Kylie: Seven Months

Our little princess turned seven months old on Saturday, so we had the usual party. There were not as many in attendance because of various activities, but those who were there enjoyed it thoroughly.

It has been fun to see people's reactions to Kylie change over the last month, or so. When she was first born people would say things like, "Oh, she looks exactly like her dad!" That has been changing recently with more and more people saying she looks exactly like Nádya. She is growing and changing so much!

We took her to the doctor for her monthly checkup on Friday, and the doctor said everything looks fine. She will start teething soon (Well, she has already started chewing on nearly anything she can get her hands on.), and she gained 300 grams (0.7 pounds), and grew one centimeter (0.4 inch) since we were there three weeks ago.

Kylie had a great time getting her picture taken. Incidentally, she hardly ever automatically smiles for the camera—we usually have to coax that out of her, but it is not terribly hard to do. She actually loved the cake, and wanted to be close to it. In the picture above I am holding her back from diving in.

Singing? Clapping hands? Kylie loves them both. I think I have mentioned that she likes to dance, as well.

We sing the birthday song every month, and last night was no different, except that Kylie was kind of humming along. She is beginning to form words, and really recognizes when mom is talking to dad. She is even beginning to catch on to the concept of waving goodbye!

Of course, at the end of the night she is ready to go to bed. Saturday she tuckered out pretty early, so we were glad that we started the party a bit earlier than usual.

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Teresina's Striking Sunsets

There are some things I will miss about living in when we move to the United States. One of them is the sunsets. Here are three shots of two sunsets I have taken in the past week.

These are all taken in the same place: An upstairs window in our house.

Teresina Rainbow

Rainbows are not something I have seen a lot here. So, even though I was a bit late heading out the door, I took some photos of this one yesterday. Enjoy them. They remind me of the storm I wrote about a while back.

[composed and posted with ecto]

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Nádya's Birthday

Yesterday was Nádya's birthday, and we had celebration quite similar to my birthday. There was cake and soda, but most importantly, there was family.
Nádya works on Saturday mornings, and her friends there had a breakfast to celebrate with her. They brought gifts as well, and the flowers below are from that occasion.

We spent the afternoon getting ready for the evening celebration. Nádya's mother made a cake, and we all cleaned the house.

Allan and Hérika came over with Yluska (they are caring for her at the moment), and the party began. Here are some of the pictures I took last night. If you are interested in more pictures, you can find them at our flikr account. At the time I am writing this, they are not up yet, but they will be within the next day or two.

Here is the situation with Nádya's visa:

I think I have mentioned before that there was a problem with the paperwork when I submitted my forms to become a lawful permanent resident here in Brasil. I am still waiting for that paperwork to finish its return trip to me. At that point I will then re-submit the documents for approval. Only once I get this approval can we attempt to apply for Nádya's visa to the US. After we apply, it will be a few months before we can actually go.

We are not sure of the timeline here, as everything is dependent on so many variables, but we are really praying that God will pave the way for us to be back by my brother's wedding in May. Please pray with us.

I will keep you updated with further developments, and I appreciate all those of you who have asked about it recently (yay you haven't forgotten me!).

An Age Passed

I am truly fortunate and privileged to be surrounded by such loving, and caring people--especially my wife. Their sacrificial love for me was humbling yesterday, as we celebrated my birthday.

My parents put a package in the mail before Christmas. Somehow, as I woke up yesterday, I had a premonition that it would arrive. It came in the afternoon, and was addressed as a birthday gift. I was very excited to open it, but decided that I would wait until Nádya got home to open it. I knew from certain clues that there would be peanut butter in there, but I had not dreamed of anything else.

I opened the bottom of the box because that is where customs opened it. “Whole wheat flour? Chocolate chips? Peanut butter (two jars!!!!)! Oatmeal?”

Once I looked at the card and letter, I understood: Chocolate chip cookies!!!!

Nádya's mom made me a huge cake, while she was making the second part of it, the electricity went out, so she had to mix it by hand. It turned out wonderfully. Nádya (I helped too) made a pizza.

I also got a Bible in Portuguese from my wife: She rocks. Nyna got me something too, but I will only tell you what it was if you twist my arm. Really hard.

Below are the pictures from the party. I think the only new people to you are Pastor Santana, his wife, and his son. It was an honor to have them here.

How we spent the first hours of 2006

So, here we are a couple of days into the New Year, and I am already behind. Sounds like me. At any rate, here are some pictures from our New Year celebration.

We exchanged hugs and kisses at midnight, then went to a pizza place sometime after midnight, and had pizza and soda. A fun time was had by all.

This first photo is of me, my wife, and her sister (right to left). No, that is not beer in front of us--it is guarana, a flavor of soda. Yes, that is a beer advertisement near my head—no, I was not thinking about beer.

Here are my in-laws. Nilson and Carmelia. This photo is a bit blurry at larger sizes, as my camera did not focus correctly, but its the best I have of them.

Junior is Nádya's brother, Romea is his girlfriend (right), and Yluscka (next photo, right) is their daughter (separate picture because she moves to fast to capture with her parents).
Yluscka is 4, and has tons of energy and spunk. I think i have only met one other child who has close to equal her energy--his name is Josh.

Finally, but not least, Allan and Hérika. Nádya's sister, and her husband were there as well.

The pizza was really good; something different about the pizza here is that it does not come with tomato sauce, and often comes with corn on it. This pizza had some sort of cheese stuffed in the crust, which was very good, but the odd thing was that it had a consistency similar to very thick mayonnaise. We ate so late that I was extremely hungry, and once I ate I was completely ready to hit the sack. It was an excellent way to ring in the new year, though.

For the last photo of this post, here is a picture of the restaurant's fountain that was kind of the centerpiece of the entrance. It added a nice ambiance to the evening, so I thought I would share it with you. All these people join me in wishing you a happy and prosperous 2006.

[posted with ecto]

Brazil's Independence Day

September 7 is the big day here. To be completely honest, I have not done much research on the whole subject, so I don´t know a lot about it. Like, from whom they gained independence.

They did have a big parade here (and, from what I gather most other cities in Brazil). It appeared that every school was represented by its student body. That made the first part pretty ho-hum. Some of them had a marching band, but most of them were not very fun for me to listen to. (Maybe I should say that I was in one of the better marching bands of my area for a few years, which tends to make one look more critically at other bands.)

Hundreds and hundreds of police and military personnel marched by, and there were hundreds more police around the crowds for security. All this led me to ask myself: What about the safety of the rest of the city: If all the police are here, what happens in case of emergency elsewhere in the city?

Never really got a good answer.

Something else that caught my attention was that the military personnel all had some sort of armament. I saw uzis, machine guns, rifles, flame-throwers, bazooka-like weapons. It looked as though they were carrying live rounds too!

It was kind of fun to be here for their celebration of Independence. To see how they celebrate it, which, the parade seemed to be the biggest part. As I recall not much else exciting happened that day. Come to think of it, this is the second foreign country I have attended and Independence Day celebration in.

How we are doing:

We are doing great! We have seen so many blessings in our lives, and look forward to the next few months here. We know that as we seek God´s will, we will find the path he has for us.

I continue to learn Portuguese bit-by-bit, and they continue to wonder how I pick it up so fast. It does not always feel so fast to me, but they say its fast. Nádya is picking up more and more English as well.

I am getting hungry, and I smell that lunch is almost on... better go.

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