Final Bonito Pictures!

One of our friends had an underwater camera with us on the trip. That = Fun.

A whole lot of nothingness, that is meaningfull

So Joe and I know that many of you want to know where we are because we haven't updated lately! Well, we have been a little bit of everywhere. Right after the broadcast we travelled to town in Brazil, Bonito, the pictures are below in our last blog and then a week later we were Florida for a dear friends wedding,which was beautiful and really just reminded me of what a true church body should look like and how it should really function, we are waiting for pictures from others, our camera was on hyatus that night. Congratulations, Again, Tracey and Jeff. And we have only been back in Brazil for about a week and a half and again we will be off next week for Christmas! By the way, it doesn't feel like Christmas, it is arriving too soon! As some of you know, I LOVE CHRISTMAS, and everything about it! The meaning of it, the decorations, the music, especially the music! Joe has put up with alot of what he calls "corny" Christmas music lately from yahoo radio. Small tangent real quick, Yahoo radio has this absolutely revolting commercial about STD's and condoms. And if you open the webpage and that is the commercial assigned to you, you hear it over and over every 4 songs, so in that case we close the webpage and reopen until we get a different one. Along with preparing for Christmas, I always enjoy wearing the "christmas clothes" we all have. The red wool sweater, or green or both. My wordrobe is having a identity crisis! As we are headed into summer, it has been steadily, 85-90 degrees. Most of my short sleeve shirts and tank tops are in the beachy tones and pinks!
I learned something else this season, deoderant can go bad! One day I realized I smelled like a really cheap bar of soap, like the kind you took from the motel 3 years ago. It's ok we all do it. The investigation began and we realized that my deoderant had lost it's scent. So I opened a new one, smelled it and it too had lst its scent. (And the experation date on the bottom was 2 years away).
Some of you are wondering what happened with the bradcast here in Brazil! We thank you for your prayers! Brazil, is a wonderful friendly culture, they are so people oriented! Joe and I have enjoyed this about Brazillians all year. They don't consider themselves to be great at some of the paperwork and logisics that go with it. Currently we are Praising God for the 103,925 decisions that have been reported!
Last week we had the honor of having Gwen Matthews down in Brazil with us! She is the wife of Joe's boss Greg, and just a wonderful person to get to know. I decided on Friday I would take her downtown, show her some of the old city and then head to an area that is called, 25 de Marzo. It is where all the wholesale shops are. This is where all the people the south of Brazil come to buy goods for their stores. On deciding to go, I told some of my students and their response was, we will start planning your funeral. It wasn't that bad, but it was really crowded! If you like your personal space you wouldn't like this. At one point I saw some people start running with armsful of goods and told Gwen to get out of the way, and she asked why, what was going on? I told her I didn't know but it was always better to stay out of the way of running people. I asked a friend and she said that to sell things on the streets you have to have a permit and so when they start checking so permits, those who don't ahve one, run, they grab all their stuff and run!
I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas Season and Joe and I can't wait to see people VERY SOON!

Bonito Part 2

Each night we decided to eat a different, yet exotic meat. And so our first night in Bonito, we had Jacara, or in Eniglish it is known as the Caiman Alligator, served two different ways, grilled and in a soup. Both very tasty. We also planned all our excursions Thursday night. Friday we woke up early to head to a cave called the Gruta do Lago Azul. It was absolutely magnificant! We had the first tour of the day, whiuch is the best. The early morning sun shines right into the cave and illuminates the water in the lake! Early morning is the o=nly time of day you can see the water so clear and brillant. The excursion took about 2 hours to hike in and view the cave a several different points and hike out! That afternoon we went to a farm called a Fazenda, had lunch and relaxed before our next hike to several different water falls. That night we decided to try piranha and a different local fish. On Saturday we snorkeled in the Rio da Prata, a crystal clear river. We snorked 2 kilometers and it took about 3 hours. But it was amazing. The fish were huge. You aren't allowed to fish in Bonito, all the rivers are protected but it also makes them very clean and clear. After snorkeling we again went back to the place where we signed in and they too had prepared an azaming lunch followed by some napping in hammocks. Though, we were all very tired we decided to go to a giant sink hole that has become a safe haven for the big Macaws! It was amazing to see them fly by! Saturday was our final night in Bonito and so we wanted to end our trip with experiencing more exotic food. So we had a ;meat from a wild boar and capybara(which is part of the rat family, but much larger, similar to those rodents in the movie the Princess Bride). Sunday was bitter sweet, we woke up late packed said good bye to our hosts at the hotel and headed to tube down a river. It was cloudy and at first we thought it would have been really cold but it actually made the water feel warmer that it was. Though the tubing trip seemed really quick it was a nice end to our time in Bonito.

