Abby, Zoë and Enzo

Here we are on Saturday, our first weekend here.  Abby and Zoë woke up kind of early this morning, after not going to sleep until after 9:00 last night.  Both of the girls enjoyed some bananas and strawberries with graviola flavored yogurt for breakfast, with caja juice (mixed with water) to drink. 

We have been encouraged to try the bus system.  They don't have any bus maps, but rather a list of streets certain routes go on, which is less than ideal.  I would love to have a couple bus route maps, and will keep asking for them.  We took bus 511 which we caught 2 blocks or so from our apartment.  It was super easy.  The kids are free, and each ticket is R$1.70, which is slightly over 1 US$ at current exchange rates.  The busses are very fast starting and stopping, as if the drivers are all practicing for the formula 1, and each stop is super fast like a pit stop.  Also, the traffic lights are set up like racing lights, so it all makes sense.

The market was great.  Large and busy with people and activity.  We saw tons of produce, meats, nuts, grains, eggs, clothes, dvds, etc...  Zoë was scared of the bugs, as there were some bees on the super sweet fruit like the cashew and such.  I had to carry her at one point.  Laura was experiencing massive culture shock while using the public bathroom at the market. Her culture shock seemed to pass after we found a kiosk to have lunch.  The girls started off with ice cream, including Laura.  I had a cheese pastry type of thing.  Then me and Laura got the Brazilian version of a cheeseburger.  I didn't taste any cheese, but maybe it was a special soft cheese and not what we are used to.  The meat was seasoned ground meat made into a paddy and grilled.  The bun was grilled which we liked and it had lettuce and tomatoe.  I thought it tasted great, we were super hungry.  The girls had some of ours but were happy to get something to eat and drink after the market.  We took bus 510 back, which brought us through Tambau and near Cabo Branco neighborhoods, then up along the beach coming back into Manaira.

I am enjoying this trip so far.  Getting here is difficult and I can't envision anyone visiting us due to the complexity and adventurousness of the approach to JP.  Laura mentioned this difficulty and said, for better or worse, this baby will be Brazilian, by the sheer fact that she could not handle a return trip so soon.

I feel good about being here and the way of life here.  The climate is very agreeable for me.  At night, it drops to the low 70s, and the breeze makes it feel even colder.  I get goose bumps it is that cold.  It feels nice, and is a great contrast from the day's heat.  Being so close to the Equator, only 7 degrees south, the direct sun radiation is very strong, and the days are fairly constant, 12 - 13 hours of sun a day (~5:30 - ~5:30 +/- 0:30).  In the morning when the sun comes up over the ocean, we get direct light into the condo, and while working on the laptop, the sun is very hot on my back.  But within 2 hours or so, the sun has ascended enough that it only shines onto our veranda and not directly into the apartment anymore, which is great.  There is a super nice strong breeze that really keeps the apartment cool.

The showers and the hot water things are different than we are used to at home.  They only have hot water for the shower.  All sinks and other areas only have cold water, and one on/off knob.  This is very common here as many places do not have a boiler or central hot water heater.  They wash their dishes in cold water with soap.  So learning how to use this big electric device built into the shower head took 3 shows for me.  I showed Laura how to get a hot shower this morning, and she was thrilled.  When she stepped out of the shower, she felt like a new person, problem resolved.

From the second night, I noticed that the bed was very uncomfortable.  There seemed to be a hard line or ridge or bump across the length of the bed at the rib level.  It made sleeping difficult and hurt.  The mattress all around was soft, except for this line.  After investigating it today, I noticed the bed was rotated so the upside down position.  The tiny padded top area was down, so I flipped the mattress and redressed it, problem solved.  I look forward to a softer more comfortable sleep tonight.  I didn't notice the first night, as Laura was talking to me as I laid in bed, and she said I was out in minutes, completely asleep and exhausted from the travel, or Laura's pillow talk is really boring.

