Moving in. . .

Saturday:

After a restless night of squealing breaks, loud music that seemed to rock the walls of our house, and dogs barking, I was awake at four, up by five, deciding I might as well catch up on some of my writing. Love the jet lag!

I’m almost done with my December deadline, a romantic suspense that deals with internet scams, but have had little time to write the past two weeks. If I write a thousand words a day I can finish it by next weekend, so that’s my goal. Waking up early might not be so bad after all.

It’s been raining a lot here, canceling our plans to walk to the park. So far, though, I don’t miss having a car. It’s been nice to walk around the neighborhood and explore. So while Scott waited for the man who was coming to install our internet, I made my first solo outing to the grocery store with Gabriel. I walked through the aisles slowly, trying to see what things I missed the time before, feeling very nervous about checking out. As we got to the last aisle I glanced down at my cart. It was half full of food and kitchen items we needed, and at that point, I realized that we had to walk home!

Ever the optimist, I decided we could carry it all home. Or so I hoped. I got to the check out area and scoped out the nicest looking clerk. I greeted her in Portuguese and she, of course, started chatting. Somehow I managed to communicate that I don’t speak the language and no, Gabriel was not my interpreter. I handed her my credit card and showed her my ID when asked. So far so good. Well sort of. I have this terrible habit of freezing up with languages, but when I was finished, I was determined to use my little Portuguese and say thank you. At that moment, though, I could have said thank you in French, Eve, Afrikaans, but not Portuguese. Oh, the joys of language learning!

(In the end, I was able to say good-bye, and yes, funny sight that it must have been, we made it home with all our bags!)

Sunday:

It’s been a long but good day. We called a friend of our co-worker, Bia, who used to live in the neighborhood we’re at now, asking her if she knew of any churches in our area. We ended up going to hers this evening and enjoyed it so much. The Brazilian people are so warm and welcoming. Even the kids jumped in and went to class and made some friends.

It's been exciting to watch the kids. Gabriel especially has not been keen on learning another language. His experience learning Afrikaans wasn't very positive, so we were worried that he wouldn't try while he was here. Instead, the exact opposite has happened. He's always asking how to say something, or telling me a word he learned, and even using the few words that he knows.

Tomorrow we start back to school with the kids, and it's late here, so I'll save another experience--There’s a foot in my stew--for tomorrow!

Below are some photos of our house. We brought comforters for the kids beds and posters for their walls, so they could feel more at home.

Blessings,

Lisa