diaperless

I'm all for enjoying them while they're young, not wishing away the years, etc, but for just a moment, we are celebrating the fact that for the first time in 6 years I'm not changing any diapers.

Whoever said it was easier to potty train girls was absolutely right.

all part of the adventure

Okay. I've tried to somewhat refrain from publicly complaining about our maintenance woes, but enough is enough. We have been here just over 3 months. In that time we have:

• used the back door exclusively for two weeks while we waited for a key to the front door
• waited 2 weeks for a working oven to be delivered
• waited 1 more week for that oven to be installed
• waited 2 more weeks for the old oven to be removed
• waited 3 weeks for window locks to be installed
• went a week with out A/C because it was leaking water into the apartment below us (I know we are spoiled with even having A/C, but it was the middle of the summer and seriously hot and humid!)
• waited 1 month for our TVs to be set up properly
• waited 1 1/2 months for a working dishwasher to be delivered
• waited 2 more weeks for that dishwasher to be installed (I'll come back to this one)
• evacuated our apartment due moldy, leaky kitchen pipes
• had a guy spend an entire day working on the patio doors, only to have the same opening/closing problem resurface a week later
• had two bathroom sinks worked on
• had two toilets worked on
• waited 3 months for a new working cordless phone

And the cherry on top: In the middle of doing laundry earlier this week, the washing machine started pumping water out all over the kitchen floor. They can't fix it until next Monday and Rio doesn't have self-service laundromats.

How does anyone get anything done in this country?

I have spent the day hand washing about a week's worth of laundry for my family of five, including that of a potty-training two year old.

After throwing a tantrum about it, I've decided to just get over it. As I boil the water, scrub the clothes, and try not to think about the dirt and bacteria I'm not removing, I just tell myself over and over that it's all part of the adventure. At least the dryer still works. Knock on wood.

We have a large utility sink next to the washer and dryer. The plug is too small, but if I stick a rag in the drain with the plug, it holds water long enough to wash the clothes. I've always thought it was a weird looking sink with a long slanted side in the front with bumps on it. After my first load, it dawned on me that it's a built in washboard.

Duh, Mary, you spoiled American.

It actually works pretty well, and I'm sure I'll never complain about doing laundry in my super capacity washer back home again.

At least it's a holiday, Matt's home, and we didn't have much else planned for the day.

I said I'd come back to the dishwasher. It was hit and miss if it worked for 2 months and it constantly leaked water all over the kitchen. Ironically, it started working right before they came to install the new miniature dishwasher. The new one is so small that I run it 4 (sometimes 5) times a day. I threw a fit about this one too, and still do occasionally when I have to practically dismantle the thing to get the dishes in and out because they don't fit, but I'm trying to find the positives. Here's what I've come up with:

1) most Brazilians don't even have dishwashers, so I'd better just be grateful I don't have to wash them all by hand too, especially with no hot water from the kitchen sink.

2) It's so much shorter than the old one, that there's about 1 foot of new storage space on top of the dishwasher below the counter. It works well for the dish towels and the new giant "dirty dish bowl" I got for the kids when they clear their dishes so they don't have to launch them over the high counter into the sink.

3) I'm becoming quite effective at cleaning as I go when I'm cooking. I have to load and wash the breakfast dishes before lunch, and I have to load and wash the lunch dishes before dinner. If I load the dishes I use to cook dinner right before we eat, they're done in time for us to empty the dishwasher and load our dinner dishes. By the time we're done eating, the kitchen's completely cleaned up.

Maybe I should print out my list and tape it to the front of the dishwasher so I can read it next time I feel like yelling at it.

Okay, that's it. I'm done.

all the festivities

We have a recurring theme around here with birthday cakes. This is our third CARS cake and this time around it required a little extra creativity. Have you ever tried decorating a child's birthday cake without the use of food coloring? It's a little tricky.

At any rate, Garrett and the kids at school loved it. This is a family party year for Garrett (and we certainly aren't going to even try to compete with the wedding reception-ish Brazilian birthday parties) but his school likes to have parents bring a cake and have a small celebration, so Ethan and I joined Garrett's class for the last 3o minutes of school today.

We showed a few pictures of Garrett over the last 6 years and talked about his favorite things. His friends sang Happy Birthday to him three times- in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. We filled them up on cake and Snickerdoodles, which are Garrett's favorite cookie, and sent them all home.

