Christmas...whew!

Merry Christmas!!!

Vic, the kids and I are all back Stateside for Christmas. I got in town the Saturday before Christmas and Vic and the kids got back one week before me. I love being home, back in familiar surroundings, but Christmas is a blender that grinds my mind and strength to a pulp. Vic and I spend our time trying to balance time between two houses with the kids throwing a tantrum every time we leave a house..."I don't WANT to leave!!" Of course, they have completely forgotten the fit by the time we arrive at our destination three miles from our starting point. The entire process is repeated when we announce that it is time to load them back in the car leaving Vic's and my mind in complete tatters. Having said that, I wouldn't trade the memories and the time here for any amount of money the world could offer.

Piano...One cause of my dad's vein throb

I'll start the summary at my parents house where we have six adults, five kids aged five and under, four cars in the driveway, three noisy dogs, two cats and partridge in a pear tree. We tend to sit around watching my dad's blood pressure rise as the children wreak havoc on his poor house. Anyone that knows my dad can probably imagine the look on his face. The saying "herding cats" is very appropriate for the experience.

This year my mom and sister introduced the inaugural "Plank/Huffman Family Christmas Shirts" for all the kids. OF course, if you give Ansley an "outfit" she will insist on wearing it any time it is clean. With all the kids in the same shirt, we of course needed a group picture...remember "herding cats." Now we weren't just herding them, we were posing them. We just love to give ourselves a challenge!

Herding Cats

At my parents house, the adults always open gifts the night before and the kids open in the morning. The adults gift opening tends to take five to six hours as we open in turns and there is a fresh drink poured every couple times around the group...for some reason the kids don't seem to appreciate the waiting concept. The kids had their gifts sorted and opened before 6:30 the next morning. Vic and I like to get our nieces and nephews something that makes a lot of senseless noise because we're kind of mean like that. This year it was a megaphone that altered the kids voices into a really annoying sound (this comes back up later, so rememeber it). Ansley, Ellie and Anna all got Ariel night gowns that were a hit. Ansley also got some Fancy Nancy clothes which were a big hit (again, they come up again later). All together, it was a great Christmas and I really enjoy watching my kids and my sister's kids have fun together. No matter how long they spend apart, they hardly miss a beat when they get back together again.

Fancy Nancy at her finest

Now following Christmas at my parents house, Vic and I moved over to Vic's parents house for Christmas there. At the Russ Household, there are a few less kids running around (although Liz will add to the mix in June!), but there a quite a few more dogs. Anytime you take a seat, it is necessary to make sure a dog isn't there. I stopped counting when I stepped on my seventh dog of the time. The nice things about having this many dogs around is that any entrance is a major event. All the dogs line up around the door and scream at you until they have been sufficiently patted upon the noggin. It just makes you feel wanted.

Christmas at the Russ's is also always accompanied by a sack of oysters at the Russ's. As a kid, I hated oysters. They were nothing more than an oversized loogie served with hot sauce and a cracker. About the time I started drinking beer, my feelings had a slight shift. Now, there is nothing I like more than eating oysters. Around Panama City, a cooler of oysters on ice means that the guys are all standing around it shucking (or, in my case, standing around watching others shuck as I am horrible at it), the girls are all yelling at the guys because they want some oysters shucked for the grill, and the kids are all declaring that the oysters are gross and look like an oversized loogie with hot sauce on a cracker. I did get Sawyer to try an oyster. He ate a bite of it and was enjoying it until he looked down and realized there was something on his cracker. Then he was done.

We had a Christmas Eve meal next door at Uncle Bill and Aunt Lynette's House. Bill is a fellow disciple of Alton Brown's, but where I like to dabble and try thing out, Bill has perfected it (I'm pretty sure Lynette contributed too, so she deserves credit as well). The result is that you feel you have to eat a litte of everything...two or three time. Vic and I had to eat in shifts because Sawyer discovered that the VCR was in reach. Before the fat man in red even got close, I had pulled a cookie and coaster out of the cassette deck.

Finally we went and grabbed Sawyer's new Dora DVD and put it on. TV works like a magic trick for that kid. I honestly believe his mind is working so hard that he uses TV time to completely decompress. A herd of capybaras and monkeys singing the entire Barney collection could walk by, and, if Dora or Mickey is on the TV, Sawyer won't even turn his head to shush them.