Bonito Part 1

I know some of you are still waiting and waiting and waiting for the update on how the MY Hope broadcast went!!! That is still to come. With a country the size of Brazil follow up takes million times longer, but an update with come soon.

This past week we had Joe's friend from younger years here visting!!! Drake arrived on Wednesday last week and left monday night. We wanted to be able to show Drake as much of Brazil as we could in him time here. With that said, it is very hard to do. Most people don't realize how big Brazil is! It is the size of the continental US. So we decided to rent a car and drive to a place called Bonito! It is 13 hours away and it is near the Pantanal. It truly lived up to it's name, Beautiful! We stayed at a Pousada, which is like a small, simple hotel or resort. The Chale da Bosque, sat at the top of a hill overlooking the small town. Our room was a stone chale or cabin, with a back porch including a hammock. After arriving we decided to take and swim and check out ther rest of the property. It came with it's very own wildlife that called it home too. In an old tree stump, a family of tucan's lived. Along with Macaws flying around.

Excitement!

Ah, I was finally able to add pictures from the wedding we attended


Their are just so many exciting things going on right now, and I have no time to post them so I hope you will have patience with us for now and we promise to update everyone on everything SOON! Like next week when the madness slows! Today Joe is driving for the first time in Sao Paulo traffic (yikes) and I can't go with to help him navigate because I am teaching this afternoon, I moved all my classes around so we could head out of town super early tomorrow morning! Joe's best friend from Davidson flys in today and we are taking him to a place called Bonito, the name literally means beautiful! Our friend Jeremy who works with us here and Drake and Sadaysha will all be making the trek with us. But just to give you a little something to enjoy, Joe and I attended our first Brazilian wedding two weeks ago. It was very interesting. They had 4 pastors and a friend all speak, ALL of the family walks in the pressional and I mean ALL like 2nd cousins twice removed ALL. And their is no respect for the sanctity of it. Everyone in the pews were carrying on with their own conversations in a normal tone of voice. Very Odd to me. But it was beautiful and we always enjoy getting to experience the culture! Enjoy the pictures of us at the wedding! Ok so for some reason blogspot won't let me post the pictures so I will post them later, same with the spellcheck button so sorry!

My Hope Broadcast!

Hey all! We just wanted to let you all know that this is the big week! We've been working for 12 months so that this Thursday, Friday and Saturday the My Hope broadcast would be on national TV at 9:00 at night. There are over 50,000 churches involved and we expect a national audience of about 10 million, just from the churches that are mobilized. They will be inviting their friends, family, and neighbors over to their homes to watch the broadcast, to see testimonies and music videos that show what Jesus did on the cross for us.

Would you please join us in prayer for this huge week for Brazil?

We'll keep you posted on how everything went next week!

Two Weeks Flew By!

Hey Everyone,
The past two weeks really did fly by, I don't even know where to start...I guess with last weekend. On Sunday Joe and I accompanied two of his friends from work to the Brazilian National Air Force air show. It took way to long to get there, but once we were their we had fun. Like an American air show they display the planes and some of them you can get in. It was slightly depressing to see the state of some of the planes considered the best Brazil has to offer. I am beginning to understand why the US spends so much money on yearly maintenance. So of them really just needed a new coat of paint. But they do the same tricks and fly by's.

The Best Brazil has to offer


The nicest vehicle their were the Harley Davidson Police Motorcycles



Apparently we didn't get any pictures of the planes that were pretty beat up, and not from combat.
But it was still alot of fun!

This past week was a blur and then this weekend Joe was sick all weekend with a virus or the flu(neither doctor's can do anything for) So we stayed home and watched movies. We borrowed two really great classics from my friend Karen. I would recommend renting both! The first was, To Catch A Thief, a Hitchcoch thriller,but not freaky Hitchcock. It was good, suspensful. It has Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in it. It was filled in 1955.

