The end of the season

No, not football season, although I'm broken up about that too. But I'm thinking about Christmas now. As unfulfilling as this holiday season was and has been, I'm having a hard time letting it go. Maybe it's because we haven't been going to church here...lots of excuses being gringos in a foreign-speaking country, but the reality is that we now have a car and there is a "church" where people get together and watch a video series from some pastor from the states. They have a Sunday school for kids, so we could be there. I guess now that Abby's joined me in the 30s and the kids are starting to become of age where church might make sense, I'm soul-searching and realizing that we should be going.

So maybe that's it... the root cause for my holiday discontent: church guilt. Easy enough to remedy though.

On a positive note, my parents arrive in a few days. Five, to be exact, as indicated by the kids' countdown calendar.


We've got downtime for a few days at the beginning and end of their visit, but in the middle we're off to Paraty and Rio. We'll visit Pao de Acucar - the mountaintop in Rio harbor, and of course the Christ the Redeemer statue.


We can't wait for them to get here so we can share our life here with the family that we've always been able to share our lives with. And my parents are worried that the kids are forgetting them, so they can't get here soon enough (the truth is that the kids haven't forgotten so much as a stranger's face from Virginia, let alone any of their grandparents!).

In the meantime, our tv broke a few weeks ago.... something with the tube. Brand new tv. So Abby and I are back to reading a book every 3 days instead of 4 and the kids are back to...well...it hasn't really changed much for them either. The bottom line is that we don't miss it that much. That doesn't mean I won't be happy if and when we get it back, fixed. There's a whole world of Brazilian tv out there to be explored.

Now that's probably enough for me. I've not posted here for quite a while, but I wish a Happy 2009 to all of our friends and family who check in on us here. Knowing that you're reading is the reason that we (ok, Abby) keep writing.