Christmas morning at the Russ's always starts a little earlier than Vic's sisters or parents can imagine. This is especially true for poor Mary, who is still in college, and always manages to pull sleeping duty on the couch downstairs. She works now, so it's probably not as true any more, but at one point, I was sure Christmas morning meant that she woke up at least five hours earlier than usual. Santa came to the Russ house this year, so the kids had an added layer of excitement. The jolly, fat man doesn't bother with wrapping paper, so it doesn't take the kids long to discover the goodies (both kids are now the proud owner's of a scooter, and Ansley got roller skates as well).

After we had sorted the loot from Santa and stockings, it was time to pass out the gifts. Remember that really mean thing we like to do to my sister and her husband...the loud, annoying toy we give her children. Apparently, Vic got that masochistic desire legitmately because Vic's mom gave the same megaphone we gave Caden to Ansley and a super, special ray gun to Sawyer. The kids were running around the house screaming into the megaphone and shooting everyone with the ray gun. It just goes to show that there is always someone watching and paybacks are a bitch.

For brunch we all herded back next door to Bill and Lynette's for another stuffing of various pastries and breakfast casseroles. To make sure I ate healthy, I wedged some fruit between the smoked ham, two types of monkey bread, two types of breakfast casserole, and biscuit. I also stoutly refused to add the cheese grits to my plate. I felt that this was a win.

Over the remainder of the day, we enjoyed some football, were introduced to Fancy Aunt Bill and watched Sawyer discover the magic that is Bill's fishing boat. It was a truly great Christmas all around.

Aunt Mary and Liz (+1) with Sawyer and Ansley

Finding the boat...I love it

Fancy Nancy and Aunt Bill

The Plank/Russ/Smith Family +1 shown but not seen

I hope that all of you enjoyed yours as much we enjoyed ours and a Happy New Year to everyone!

Christmas Spirit

For those of you that need a little infusion of the spirit...here is Ansley performing all your holiday favorites!

Merry Christmas from the Planks!

Turkey Day! and beyond.

Thanksgiving outside the US is a little different. Everyone knows about the holiday, they just don't really care. Vic and I decided to host a Thanksgiving dinner at our house and invite our American friends and some friends from other countries, to let share the day with us. All told, there were 23 of us - 14 adults and 9 kids all five and under. We also had three nationalities represented for a distinctly American holiday - American, Australian and Belgian.

The food was the same as you would see at any American table. We had bought what we thought were the two biggest turkeys available down here (9 and 11 pounds), there was pecan pie, brocolli casserole, sweet potatoes (with orange food coloring as batata dulce are white), gravy, bread, salad, etc. From a culinary standpoint, the day was the same as always.

The shock to our system was the kids. Vic had cooked some sweet pecans that had brown sugar and coffee as ingredients. The kids enjoyed them to excess for the first five minutes of the party. The remaining several hours were filled with a level of noise typically reserved for rock concerts. The adults would stand around - the women in the kitchen while Vic put the finishing touched on the food and the men watching football in the living room (I believe the Non-American men were fully on board with a holiday that focused on sports). Every now and then a herd of children would stampede through one room or the other, occasionally both. One child would invariably break away from the herd to tattle on a different member and then scream a battle cry and rejoin the herd at full gallop. The couples that had not had children were a little awed. I have always said that the best birth control in the world must be a party with children involved.

We eventually corralled the children to a table for grazing and did the same ourselves. It really was a great day. All the food came out perfectly - especially the turkeys. For those of you interested, check out Alton Brown's Turkey recipe for our new favorite. Vic's Pecan Pie was perfect and we went through seven bottles of wine and a case of beer. There was even football on TV thanks to my sling box. I believe everyone went home happy and thankful and slept well that night.

The following weekend, we decided to try one of the most traditional past times here in Rio - Ice Skating. I think Ansley was so excited she almost peed her pants. When she decided that she wanted me to help her on the rink, I almost did the same. I had managed to crack 18" of ice with my head one time...and I didn't even have on skates. The thought of ice skating again with my daughter hanging on me certainly made me nervous. When we got there, Ansley and I suited up while Vic took Sawyer to the jungle gym. I think Ansley assumed that she would be able to step onto the rink and begin doing pirouettes just like the princesses did a few months back. She actually wasn't far off. The first ten minutes she essentially kept her skates straight and was dragged around the rink by your's truly and Daniel...a rink employee that recognized those needing help. The second ten minutes she spent trying small runs by herself. The last twenty minutes she preceeded to pull Daniel and me around the rink at an alarming pace. This girl is a natural.

