I'm BACK!!!

What end of the earth are we on now? Why...back in Brazil! And back to my blogspot. Of course, now that we're in Brazil, there's rarely a lull in interesting things to share (sadly sometimes).

Well, the laptop is fixed, and I'm writing again! We're back in our little home with the mosquito sounding motorbikes driving by as I write. Oh....there was one tooting its horn. So much for the peace and quiet of where we came from back in Washington State. It was so wonderful to be back there to enjoy the quiet of the woods and

We had a "garage sale" here today. We are dismantling our home here to move to Florida - which is almost an equal plane ride distance between our two families and friends in Brazil and Washington. We did quite well at the sale and got rid of a lot of smaller items. The bigger things will probably sell through word of mouth.

The kids are adjusting well to most things here - except they've become Americanized in their diets and haven't wanted to eat much. We can get them to eat fruit (which of course, is delicious here) and chicken (which is also better than in the U.S.) Oh, and of course, they still eat French fries!

Life is better for them now that we splurged on a pool for the backyard. I can't blame the kids for living in it since we set it up. We came from ice and snow in Washington, to blazing hot and humid in Brazil. We have all been sleeping in one bedroom together; the one that has the air conditioning in it. It's sure nice to have the cool temperature to sleep to as well as the noise from the street drowned-out by the hum of the air con! Another good thing is it keeps the mosquitos away. The kids really suffered when we first arrived with bites all over their legs.

It's been great to see our Brazilian family and friends again. We are car-less but hope to have a car soon. Our family here has been wonderful about taking us to the grocery store and shopping mall when we need to, and letting us borrow their cars whenever possible, so that we can all get out of the house. Most people don't have more than one car in Brazil, as it is very expensive to own one.

There's been a lot of sad stories in the news here, as usual. One though touched us personally as we learned last week of the death of a very dear older couple whom we know. They were on their way home from another state. They had flown there, but decided to take a bus back on the return. Their bus was involved in a terrible accident (which is very typical on Brazilian highways, especially in the state they were traveling in because the lanes are side-by-side in different directions rather than separate). The bus collided with a semi-truck and exploded into flames. This dear couple were in the front of the bus. They along with seven others (including a ten year old child) were burned to death. The people in the back were able to escape. It was hard to imagine the suffering of these people. We can only hope that they had already passed-out from the impact and didn't know what happened afterwards. Our prayers are with their family. Ingrid was a medical doctor and her husband, Timothy, was a minister. Their entire lives were dedicated to serving others.