The second was, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, filmed in 1939. Directed by Frank Capra and has James Stewart in it. It too was just realy good. I hope you enjoy them.

We also watched the first DVD of the Planet Earth series from BBC. That too was amazing, God is so creative! How were your weekends?

Italian Stallion

So to start off, my wife is a way better blogger than me. Sorry! Well it’s been a crazy couple weeks for me…but not without its perks. I got back last week from a 4 day trip to Italy to interview Kaka! He’s was named by FIFA as the best player of 2007, and by TIME magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Awesome! Kaka is a Christian and he’s sharing his story of how he chose to follow Christ on the programs that are airing in just three weeks.

So it was definitely awesome to head to Milan and meet him. He’s playing currently for the soccer team AC Milan, and also for the Brazilian national team.

And of course, if you’re traveling to Europe, you have to stop and smell the roses. On the way there in flew through Lisbon, but my flight was delayed so I missed my connection. As a result I had a 7 hour layover! But I definitely didn’t care, because I made the most of it by taking a bus to the city center. I toured historic Lisbon, a castle, and a 12th century cathedral! Inside the cathedral they also had excavated parts of a Roman road and sewer system dating back to the 1st century! Once again, awesome!

Once we got to Milan we did the interview on Friday. We spent about two hours with Kaka inside the San Siro Stadium in Milan, and inside the team’s dressing room. Very cool. Saturday we shot some video around Milan and got to see the city. Gorgeous cathedrals and another large castle are mixed in with the relatively commercial/business feel of the city. The streets and buildings are gorgeous, and I don’t think I’d mind living there!

My quilt

Here are a couple of pictures of the construction of my quilt. I am still working on the border and then the actual quilting process begins! This past week I also learned how to dye fabric. And I promise Joe will post soon about Italy.

What a "Whopper"

I know that many of you know Joe recently took a business trip to Italy and are waiting on an update from that and also many of you have asked for an update with pictures on the status of my quilt. This topic takes great precedence over both! For those of you who work hard and celebrate with fast food for lunch everyday may not know the excitement behind being able to go to Burger King. Burger King's logo is "Have it your way", So last night hoped on a bus, rode for 20 minutes and got off for the best burger I have had in 10 months or more. We met up with 4 friends, two of who are Brazilians. Something else you need to know is that Brazilians LOVE beef! It is a subject of pride here. We are always asked two questions here, How do you like Brazil? and Do you like our meat? So Back to BK, Joe and I step up to the counter order 1 whopper with cheese, extra pickles(huge for me, they are imported in from the US), and Joe orders a double whopper with cheese. We both get the standard combo, fries with a soda. Next one of the guys Joe works with here steps up and orders a whopper with seven patties and a small drink. We get to the table sit down and he unwraps his septa-whopper. After we all stare for a minute at its massive size especially sitting next to a normal whopper. He even finished it off before most of us even finish our own burgers! Needless to say it was delicious.

Weekend fun and New Hobbies

First I will tell you about my new hobby...Quilting! It has been proven to be alot of fun. When I was young I would sit with my Great Grandmother as she would sew. She was amazing at it. She could take something we were wearing turn it into a pattern and then make it. Last year when Joe and I moved to Uruguay a good friend of ours named Toni began to teach me some of the basics of sewing and quilting. Then when we moved to Sao Paulo, I met Sue! Sue has moved my desire to learn to quilt into a reality. I am currently finishing my first Sampler quilt, a sampler quilt is a quilt where ever block is different, each block uses a different technique or method and so you learn to do it all while making it.
So on Saturday, Joe and I, along with many of the ladies that are a part of my quilting group went to the "Gaudi House". Named after an arcitect from Spain whose style was very similar. Estevao, the owner of the home has spent the last 23 years creating this masterpeice and it still working on it. We had so much fun, the home has many differnt levels and different ways to get up to the roof, I can only compare it to cave exploration. Last year the BBC wrote an article about him and his house. You can read it at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7016930.stm.






Quilting pictures coming soon!