This morning we went back to a walking park near our house. When you are walking, you would never guess that you are in the middle of Rio as the trees are very effective at hiding the buildings and noise. They have three or four parks (with slides made of wood...see picture below)and the trees are crowded with monkeys and children (again...see picture and video below). The highlight of the day came when a momma monkey turned up with two babys on here back. We also spotted a pod of capybaras asleep next to the swamp. The kids had a blast as always.

Illegally Picked Flower

Wooden Slide

Monkey in a tree

Sawyer in Timeout

Hope you enjoyed the pics.

November is a rather slack month at Shell, especially for us Americans. This last week, Rio de Janeiro celebrated Zumby (pronounced ZOOM-bee). I understand that Zumby was a rebel leader in the 18th or 19th century, but I can find little else about him. The only group that takes the day off are the Cariocas (CA-hree-O-kahs) here in Rio (a Carioca is a person from the city of Rio de Janeiro). I tried to google Zumby to link a site to this page, but I couldn't even find a Brazilian page that described it. There aren't many holidays in September and October, so I have a feeling, this day is more about not having to work than anything people actually care about. The nice thing is that Brazilians don't believe in taking Thursday off and working on a Friday, so I got a four day weekend (a long explanation for the final six words that were all that mattered).

Vic and the kids are leaving December 12 for the States, so we decided to get the tree up now so the kids could enjoy it for a little while before leaving; otherwise, what's the point? This meant that I had to enter the attic to locate and drag down all the boxes, ornaments and decorations down. To add to the moment, Spring decided to make a last ditch effort and it is actually cold outside here. Ansley, who has been peeing her pants since last Tuesday she's so excited to decorate, was not disappointed. While Vic and I went through that magical holiday process of assembling the tree, Ansley rifled through every box we had planning where the items should be placed. Sawyer was completely unimpressed until the lights started going up on the tree, at which he got off the couch, walked up to the tree with his mouth slightly open, slowly turned to Vic and said "Wow."

Both children have been struggling with the concept of "don't touch" the last couple of days. I believe for different reasons. Ansley is all ready better than me at most crafting activities, and I believe, in her mind, the Christmas tree is the epitome of "Craft". Its a beacon to her. We told her as we were decorating the tree that there are people in Brazil that don't do anything this time of year, except decorate other people's houses for this season. I'm pretty sure I now know what she wants to do with the rest of her life. Last night, Ansley chose to stay up 15 minutes later to look at the tree rather than have the treat she normally gets before bed.

Sawyer's motives are a little more base than Ansley's. That tree is bright, shiny and new and covered with small things that resemble toys. It needs to be touched, grabbed, throttled and played with until it is no longer any of these things. There are three ornaments in particular that call to him: a wooden clock that my parents gave me when I was a kid, a wooden train that was also a gift when I was a kid, and a Tigger Jack-in-the-Box that Ella and Carl gave Sawyer last year. If he is in the room by himself, it's a certainty that he has grabbed one of these ornaments and is playing with it. When you come in the room, there is a flurry of activity. He generally throws the ornament at the tree and runs and hides his face on the couch. I must sadly report the loss of several ornaments to his playing. I'm sure they are in a better place now.

Here are series of pics we took of the kids. We were trying to get a nice shot for out christmas cards.

Other than this, not much else has happened. For a little filler, I'll pass on a Salsa recipe that I found and like. The original recipe was called the "five minute salsa," but I can't leave anything alone, so it's now the "10 Minute Salsa."

1 can of whole peeled tomatos

half an onion

fresh minced garlic to taste

oregano to taste

salt to taste

fresh cilantro to taste

jalopenos to taste

chili powder (I use about a tablespoon and found that too much of this is not a good thing)

juice from a lime

Throw ingredients in a bowl and take a boat motor to it for a few minutes, or throw them in a blender and do the same. Recipe doubles easily. It reminds me of the salsa you get in a Mexican Restaurant and it's extremely easy.

I hope everyone else had a good week.

The Big Catchup

Walker misses everyone!

It has been a while since my last post (mostly due to general laziness) which means that this stands to be a lengthy one just to catch up. Since the last post, we have had halloween (twice), two birthdays (one of them twice), and a formal ball at the Copacabana Palace. There were a few other things in that time, but, in the interest of keeping this somewhat manageable, I'll skip them.

Halloween in Rio is a little different. There is a day about two weeks before the thirty-first on which candy is handed out, but it's to children and adults that line the busy main streets with their hands out to passing cars. I am not that ashamed to say that we did not stop to hand out any candy; although, we did see quite a few people that did. Considering we spend every other trip on the road ensuring that the car is sealed to strangers (as do most Brazilians I work with), it just didn't fit to us that this day it was acceptable. Vic knows the name of the holiday, but it's slipping my mind now. The kids were intrigued by the concept however.