The bandwidth and network is an unresolved issue.  It isn't exactly a problem as I am able to make US phone calls for free from my properly configured laptop, and we are able to get our home phone calls directly here as well, so it is like we never left.  But when using the phone, the network is very slow, can't multi-task and do other stuff.  Also, uploading photos back to our home server, or uploading anything anywhere is very slow.  I have tested uploading to major providers and not just to my fiber connection, and the bandwidth is very limited for a sustained upload connection, it varies between 10 KB/s to 15 KB/s on good moments.  So I am only able to upload 1 photo every 2.5 - 3.5 minutes. This is an issue as I am taking more photos than I can store and carry home.  I will have to look at a solution, maybe a lan house, where I can upload 1 or 2 GB of data at a time and quickly.  Then I can make small trips there and save myself hours of uploading, which I try to do as soon as possible, if not during the night.  I think I would be happy with about 10 of these connections teamed together, but it isn't cost effective.  This service costs more than my super fast and great fiber connection to our home.

I ventured outside the apartment for the first time this evening, to go to dinner at Mangai restaurant.  I've been busy catching up on rest, so this was my first outing.  We got to the restaurant and they handed us these cards, we explained that we didn't speak much Portuguese, so the guy walked us to the buffet style set up of food and tried to explain how things worked.  So we grabbed a plate and were delighted to see that below the Portuguese name for each dish was the English translation, so I jumped right to cheating and just read the English.  We then brought our plates to a woman by a scale, who traded cards with us and put the price per what our dish weighed.

We had some really yummy things, and a man came by to get our drink order.  He was patient while I tried to translate for the table and figure things out.  We got a coconut water, a caja fruit juice with milk, and some other fruit drink.  Our waiter's name was Pedro.  Another young man came by and explained that he spoke a small amount of English, which he seemed eager to practice with us, his name was Flavio.  He helped me out with the survey that was handed to me at the end of dinner.  Oh, and I can't forget this delicious dessert Nonno Ernie ordered.  It was delicious real vanilla ice cream with something like shredded coconut in dulce de leche (like a carmel almost), it was so good.

I thought for sure that Abby and Zoë would wake up early this morning.  With going to sleep at 4:00 PM yesterday, they only got up when we brought them one at a time to use the toilet, they never really even woke up.  Zoë slept until 6:17 this morning and Abby didn't get up until 7:05.  They were super tired.  We tried to wake them for dinner that night, but they fell right back to sleep on the couch.

With the weather clearing up and warming up we headed out to the tourist center and the Tambau market.  Abby and Zoë made the walk there without any problems.  It was a probably a half a mile or so.  With the morning heat and sun though, it was hard not to sweat.  Nonno Ernie got his tourist map, Chris bought an actual street map.  They browsed the stalls at the small neighborhood produce market and settled down at a kiosk/cafe for a cold drink before heading back.  Nonno Ernie stayed in the Tambau area until close to 5, which was slightly worrying, as Uncle Matt inherited his sense of direction. He showed up right as we were set to leave for dinner.

We hung around Nonno's and just relaxed for most of the morning, watching cartoons and things.  Then we went to the Clinton Diner to meet Jonathan for brunch.  Abby and Zoë thought it was neat that we were eating in a train car and they really enjoyed their french toast as well as their fresh squeezed orange juice.  Both of the girls talked it up with Jonathan and were not shy for very long at all. 

After saying good-bye we went back to the house to relax some more and then have a nap and just make sure we were all ready to catch a very early taxi tomorrow morning.

We started off this morning at about 8:30 headed to Nonno Ernie's house.  After stopping for gas, and breakfast, we were on our way.  Our first stop was sooner than we'd planned, less than 2 hours in, because Zoë said that she really needed to use the potty.  The girls did very well though, keeping themselves occupied mostly, me playing some games a little bit and a very small nap.  Overall we made pretty good time with just a few stops.  One stop was ridiculous though, wasn't right off the road like many of the rest stops and such, and the town was just weird with ways you couldn't turn and had to go this way and that way... it was so weird and took us longer than we wanted to get gas and eat.  We got to Nonno's and plopped down to rest from the long ride, the girls stretched their legs and then later on we all went to get a little bite for dinner.

