Home Sweet Home

We made it safely to Colorado after a grueling twenty-two hour trip.

We had what I believe to be the rudest group of flight attendants ever on our Brazil to Houston leg of the trip. I am completely used to, and even understanding of, other passengers not being excited about flying with 4 kids nearby, but when you get on and the flight attendants are acting that way, it's pretty annoying. Every time I asked for something (like hot water to mix up Pedro's milk-really demanding stuff) they would roll their eyes and give a heavy sigh.

Oh well. We made it.

And it's been a great, and very busy, trip so far.

On our first day alone we:

Went to Target twice,

got all the kids much needed haircuts,

bought our first new car EVER- a Honda Odyssey (we ordered it online and just picked it up-never test drove it or even actually been inside one before. Good thing we liked it!):



(isn't it pretty? Gaupo had it installed with both a rear camera and rear sensors so as to decrease the likelihood that I will reverse into something. The sales guy thought it was overkill to have both, but Guapo insisted. It's a good thing, I would have hit a bike that one of the kids parked behind it today were it not for the camera)

met our new nephew/cousin (my brother's son):

and met my mom's new baby, Ms. Priss (she has some other name, but Ms. Priss is much more fitting):



Since the first day it hasn't really slowed down at all. There have been trips to the park, more trips to Target (and Cosco, of course, on Saturday when they have all the yummy samples), and fun around my parents' house.


Julio somehow convinced my dad to get on which was a sight I've never seen before:


(check out how high Julio is)

The neighborhood had a garage sale on Saturday. My mom pulled out some old junk so the kids could participate. They sold a lot of the stuff and made extra money by having a lemonade and donut stand:


This money making activity was of course followed by a quick trip to Target.

They played baseball with Gaupo on Father's Day before he headed back to Brazil (I should add here that he made it into Brazil with 15 pounds of cheddar cheese for the family. He was against the smuggling job, but in the end I won out, and the family will benefit from his selfless act for months :) ):

(... look at those beautiful mountains in the background)

Today I took the kids to a fun water park:

It was pretty funny, my kids were all FREEZING. None of the other hundreds of kids seemed to be bothered by the mid-80 degree weather but my kids had blue lips, were shivering and begging to go home after an hour. I think we've been in the tropics too long.

And finally, my 1/2 marathon looms large. It's this Saturday. The problem is, I fell 10 days ago in Brazil while hiking down this castle thing with Pedro in my arms:


One leg went forward, the other stayed back and my knee got all twisted around. Not good. Today was my first run since then. I wish I could say that my knee hurt during the run and that was the problem, but my knee was fine (I think), I just felt so out of shape. I can't be that out of shape after only 10 days, but mentally, it was tough not to do my last planned long run.

I am just a little nervous about Saturday. I just hope I can finish the darn thing.

Did I mention I LOVE being home?