For Halloween this year Ansley went as Fancy Nancy and Sawyer was a farmer. Ansley looked perfect for the part; however, due to a costume mishap, her leotard was on backwards. This snafu meant that she was rather more Brazilian than we had intended. Sawyer was a farmer because it meant he only needed a hat with plaid shirt, and, frankly, we weren't certain he would sit still for much more than this. We were right and he was a farmer for all of 45 seconds. Then he was just a kid in a plaid shirt.

Fancy Nancy and the Farmer

The Farmer 20 seconds later

Ansley's school helped the kids celebrate halloween. The celebration was a huge fair at the school in Gavea. This school is a beautifully landscaped campus right next to the largest and most dangerous favella in Rio. To be fair, I believe the school was built before the favella. All the teachers from both the Gavea and Barra branches had booths with games, crafts and candy; the kids all get to dress up and could eat gobs of candy and run off the sugar high as it built up. Not a bad afternoon by any kid's standards. There was also a "haunted house" designed for those under six years of age. Essentially, the kids had made a bunch of life size monsters and they were dressed for the olympics. Ansley thought it was a riot.

The Haunted House

Sawyer had quite a bit of fun as well. He quickly learned that he has power over others. If he acts cute - which in this case involved running away from mommy and daddy and stealing equipment or toys from one of the games or booths - strangers will give him candy and let him play the game without waiting in line. I'm not saying that Vic and I thought it was cute, but others seemed to do so, and its very difficult when your child is given a treat by others in a large crowd to be the person that takes it from him.

On the tail end of halloween is my birthday. We laid around the pool all day, I had a few beers and then made fajitas for dinner. To top it all off, Vic made me an unbelievable cheesecake with a fresh blueberry sauce...this will now be my request every birthday until the end. Not much else to add to this. It was a relaxing day with the family...exactly what I had asked for.

One more year, many less hairs

The weekend after my birthday, Vic and I left the kids at the house with our maid and attended a ball at the Copacabana Palace. It was the Royal Poppy Gala (British Veteran's Fund Raiser). That evening I put on my rented polyester tux, Vic put on an amazing dress and we went out and had a great time. This was the second year that we have gone to this and we had have had a great time both years. The organizer works at Shell and was telling me all the little details of the arrangements. As he is leaving Brazil in few months, I think he was trying to rope someone into organizing next year, but I didn't take that hook.

A rented tux and GREAT looking lady

At the dinner table

I must admit that I am guilty of forgetting what it was like to be a kid. Ansley has been reminding me. Friday was her birthday (big numero cinco!) and she spent it seeing just what she was allowed to do on the 14th that she wasn't allowed to do on the 13th. She has always been an amazingly good kid, and the things she wanted to do weren't out of character for her. She wanted to walk about 10 feet in front of us when we went to dinner. She wanted to get up and play around the table while we waited for food. She doesn't want help at the table any more. Little things, but I can tell its important to her and it makes me smile (remind me of this paragraph when she is 13 and I wish she was small again).

For dinner that night, Ansley proved once again that despite her love affair with princesses, she is my daughter through and through. The only restriction that Vic and I made for her birthday dinner was that it couldn't be McDonalds. On her own, Ansley chose my favorite pizza place in Rio, Fiametta. I love that kid.

The birthday girl on Friday

Friday was the family affair. The party took place on Sunday and was one of those events that you could only do in Rio. Poor Ansley had been looking forward to this party for three weeks, and it seemed the gods had it in their minds to challenge her horribly before she could have the party. She went through four ensemble plans starting one week prior to the party. In the end, she settled on a dress that hadn't even been in the running when she started thinking about it. The night before the party she had woken up at 1:15 with a BFOUO (Ella's term - Brazilian Fever Of Unknown Origin). We are used to these now as they happen quite often, but can you imagine worse timing?!? We started her on a Tylenol/Ibuprofen regimen and prayed that the fever would stay away. Thankfully it did.

She came downstairs for breakfast at 6:15 in ensemble number 4 (I can't imagine prom for this kid) and started asking us how much longer to 11:00. In the end I had to set a timer and tell her that it would be 11:00 when the timer went off. I set it at 9:15. Of course all our friends have been Brazilianized and showed up 30 minutes late, adding to her misery.