Well, almost.  We actually started off with a special treat.  After our green smoothies were finished, Daddy took us to Panera for breakfast.  Zoë chose a cinnamon roll, Abby chose a cherry danish... and we let them... for breakfast.  Chris and I both got a breakfast sandwich, which the girls also enjoyed quite a bit of (and we admittedly had some tastes of their pastries)  After we were done eating, we dropped Daddy off at home and then went to church.

We went to Reanna and Corey's house tonight to say farewell, as this is the last time we'll see them before our trip.  Abby and Zoë enjoyed running in the yard as usual, even though Zoë picked up two mosquito bites within minutes of each other.  They had a blast getting to help Uncle Corey load up his truck for work on Monday.  They even got to help him drive it.  Zoë sat in his lap and helped to steer it out of it's parking spot in the driveway and back it up on the other side of the house to the tool shed.  Next Abby got to help pull it out of there and back it back into it's spot in the driveway.  They even got to turn the truck on / off and put from park to drive and back again.

We had a yummy dinner, and some yummy dessert, had stories, and the girls even got to see Grampy again.  He had called and ended up coming over to visit as well.  The other day Zoë was crying to me about missing Grampy and wanting to hear a song that we haven't heard of his in forever.  A long time ago we borrowed a cd that a friend had made for Grampy off of a record that Grampy recorded years and years ago in his singing days.  I was telling them about this and luckily Grampy had a copy of the cd, with the two songs on it,  and we listened to it... twice.

I'm 31 weeks pregnant today.  Not only is this significant because we've passed the 30 week mark, but for me I can't help but thinking back to having the girls at this point.  I had Abby and Zoë when I was 31 weeks and 2 days, it was a Sunday.  Interestingly, it'll be a Sunday this time around too, when I'm 31 weeks and 2 days.  It's wierd to think about, I have potentially 9 weeks to go.  I'm no where near ready to be done this time, but with the girls it was so different.  It had been 2 months of doctors speculating that I'd go 'any day now' and to be at that point seemed so far along compared to where we began having problems.

Jen, aka "Louise" came for a visit today.  We actually haven't seen her for about a year, since she was pregnant with her son, Malachi.  He just turned a year old this past weekend, and she has another on the way.  Abby and Zoë were kind enough to compare our bellies.  Jen is due a couple of weeks after Auntie Reanna, so we're all in a row and all having boys.  The girls were very interested in Malachi, but also not big fans of him taking their toys... I guess that's something we'll have to work on.

Today Abby and Zoë wanted to do 'school lessons' so I was making stuff up for them to do on the big writing board.  While I was doing this with Abby I saw a fruit fly buzzing around her and I tried to 'clap' it, but missed.  Later on Abby was lying on the floor doing her own writing board lessons and she saw the pesky little fruit fly again.  I saw her clap her hands together and then a look of great accomplishment came over her face.  She jumped up exclaiming, "I squashed the fruit fly!"  For the rest of the evening she has been bringing up how cool it was when she clapped the fly and giving us play by plays of what happened.

The first part of the day wasn't so exciting for the girls, they just accompanied us on some errands; taking stuff back to the library, stopping at the post office, and then the bank.  Though they did like getting to go into the bank because they played with the train set and got to pick a jolly rancher to have after nap.  Later on we broke out the 'early learning' puzzle sets that Aunt Barbara got for us a while back.  We haven't done them in a while, so it was almost new all over.  The girls put the matches together so quickly, and can guess the words by looking at the picture, so I had to make it a little more challenging.  We did two sets of puzzle pieces: the 'around the house' set and the 'first words' set.  Since both girls were doing so much guessing, I had them say each letter once they found the match and put the puzzle card together, then sound out the word.

