These guys are some of our best friends.
It's Machado, his wife Juliana and their kids Lucas and Lara.
We met Machado a few years ago when some friends of ours told us about a soccer school where Garrett could train. We took Garrett there. Machado was the coach and we immediately liked this guy.
We found out he and his wife used to live in the states. He liked to come over to us at practice and speak English to us. We liked that but what we really liked was the fact that he was a great coach for Garrett. We still like that as he is Garrett's personal coach (more on that later).
About 6 weeks after Garrett started at this soccer school, Machado left. Garrett stayed the year at the school but when the next year started he wanted to go somewhere else. We tracked Machado down and found out where he was coaching. Garrett wanted to go there and we were okay with that. Like we said, Machado is a great coach.
As our friendship grew we found out that he and his family lived about 3 minutes away from our house. About the time we found that out they moved to a city about 30 minutes away and he also took a job in that city as well. We helped them move and in the process of our friendship growing we got to meet the rest of his family. You can't help but love every one of them.
It always seemed that as our friendship grew the physical distance between us grew as well.
But a funny thing happened as they moved further away from us. Our friendship grew even stronger. We drove out to their house for a bar-b-que. They came to our house to eat or hang out. We call on them when we have a big purchase to make (like a new stove) because we know they will fight to get us the best price (Once our American accent comes out the prices has been known to jump up a little). Just last Friday Machado spent 2 hours walking the streets with me in 97 degree weather as he helped me look for the best price on a purchase we made.
They even invited us to drive to Uruguay with them to celebrate their 10 year anniversary. We drove to a duty free city to buy cheap things. We spent one night with them and came back so that Machado could go to work the next night. Did I mention that Machado is a great husband/dad who works his rear end off to provide for his family? He is and he does.
All of that to share that we look forward to being with them.
We have fun, laugh together, our kids play great together and, because of the fact that they lived in the states for a while, our conversations just flow smoothly between English and Portuguese. In fact, many of our sentences will be a combination of both languages.
We love these guys.
Last night they asked us to come to their house for a bar-b-que. We love going there because it's much quieter than here in the big city and it's nice to escape all the noise and movement at times. They have a yard and the kids always play soccer. They are laid back, like us, and we just enjoy our time together.
Yesterday the kids played in the pool while it rained.
Machado helped Giovanni work on his upper body strength. Apologies for the blurriness.
We ate, as always, an awesome bar-b-que (For Bronwyn and Ansley....we had picanha and chuleta)
We raised the trunk of our car and turned on the radio to listen to a soccer game between the two biggest teams in our city. We like one team and Machado likes the other. The kids liked hanging out in the trunk. The game ended, by the way, 2-2.
And then we did what we love to do when we go to their house. We moved the chairs to the front yard and hung out eating ice cream (sorry Ans).
The Brasilians have taught us Americans a lot about slowing down and just hanging out.
And we love just hanging out with our friends.
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