Before the guest arrived After the guests arrived

Once the kids started arriving, it was a maelstrom of epic proportions. I remember my own birthday parties all being orderly and easy. I guess as a child, the chaos of a birthday party settles in nicely with your thought patterns and way of thinking. Perspectives are a real downer. All the parents sat around eating freshly grilled meats (I'll get to that in a second) and chatting while children from 1 to 6 years of age zoomed in and out, upstairs and downstairs. After about 30 minutes the kids were coralled, watered and fed. Sawyer spent this time abandoning his own plate and grazing from the plates of others. Of course all the kids were in their bathing suits by this time, so lunch, in general, was spent quickly pouring the minimum required amount of food in your mouth while gazing wistfully at the swimming pool.

After lunch, I opened the gate to the pool and 15 kids of varying ages were loose. It was INSANE!!! There are two Australians that recently moved to Rio. My respect for them grew considerably in the pool. Most of the parents were content to watch the chaos from a distance that was out of the way yet near enough to know should something happen. Louise and Jack joined the kids. This would have been brave enough, but Louise is eight months pregnant. I was impressed (and a little guilty, but not much).

The cake and presents followed. By this time, the kids were beyond exhaustion, so there was a lot of crying and screaming. Note to self: start the next party out with these items. The cake was a huge success and was gone before we knew it. Ansley had to open each of the gifts without ripping paper, but she made out great and has done nothing but want to play with the toys or do the crafts she got since then.

Definition of "Temptation"

Sawyer took advantage of this time, to clean off the plates and cups outside of anything he wanted. I caught him at one point that day putting my beer back on the counter with his cheeks puffed out as far as they would go. I yelled at him to spit it out about 2 seconds before he swallowed it. Despite this and the piece of cake he ate off the patio tiles, he never did get sick. We had asked our maid (it's tough here in Brazil...trust me) to come in and watch Sawyer that day, and this led to a moment that so utterly defines Sawyer that I still laugh whenever I think of it. The boy had been into everything that day. The phrase "Sawyer stop!" had been yelled by most of the guests, the caterers, and the neighbors at some point in the first two hours of the party. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying the antics, and I must admit it was hard not to laugh sometimes. Sawyer's moment arrived as I was handing out the cake. I had just commented that I hadn't seen him or our maid in a couple of minutes, when I heard a squawk from the kitchen. The squawk was followed by Sawyer tearing hell out of the kitchen in nothing but his diaper holding a toilet plunger over his head in victory followed closely by our poor maid. Into the mass of party goers they barreled...Sawyer nearly bare-assed, a look of sheer joy on his face and a plunger over his head, our maid with a look of horror on her own face. Everyone near got quiet, stepped out of the way and watched the action. I wish I knew just what he thought the toilet plunger was that it made him so happy to have it, but it's just not there.

The final thing I'll mention about the party is the catering. For less than $15 per person, I hired a couple of guys to come to the house Sunday morning and feed us all. It was pure Brazilian. The guys showed up at 9:00, set up the grill and got to it. They made all the side items (mostly various kinds of salads), brought the sodas and water, and brought all the meat you could eat plus some. This included 4 or 5 beef tenderloins, pork and chicken sausages, pork tenderloins, pineapple and bananas on the grill, cheese on the grill and even bread on the grill. I couldn't imagine how much something like this would cost in the US, but I was certainly glad I was in Brazil to enjoy it. For those of you that are interested, the bananas were skewered and grilled in their peel over a low heat. They then peeled them, and put liberal amounts of cinnamon-sugar on them...voila! I caught Sawyer at one point eating four of them at once. In his mind this is the perfect food. After we had all eaten, the guys cleaned up everything outside, packed up and left. With Thanksgiving approaching, Vic and I are wondering if we couldn't modify their menu somewhat and have them back over.

Final note: Santa Claus arrived at the mall here on October 26 in a helicopter. Ansley has been fit to pop as we are making her wait until December 1 to see him. I hope everyone else is doing well!

The standard Brazilian Christmas tree - 3' tall

Buenos Aires and babysitting

Vic and I took a trip to Buenos Aires over the weekend while my parents watched the kids for us. BA is only a three hour flight away so we thought we would go check it out. I'm not certain that I have ever seen a city with such blatant contrasts with the possible exception of New Orleans. The city was designed by the same man that design Paris and the architecture and layout is certainly European. There were beautiful buildings, monuments, and parks all over the city. We stayed on the Plaza de General San Martin between the neighborhoods of Reculeta and the Business District. Friday night after we got in an unpacked, we headed out and walked the streets of Reculeta for a while. As Argentina has a very good collection of wines and very good shopping at hand, we were in a situation that was very well suited. Argentinians like to enjoy their wine at cafes that are conveniently placed amongst the stores. This was the strategy that we liked to employ in our shopping and I think it worked well for both of us.Like Rio, there is a large Italian population in Argentina. so for dinner Friday night we went to an Italian Restaurant that specialized in fresh pasta. The dinner was amazing especially as Vic and I were taught a new verb by the menu translation - Gratinate. As far as I am concerned, more foods should be gratinated (think potatos au gratin). We had Gratinated Scallops on the half shell for an appetizer, Vic had Gratinated Ravioli and I had gratinated capellini.