We got a couple of things at Golden Harvest while our laundry was drying, then we went to Wal-Mart.  The actual shopping didn't take all that long since we didn't need much, but then the check out took seriously half an hour.  The woman was having a very difficult time with our items for some reason.  Luckily Chris had the girls entertained by talking with them about the nail salon.  There were a few girls in there, a couple who were done and had their nails drying and another who was getting hers filed and painted, so Abby and Zoë had plenty to watch.

Grampy came over this morning in time to go to church with the girls and I.  When Abby and Zoë learned that Grampy would be with us all day long, they were so excited, since he usually has to leave earlier.  When we got home from church, Caitlin and Matt were here.  They'd been up at the White Mountains and had lunch with us and Grampy on their way back home.  We ate at Ruby Tuesday's, which the girls haven't been to before.  After lunch we came home and said good-bye to Caitlin and Matt (and Sage) and then the little ladies had a nap.  Both Abby and Zoë kept mentioning how exciting it was that Grampy was going to be with us all day.  They were even more excited when, at dinner time, Grampy mentioned that he had a hanckering for Dairy Queen and wondered if there were any in this area.  We told him there was one just a few minutes away and, since no one was hungry for an actual dinner anyway, we all went and got some ice cream.  As soon as we pulled up at DQ, it started pouring.  Grampy and I got in line to get our stuff (the girls got to have kiddie soft serve cones with a cherry dip) and then got to scurry back to the car with it.

Abby and Zoë have been saying this non stop lately.  They'll pick some random memory and say, "Remember when we were three..."  It doesn't matter if the memory is from a few months ago or years ago, they've decided that everything that didn't just happen yesterday, happened when they were three.  I will say, though, they do have quite a good memory and remember things from years ago, which amazes me.

Today was the last of the scheduled ultrasounds.  Everything is looking good still.  Enzo was being quite photogenic today... and active.  If all goes as it seems it will, today's view is the last time we'll see him for a while.  The cervix is still pretty much unchanged, which makes about eight weeks with the same measurement.

Chris took Elizabeth down to the airport this afternoon and then came back to get Abby and Zoë to the dentist.  After the dentist we drove over to the hotel to see what Heather, Bill, and the kids were up to.  Eli had a belly ache so Heather stayed with him while Bill and his girls came out to Applebee's with us.  After dinner, Sarah rode back with us to our house while Bill and Cassie brought some food to Heather and then they all came to play at the house.  Before long it was bed time and time to say good-bye.  After everyone was gone, Zoë was just so upset.  Crying, she said to me, "Everyone keeps leaving and leaving and leaving!"  We still had the air mattress set up in their room so we let them sleep on it tonight, which helped ease the tears a bit.

This morning we took a drive up into Maine, along Long Sands beach and up to Nubble Light House, to show Bill and Heather some of the sights.  They really got their tirp full, getting to see three states in as many days.  On the way back we stopped in Kittery for some lunch.  Bill, Heather, and the kids ended up stopping at the McDonald's down the road from where we ate at Bob's Clam Hut.  Auntie Elizabeth was very happy with her 'Bob and Betty' basket (served by Betty herself), which hit the spot for her last day here.

Heather, Bill, and their kids came up today for a couple day visit.  They arrived to their hotel around dinner time, so we met them and all had dinner at I.H.O.P. , taking advantage of their kids eat free night.  They came over to the house for a little while after.  All of the girls got right in on playing together and any shyness that there was at dinner time was gone in a flash.

It was an overcast morning, but the water carnival wasn't canceled so we all went over to check it out.  We had the girls do all of the events that were out of the water first.  It began raining once they'd hit pretty much all of non-water games so we decided to go home for a snack and then see what the weather did.  It did end up stopping pretty soon after we got home, so Elizabeth and I donned rain coats and brought the girls back to the pool.  They did the shallow end obstacle course, a 'treasure hunt', 'frog on a log' and bobbed for apples.  It was a good thing that Elizabeth and I had rain coats on because it started raining again.  We let the girls do a balloon toss and then brought them back home.