There is a 20 year old in the states who has been bugging us to start blogging again.

So B, tonight these pics are just for you. Thought you'd like them. Enjoy.

New Place

I think the kids are already getting used to the apartment and it's proximity to their school.

We can, literally, step out the front door of our apartment building and be at school, walking, in about a minute.

Here's some good ones from the first couple days of school in our new place:

Monday, after Carys left for school, she called my girlfriend and told her she was coming back to get a book she had forgotten. She then she said, "You can either throw it out my window to me or bring it down to me......but I'd prefer it if you threw it out the window."

If you know Carys then that doesn't surprise you.

My girlfriend threw it out the window.

Yesterday I walked the kids to the front door of the apartment. After I opened the gate, Garrett and Carys took off toward school. I looked at Anderson and asked if it would be okay if I walked him to school. He looked at me and said, "Are you kidding? I've been waiting for this day my whole life!!"

If you know Anderson and the extremes in every day of his life then that comment doesn't surprise you either.

We held hands and walked to school together.

We are thankful that the kids are loving our new place and we feel blessed to be here.

Busy Weekend-Part 2

Carys takes a track and field class after school. She loves it and we love her teacher. Her name is Martina and she is a great coach.

This past Saturday morning there was a race day at a local club. It was sponsored by McDonald's and it was to raise money to fight childhood cancer.

Martina was given some invitations to give to kids and she invited Carys and Anderson to run in the race.

Our whole family went (besides Garrett who was in another part of our state at a soccer championship and Bronwyn who was getting ready to get on a plane to come to Brasil) and we had a great day.

Ansley helped Anderson get ready for his race.

Here is his race.

Then it was Carys' turn to race.

I love seeing her and one of her best friends, Sâmia, holding hands before the race.

I also love hearing the PA guy calling out her name at the end to encourage her. He says that she's an American, says her name, says "Vamos" (which means let's go in Portuguese), tells her to look to the front towards the finish line and then says "Let's go....go, go, go" (in English) at which time Carys starts running much faster. If you've ever run a race then you know how someone yelling your name and encouraging you at the end of a race gives you an extra boost.

This is Carys and Anderson with Martina.

The kids had a great time, it was for a great cause and we got to spend good family time together.

Sweet Proof

Based on the conversation we had today after lunch, I think Anderson has been hanging out with Carys (the I'll eat anything that looks or smells like cake, pie, cookies, brownies or chocolate whatever before I would think about putting a piece of fruit in my mouth queen) too much . It went like this:

Anderson: "Dad, can I have dessert?"
Me: "Sure. You can have a piece of fruit."
Anderson: "Dad......fruit is not dessert!"
Me: "Sure it is. It's sweet, tastes good and it's even good for you."
Anderson: "Dad, fruit does not count as a dessert!"
Me: "Well, you aren't going to eat chocolate or anything like that right now. You can have some fruit."
Anderson: (as he leaves the kitchen very frustrated with the conversation) "Well, you are not God or Jesus or Mom and I'm not going to eat fruit because it isn't a dessert."

He left, did not come back and did not eat dessert.

We always tell the older kids that the younger kids are watching them and following their example. Here is our sweet proof.

The Smeller and the Bug Collector

Anderson is our smeller. He has an incredible nose. We can be out on the street and he can smell Brasilian bar-b-que before anyone else. Shortly after, the rest of us will catch up to the smell as well, and it will be bar-b-que.

His smelling doesn't stop at food. He has no problem catching a whiff of people and isn't shy about telling them what they smell like. Dangerous, I know.

Some examples:

"Grace you smell like ketchup."

"Dad, of all the kids in my class Lucas smells the best. He smells just like milk."

They aren't always good people smells however:

"Dad he smells like coco bricks." (Even after repeated questioning we still aren't sure exactly what coco bricks smell like but he's assured us it's not a good smell. Cocó is the brazilian word for poop.)

Yesterday, while walking to his school a man passed us and Anderson shot out (loudly), "Hey dad, that guy really smells bad!" So I said, "Shhhhh, let's don't say that." He replied, "Okay dad, but he REALLY smells bad." Here you can't just assume that people don't speak English, because a lot do, so this type of honesty is always fun.

Carys has always been our nature girl, bug collector, specimen provider. All you have to say is, "Carys, bug" and she's on it. She will grab just about anything and isn't afraid to let stuff crawl on her.

What happens when you put these two together?

Our kids go to three different schools. In the mornings I drop the three oldest off first, then Carys, and then Anderson. Anderson gets out of school first, so when I pick them up at lunch I do so in reverse order.

When we went to pick up Carys on Tuesday she handed Anderson a glass container. Anderson immediately said, "cool!"

What was it? A slug. She found it and kept it and shared it with Anderson. Anderson immediately wanted the lid off. So as we are driving to the older kids' school we take the lid off and Anderson is looking down into the container. He then says, "It smells like brown sugar." I assure him it doesn't and he keeps telling me it does. We go back and forth. He's begging me to smell and I really don't want to smell the container.

Finally I give in, and guess what it smells like? Brown sugar.

So I ask Carys if, by chance, she happened to get this container from our kitchen. She, completely innocently, responded "yes." I mean why would that be a problem, right?

I'm not sure the slug liked his new home though. You've heard of something scaring the poop out of somebody. With this guy it wasn't just a saying. We left him out during the night with lid off and he made a slimy break for it. Not to worry though. The night he escaped it rained, and then yesterday morning Carys found two worms to take up residence in the "brown sugar" bug container.

And they live happily next to the "killer tomato."

It's never boring in this house.

Two Kids, Three Hours and a Park

Garrett had his friends over last week for a birthday party. They wanted to, surprise, go to a park and play soccer. Carys and Anderson wanted to go as well. Garrett didn't really want to share his birthday time and bigger guy buddies with his little brother and sister so they got to be creative for the 3 hours we were at the park.

Here's how they passed the time together:

They climbed little trees:
Then they tackled bigger trees: They felt good about themselves after defeating the trees...................so they decided to move onto the playground equipment where they hung right side up....... ..........and upside down....................................and upside down.................................and.....well, upside down. They did some climbing................ ......................and a couple of different kinds of sliding.

They even got to play a little one on one soccer. Here you can enjoy Anderson faking Carys out with the ball, followed by Carys's steal and score which is followed by Anderson (the coach) giving it to me for paying more attention to filming than being the goalie. I love his simple question of......"Dad, why?"

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books Then we ran into this guy:Let's just say he had some issues. He stayed in this position of "relief" for over a minute. The problem was he was shooting air. Nothing at all was coming out but he stayed like this two different times for about a minute each time. The kids thought it was hilarious. I think maybe he was, in some way, trying to impress his girlfriend.

Carys and Anderson were determined to not allow boredom to disrupt their three hours together. It was a fun afternoon.