Pictures from Friday:

Our Hotel

A military building around the Plaza

Monument to General San Martin

Picture I took of Vic shopping while drinking my wine

Saturday morning we got up slowly and headed out of the hotel to Avenida de Florida. This is an eight or nine block walking avenue lined with shops and malls the entire way. It was a little bit much for me, but Vic seemed to enjoy it. We found one mall that had some stores I consider very high end (Ralph Lauren, Tiffany's, Wrangler, etc) and Vic started making the circuit while I plopped down on a chair and did some reading and drank a coffee. This is one paragraph where I have a feeling Vic's description would be more appropriate, but I'm sure you can fill in some of the blanks.

On our way back to the hotel, we came across an art gallery and decided to go in. The gallery reminded me of a clown car, only it contained an endless procession of rooms in what I thought was a little house. The gallery was filled with paintings by quite a few Argentinian Artists sprinkled with some from other South American countries and after quite a bit of browsing, Vic and I decided to price a couple of them. In the end we decided that $2000 on a 4"x4" painting was about $1980.01 more than we were interested in paying, so we left, but we felt very sophisticated while we turned them down.

Saturday night we went to a Tango Show for dinner. The show was in a very nice little theater that reminded me of a smaller version of the Saenger in New Orleans; although, I am sure Vic would contradict me on this. The show consisted of a series of dances that were meant to show how Tango has evolved over the last hundred years and was pretty interesting. Other than the surprising lack of clothes (and I didn't go into it thinking they would wear much), the thing that struck me was that Tango seems to consist of two separate dances. Above the waist, it seemed very rigid and structured. With the exception of the occasional spin or flip, the distance between the chins seemed to remain pretty constant. The dance below the waist reminded me of a cartoon where the character starts to run and his feet are just a blur before he actually starts to move. It made me dizzy just to watch their feet go that fast. To make matters worse, the women kept kicking the feet up between the guy's legs - also making me a little uncomfortable.

No pictures from shopping, but here is a tango video from Saturday night.

Sunday morning we did a three hour tour of the city with a local company. The tour was great and I wish we had done it earlier in the weekend, but I now know what areas of the town I want to spend more time in when we come back. I won't go through everything we saw on the tour, but I want to tell you about three of the stops: Plaza de Mayo, La Boca and the Cemetario de la Recoleta.

The first stop was the Plaza de Mayo. It was at this spot that Argentina was founded in 1810 when the population declared themselves free of colonial Spanish rule, and since that time, it has been the Argentinian equivalent to the reflecting pool in Washington D.C. Every protest in the country has been held in that spot. It makes since when you consider that the following building circle the square: the president's house (The Pink House), the national cathedral, the Argentinian Federal Bank, the equivalent to the IRS, the Mayor's House, and the original Spanish Governing House. It was an impressive list. Evita (and later Madonna playing the part of Evita) gave her speeches from the balcony of the Pink House.

We actually explored the national cathedral. It was interesting because it was built in so many different times and with materials provided by so many different countries. There was no central architectural or design theme. It was even marked by the countries dictatorships. Several of the paintings had been burned off by these regimes (they had since been white washed over). Unfortunately, the camera was on the wrong setting, so we don't have any pictures. We do have a video from in here as well, but it doesn't show the whole thing very well.

After leaving the Plaza de Mayo, we travelled to an antique fair and then made a brief stop at La Boca. This area of town is called The Mouth because it is at the mouth of the local river, the Rio de la Plata. This area was the original port for Buenos Aires when commerce was opened in 1790. The houses were built and decorated with materials left over from the ships, so you saw structures that were aluminum siding on the outside of wooden walls and painted a variety of colors. It was not as cramped as the French Quarter, but it had the same feel to me. It is still a very poor part of town, but they certainly were capable of catering to the tourists.

