19 Hours 48 Minutes 32 Seconds

The amount of time that it took to get from our door in Brazil to my parents door in Colorado.

And all the stars were aligned in our favor: we were on the maiden voyage of a non-stop flight between Rio and Houston (normally you have to stop in Sao Paulo (an hour out of the way) for an hour (unless there are audio visual problems, which there always seems to be, in which case it can be an extra hour or two)), and we walked right on to our connection in Houston (instead of waiting around for a couple of hours like normal).

Imagine traveling with Pedro for almost 20 hours, frequently having to restrain him in his car seat or stroller (NOT his favorite thing). The very thought of having the little dude out in public for that long gives me nightmares.

We totally lucked out-he was an angel. He slept 7 1/2 out of 10 hours on the first flight and an hour on the second flight and was generally agreeable during his waking hours. It did help that there was another baby who screamed the.entire.night. therefore making him look like a champ. He got lots of nice compliments about what a sweet baby he was..if they only knew his true capabilities!

Anyway, we are here and trying hard to fight off jet lag (5 hours time difference) by staying up as long as we can. It's now 8:20 and my eyes are closing involuntarily (forgive any typos or poor sentence structure).

The first "American" thing I did today? Took my four tired, over-traveled, grouchy, toy-starved kids to Target less than a week before Christmas when of course I wasn't going to let them buy anything because we don't know yet what they'll get from Santa. Not the best idea I've had in a long time, but I couldn't resist the ole Tar-jay. We made it out of the store with only a few tears.

It's wonderful to be home. There's nothing like it!