I thought it was so cute that everyone loved the homemade American treats. They were just average baked goods, but not much is homemade around here. One cute little girl came up to me and said, "Excuse me, did you make these cookies or buy them? They are delicious". I like her.

When Matt got home we walked down the beach a couple blocks to Garrett's favorite place- Jungle Juice. It's sort of like Jamba Juice but better and they serve really good hot sandwiches. We came home, sang Happy Birthday one more time and got ready for a family movie night and all fell asleep in the living room about 10 minutes into Charlotte's Web.

(contemplating his wish)

Aniversário feliz, Garrett!

another year older

More from the trip

In addition to visiting Matt's old stomping ground, we also attended the temple in Sao Paulo. Among other things I am learning not to take for granted, is proximity to the temple. Like many members of the church outside America, we traveled the equivalent of a 6 hour drive to the closest temple.

A really fun part of this trip was taking Ethan along with us. My mom volunteered to stay home in Rio with Garrett and Lydia so Ethan could have this special weekend with Mom and Dad. I love spending one-on-one time with our kids this way. It was so good for Ethan, and so enjoyable for all of us. Garrett and Lydia had a party weekend with Grandma and had a great time too.

Our friends from California, the Hutchings, moved to Sao Paulo shortly after we moved to Rio. Their son, Elden, was in Ethan's preschool and one of his best friends. Ethan was happier than I've seen him in a long time as he spent an entire day playing with Elden!

We went to a nearby mall for dinner, and the boys insisted on wearing their superhero costumes. They certainly drew in the crowds as they marched around the mall holding hands and singing Jingle Bells. It was so cute.

Ethan can't wait to go back to "Elden's Brazil"

Called to Serve

10 years ago, Matt was serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Sao Paulo.

When we were engaged, he talked about taking me back there one day. I think it's so cool that he actually did.

We met two of the families Matt shared the gospel with and baptized while on his mission. They are incredible, humble, faithful members of the church and it was an honor to meet them. I was so touched by their outpouring of love.

Matt baptized Luana (on the far right) when she was 14 years old. In July we will join them in the Sao Paulo Temple where she will be married.

Not having served a mission myself, it was really neat for me to visit the areas, the mission office, and the people that were a part of Matt's life for two years. I felt just a glimpse of the spirit of love and service that surrounds the work of the Lord.

Dear Grandma,

Dear Grandma,

I am very mad at you for leaving this week. Every day I wake up and walk into your room and you're not there. Don't you remember that I'm supposed to be your favorite?

I cried for you for 3 hours at naptime yesterday. It's just not the same when Mom reads me Little Quack. And she doesn't lay by me as long as you would.

I want you to come back. Mom doesn't laugh at me as much as you did when I swing my hips and strut my stuff around town. She called me her girl yesterday, but I corrected her and told her I'm Grandma's girl.

I hope Carter is having fun with you. Can you please stop playing with him and call me? I pick up Mom's phone to talk to you, but you don't talk back.

I miss you.

-Lydia

on being right side up again, a few plugs, and a personal realization.

Thanks for your help, Ker. I should have known you would have the solution. That's exactly what Dell said to do, too.

Really everyone, my sister is our resident tech nerd. She even has this cool new business.

And while I'm throwing out advertisements, my other sister has this business, and my brother, this business. My older brother has his hand in a million things too. It turns out I'm the only non-entrepreneur in the family. I'm beginning to feel like I'm not doing much with my life.

Well, as I contemplate what I could possibly do to market myself, at least I can be proud of my siblings. They really are all so talented. Check them out.

Ate Logo

As in "See You Soon". Well, at least I hope it's soon. It could be a while before I'm back and running again.

For one, we are currently evacuated from our apartment because of a leaking pipe and the consequent mold problem that resulted. It's really not so bad though. Aside from having limited use of the internet, we are enjoying the fancy breakfast and the great hotel pool and playground provide an nice change in scenery. We also happended to be staying at the hotel the same week as the professional soccer team from Mexico that came to play (and win) against one of Brazil's teams on Wednesday. Garrett loved that.

The other reason why I could be out for a while is not quite so pleasant. At the present, my computer screen is inverted. Yes, that's right, everything is flipped upside down. Mouse and keystrokes are backwards, the lettes look weird. I'm getting dizzy and developing a terrible kink ini my neck trying to proofread this post. I have no idea what caused it or how to fix it, and it's really quite annoying!

I feel a little bit like this towards my computer right now:

Hope you have a good weekend!