The last stop was the Cemetario de la Recoleta, one of three cemetaries in the world with above ground mausoleums. The others are the one in Paris and the one in New Orleans. Of the two that I have seen, the one in Buenos Aires is by far the most impressive. I was surprised I hadn't heard more about it until I saw it. The mausoleums were sometime two or three stories tall and went below ground two or three stories. We stopped by Eva Peron's family mausoleum. Fresh flower's still adorned it and we had to wend our way through a crowd of people to get near. After 55 years, this country still holds her in awe. At the Tango show the night before a singer started singing a song about her and the entire place joined in. It makes you wonder what would have happened if she had lived beyond the age of 33.

The cemetary was right in front of a large art fair, and before leaving for the airport, we returned for some shopping. I return now to paintings because we actually did purchase one here. We were looking through the paintings and we both stopped at the same time and pointed it out to each other. The artist then came over and talked to us for a while and told us about himself. I think he used painting as an excuse to go outside and meet people. We wound up buying the painting, and, personally, I don't think its worth buying the painting unless the person that painted it is like this guy.

Some of you may be wondering how my parents fared while we were away. I must say that I was impressed with the exercise regimen the kids were forced to follow each day. My parents had one goal...make the kids so tired they were crying for naps by ten in the morning and begging for bed at five in the afternoon. Ansley informed us that she and Sawyer were forced to run around the pool in the rain on Sunday and swim when it was cold outside on Saturday. I told her that maybe now she would believe me when I told her Grandma and Grandpa should be feared. She did say that the one bright spot was finding a bunch of monkey's on one of the forced marches grandma made them take.

24 hours of fun...

It's been a couple of weeks since I have posted anything, and I have a post of a happier nature half way done, but I thought I would give everyone a laugh and describe our last few days paying special attention to the last 24 hours. Thursday night I grabbed the computer and went to finish the happier blog I mentioned above, but the internet wasn't working. I went into the room where our modem sits and hit the light switch only to discover that we had a partial blackout taking shape. For reasons I can not explain, one circuit coming into the house was dead. This impacted the room with the computer, Sawyer's room, and two-thirds of the kitchen. The only saving grace was that the one-third of the kitchen that worked included the refrigerator. The next morning Ansley woke up and seemed to devine that the microwave was one of the devices temporarily out of order and insisted upon having breakfast foods that required the microwave. The lights were apparently the fault of the electric company as they came by to fix them about an hour before the repairman I called showed up. I believe he was a little frustrated, but he put up with me well, as I learned later in the weekend. We did not realize it at the time, but the breakfast ordeal was the beginning of a game the kids like to play called "Let's push mommy's buttons." In this game, I watch helplessly as the kids turn their mother into a raving lunatic. It was pretty much the theme for Saturday, and I have a feeling all of you reading this with kids know some form of the game. Saturday concluded with Auburn officially claiming the title "worst of the SEC west" with a stellar loss to lowly Arkansas. Sunday, my parents arrived in Rio and Ansley and I picked them up from the airport. Sem problema. Ansley was overjoyed to see them and Sunday was fairly relaxing with a few issues that were not out of the ordinary for any day involving two kids under the age of four. The 24 hours I mentioned officially began at 6:00pm in Rio. I had given Sawyer a bath and was taking Sawyer into his bathroom to brush his teeth. As I took a step into the bathroom, my foot landed with a very wet splash. I should have mentioned a common plumbing feature for houses in Rio - the water tanks for the house are kept in the attic. The floor of the attic is concrete. These two features together mean that the floor of an attic in Brazil will hold an amazing volume of water before any of it spills down below and we had a leak. After throwing Sawyer and his teeth to my mom and grabbing my ladder, I discovered that one of the pipes in our house had probably been leaking since Wednesday. We had our very own lagoa positioned directly over our heads...not very ideal. I started making calls shortly following the discovery to a repairman (he swore he would be at the house first thing in the morning and made certain I knew how to turn off the water to the house...joy!) and one to the owner of the house (whose cell phone was off and not receiving text messages). My parents probably had it worse than Vic and I as they had spent the prior night wedged into an airplane seat pretending like they were going to sleep. They got to stay up two hours later than intended helping Vic and I soak up water, position pots to catch drips and building dams to stop some of the leaks from spreading. The next morning we were still finding leaks and trying to explain to Ansley that, without water, she was not going to get the blueberry pancakes she was certain she was promised. Vic and my mom finally got her into the car and prepared to take her to school when the next event struck. Vic is fairly new to a manual transmission and is accustomed to her car being the way she left it - chiefly in neutral; however, the night before my dad had used her car to run to get ice and left the car the way he is accustomed to leaving a manual - in gear. This meant that as my dad, Sawyer and I were discussing the leak there was suddenly a very audible thunk as Vic started the car with it in gear and without the clutch in. The car gave a tremendous heave forward...straight into the kitchen wall. We are actually lucky that the impact wasn't greater than it was because I believe we were nearly at the walls breaking point. The car was still working and there was no damage other than Vic's nerves (mine were numb at this point). The final straw came when I thought I heard the repairman showing up and went to the front gate only to find a courier waiting for me to sign that he had delivered the fine from the transportation authority here in Rio (the repairman showed up four hours later). Anyway, I hope that our day can put a smile on your face. I'm hoping that when I come back to this post a year from now, I'll be able to laugh at it. I promise a cheerier post later this week dealing with Spring in Rio and some fun times with my parents. Hope everyone is well.

