price to get one! :)

Nice little signpost here in case you need directions to get to any major international city!

Wow! So many kinds of apples throughout the years!

 And finally we got to rest in a rocking chair!  I've always known we are "small" but this was extreme! :)

Johnathan's Language School

   Johnathan has really enjoyed language school here in Brazil. He has class everyday for about 20 minutes with our language teacher. They go through his picture books for vocabulary and then make simple sentences with the words. Sometimes they "play store" or find other ways to interact and use Portuguese in common settings. She very patiently corrects his pronunciation and verb conjugations since the verbs are much more complex in Portuguese than in English.  

   The strange face he makes (0:32) is because his teacher told him that one of the types of shovels is called a "cereal shovel" (grain shovel). The only "cereal" that he understands is the kind you eat for breakfast, so he turned to his Daddy and said in English, "It'd have to be clean first!"

Felipe - People of Brazil

   Another kid from Family Camp just having a great time!

Isabele - People Of Brazil

     We enjoy this little girl from the church here.  She is always ready with a smile; especially if I have my camera! :)

Léo - People of Brazil

     Léo is a great friend of ours.  After church, our children enjoy playing with him and he is always ready to help in any way needed!

Paula - People of Brazl

  I think little Paula had a great time at Family Camp this year!  Of course, with candied apples, who wouldn't be enjoying themselves!?

New Family Photo

     We were finally able to get a new portrait done of our family.  If you would like to download it to use for your church or as a reminder to pray for us, just click on the photo and download it from Dropbox.  Let me know if you have any problems.

Holy Fish!

     Have you eaten your Holy Fish today?  This week leading up to Easter Sunday, every where you go here in Brazil you see road-side stands selling "Peixe Santo" = "Holy Fish," sounds good, right!?!!

     Obviously, this is in connection with the catholic church and "Good Friday."  Honestly, I've tried to research it, but it seems even those who practice this disagree with each other about the reasoning behind it.  Basically, from what I understand, since Christ was (assumedly) crucified on this day, they refuse to eat meat, in remembrance of His shedding of blood.  However, fish is not considered to be meat (perhaps because fish don't bleed when cut?) and so tradition mandates that you must eat "Holy Fish" on "Holy Friday."

     Obviously, this is good for business here: the first photo advertises that they accept "All types of credit cards."  The fishermen love the sales - this week alone, in our city of approximately 800,000 people,  the fishermen are expecting to sell between 400-500 metric tons of fish, according to this news article.  That's around one million pounds (1,000,000 lb.) of fish!   Almost anywhere you go, you can buy your "Holy Fish;" apparently you can even enjoy an alcoholic beverage while you wait in line, if you'd like!

     I am definitely thankful for Christ's substitutionary death on the cross, but I'm glad I don't have to eat a Holy Fish to commemorate it!

     By the way, if I have gotten my facts off on any of this, please let me know - I'd love to know about the reasons behind this strong tradition!

Giovana and Emily - People of Brazil

   We were blessed to be able to meet and befriend these two girls at family camp this year.  In the course of visiting with them, we discovered that their grandmother, with whom they often stay, lives in our suburb.  Soon after camp, Omar took our two children to go visit them but they weren't home.  However, a couple weeks later they surprised us by coming to our house and visiting us!

John 3:16 in Portuguese!

      Our kids memorized John 3:16 in Portuguese for their Sunday School class!  This is really a tribute to Tracy's patience and time spent to reach this goal!  I'm proud of all of them!

Diana - People of Brazil

       We enjoyed getting to talk to Diana again at Family Camp this year.  Her sweet, quiet spirit made it a joy to be around her.  Her mother has raised her going to church and we pray that she'll continue to be a sweet young lady for the Lord.  I also posted a picture of her in 2011.

Brenda - People of Brazil

     Here's a little girl from this year's Family Camp.  She has really been enjoying camp along with her four siblings.