The James Family

What was Holloween like in Brazil? Well, it wasn't much of anything. It was the begining of October and there was a small end-cap at Wal-Mart with a costume selection. Costumes were the last thing on my mind as I was packing to move here so this was great to see. The costumes were Buzz Light Year, a skeleton, a witch, and a couple of Carnival costumes. They were all shorts of course which I thought was e pretty smart. We chose a "Carnival Gypsy" and a "Carnival Pirate" which explains how little clothes my children are wearing. When Chapel first put her costume on she tried to pull it down over her belly. Asher on the other hand thought it was so cool that he didn't have to wear a shirt! A couple of stores had a hand full of decorations. The Scream mask and Freddy's glove are very poplular here. I never saw any of the "cute" Halloween things we have in the States what little they had was based on horror. We first carved Jack-O-Melons because what they call pumpkins are more what we call gords. Brazil is primarily a Catholic and Evangalistic so, Halloween is seen as being very satanic and demon based. Even if we had our decorations I'm not sure if we would have put them outside...don't think it would have made a great first impression. One family decorated. They also threw a GREAT Holloween party! Everyone came dressed - Jeramie and I were even able to pull together some make shift costumes. Halloween night we got dressed up and went out trick or treating...we thought. We were the only people out other than some curious neighborhood kids playing soccer. Thankful we got an earlier invitation to one house. So one house it was! Who needs all that candy anyway? After our "trick or treating" we came back to our house, carved "pumpkins", roasted seeds, let the kids eat thier candy and watch Halloween cartoons (brought in from states and recorded off Nick Jr). Thankfully the Philips family joined our first experience which in the end made it a really fun night!

We have been here almost 2 months now!
An hour after walking in the door of our new house for the first time I sat and cried! So many emotions were going through me - I was jet lagged after 2 overseas trips just days of each other, I just traveled with 2 kids and enough luggage to move here , our house was under repair, the house was filthy, I just said good bye to my family and friends, I was told my sea freight would not fit in the container (later they realized there was no problem and everything fit)...I just had to let it all out. Jeramie instisted on food to cheer me up (it's like he knows me). We had a wonderful lunch on the beach and intruduced the kids to the sand. Seeing the kids RUNNING up and down the beach and in and out of the flow let me know everything was going to be alright.
Since then. I have been making this house a home, driving, sight seeing, shopping, playing, and learning quite a bit of Portuguese! We have all been getting along great and truly loving it here. It has helped so much that we met another family with 2 girls the same age as Asher and Chapel. We try to do everything together because it is simply more fun.
Here are some common sights around town and around the house. Enjoy!Waiting on freight.
toons