Bowling, Burger King and Exhaustion

Peapod

July 2008 - September 2008

"We hardly knew ye"

My son has officially been labelled a tent murderer. Vic carefully made the repairs to the tent last week only to have Sawyer rip another hole in it a day and a half later. I know that this is very frustrating to Vic, but I guess that Sawyer hated being confined to the point of breaking out. He is now sleeping (or not, as the case is) in a toddler bed we purchased from some friends moving to Vancouver. I believe Sawyer may now be regretting this decision to ruin the tent as he has not really slept since. I think he just doesn't understand how to deal with freedom. He can move, so he does...even when it is after 9:00 at night or he is exhausted and in need of a nap. In his current state, he simply stumbles around deliriously and tells us that he is being deprived of milk and Dora. It has not been fun.

This lack of sleep does mean that we now have a series of photographs of Sawyer sleeping in random places. It seems that TV is hypnotic as most of the time, he falls asleep in front of it. We are trying to make a game of it: "Who can guess when Sawyer will nod off?" The locations usually remains unchanged, but the time is often very different. Yesterday it was 3:00 in the afternoon, the day before, it was 6:00 in the evening. He also will usually wind up asleep any time he is in the car. He also has a different idea about sleeping under the sheets as I discovered last night at 9:30.

Sawyer's freedom in his room has also revealed more needs for child proofing that we hadn't even considered when Ansley was this age. For some reason, Sawyer has decided clothes do not belong in a dresser, they obviously belong on the floor. All of the clothes except for his bathing suit, which has replaced his blanket as a sleeping device (?). I spent yesterday morning going through the room adding childproof locks and other devices to remove distractions and get him bored enough to sleep. This morning, I discovered my work was in vain, as clothes will fit through very small cracks and child beds can be moved surprisingly long distances. At least he is persistent, a trait that will come in handy later in life.

The week was not completely consumed with a tired boy, yesterday we decided to go bowling. There is a really nice bowling alley at the top of Barra Shopping that doesn't smell like cigarette smoke and caters to kids. They were shocked we didn't want to let Sawyer bowl his own game. I believe that Ansley may have found an activity to rival ballet and gymnastics in fun levels. The alley had automatic bumpers that came up when it was Ansley's turn. Have I ever told you that I have bowled a 200 before? I have...but it was a long time ago, and it appears that Vic and I have forgotten the fine art in the mean time. The scores yesterday were Chet - 86, Vic - 73, Ansley/Sawyer - 57. Sawyer really likes bowling as well, he just believes that he should bowl every frame. I'm trying to add video of the kids bowling this week, so I hope you enjoy it.

After bowling, we had a hankering for some American food, so we went downstairs in the mall to try the Burger King that just opened up here (first in Rio). The food was spot on, but the service had been Brazilianized. For starters, they hand you a menu when you get in line. They then have a waitress half way to the cashier that takes your order and hands you a number. Which you take to the cashier. The one that made us laugh was the drink station. They needed two people to get drinks for customers, but they still managed to screw up our orders (to be fair, the fault was probably our understanding of Portuguese). The drink station is in the background of the picture of Ansley. Note the lady on the left looking at me like I was a crazy tourist...she was mostly right. The bottom line is that between the servers and the chefs, there were probably 25-30 people working to get us our food. Very Brazilian.

Some final notes, the winner of the name the Venus Fly Plant contest was Ellie thanks to the fact that she was the only one that participated. The beast will from this point on be dubbed "Bupky". Sadly. we also lost both cars this week to corroded electrical cables. The Peugeot has been returned, but the Scenic is back in the shop now. Of everything in Brazil, the cars are our single greatest frustration here. Oh well, we're off to the beach. Hope everyone else is doing well.