Protective Frustrations

In the past couple of weeks I learned about a couple of things that annoy me but are in place for my own protection. The first is American Express. We love the points we get with our American Airlines American Express card, and it helps keep us from getting taken because of the protections in place. But they have a glitch in their computer system. Every month the special notes on our account are cleared out....So the special note saying we live outside the US gets erased every month. So We get the privilege of calling them from Brazil every month because our card gets marked as suspicion of theft by AmX's LP department. So I have gotten so accustom to the questions that I can answer them before they ask. During a current travel trip Joe and I were responsible for several hotel rooms and food for a team of people. We we went ahead and called AmX ahead of time to let the know we would have several charges at different places. The hotel clerk entered the wrong expiration date and thus starting the problem, he ran it again and of course that blocked all charges. I called them back 45 minutes after talking to them the first time. Answered all their questions and explained hoe embarrassing it is to be standing with a group of people who expect for everything to be already taken care of. The nice lady on the phone explained what happened and that it is a computer service that blocks all charges at that point, and they only do it for our protection. I wanted to tell them to stop protecting us so much, but then realized the minute I said that my card would have been stolen. So we are appreciative for their protection, even though it can be frustrating! The second occurrence of frustration is at the bank we use in Brazil to pay our bills. Because robberies are so common in Brazil all banks have security guards with machine guns. But they also have a revolving door that everyone has to use and it has a metal detector connected to it. So for people like me who are always moving about the city with a backpack on which has random paper clips and change stuffed in all crevasses, I always get stuck in the revolving door and then you have back out and try again after about three tries their are others waiting to get and my blood pressure is rising. The object is that I put my backpack in a cubby hole outside the bank that doesn't lock. I don't think so. Instead I wait for a bank manager to override the machine and let me in. What are some of your protective frustrations?

Sweet 16 at 25

Yesterday I had an amazing birthday!!!!!!! It started with waking up and getting a few minutes of quality time with my hubby, and then off to teach at 7:30. From there I headed to bible study where I was met with so many warm welcomes and a beautiful cake and of course the birthday song! It was a really relaxed day and rather enjoyable! Last night was little cold, actually really cold, so not cute summer dress for me. But once I was ready in my fun wool Argentinian wrap skirt and pink cashmere sweater, I wanted to get a picture but I had to find the earrings I wanted to wear and Joe kept telling me not to worry about them. I love little bags that come with little boxes and sparkly things inside! Joe took me to an amazing Italian restaurant. We had so much fun, This past week we spent time reminiscing about past birthdays. 16 wasn't anymore exciting than others. I got my driving permit late(I think because of the timing of Driver's Ed) and so I knew I wasn't going to the DMV on my birthday. And I knew what car I was getting, Old White Lightning as some called her. She was an '82' Toyota Corolla with leprosy spots of rust, But a good little car to me. What I do remember is that my best friend Stephanie and her mom walked to my house with a cake, just to sing to me! And thinking back farther, I really only had one other birthday that stood out to me, I was 7 or 8. I got to invite about 10 friends to go to Chi-chi's restaurant in Chicago. I got to where the big sombrero and we had a pinata, I even got a barbie or two. The big surprise last night at the end was the amazing giant snowball cotton candy cake they brought out! Birthdays in Brazil are HUGE, bigger than Christmas. People pay all year just to have big amazing birthdays. So every restaurant does something special. But I could have never dreamed for a more fun birthday cake. Thank you to all who were a part of my special day and to all of you who sent me wonderful greeting! 24 was an amazing year, and I 25 with be just as fun and adventurous! I love you all.

Pollution, and their affects

This week has been extremely hot to still be winter here. It was 88/90 degrees. Which has felt great during the day! The only problem with it is in the winter it doesn't rain often, so the pollution in the city gets really bad. In the mornings as the sun comes up the sky is very pretty, but in a strange orange nuclear glow kind of way.


For a couple of days now we have had this little gray ladybug living in our apartment. Most people would have put him outside but I felt bad for him because he was gray. I thought that he was gray as a defect from living in a polluted city. But the Internet has proven me wrong! Their are over 5000 different species of ladybugs. This one is just happy in our house.

P.S. This isn't my picture. This one is better.
I also thought I would share one more ironic picture with you.

This isn't me just hating on the Hilton, although I say away from staying there (I'd rather not help expand Paris's shoe collection) But the contrast here is very common for Brazil. You can be in the nicest neighborhood and find the poorest right around the corner.