Wedding shopping

Putting together a wedding is lots of fun.  I would have missed so much had I not been able to join these guys.  this shot was taken in Wegmans shopping for flowers.

Unfortunately we have to do so much in such a short time ....but we've accomplished a lot already.

Gonna miss these guys

We said goodbye to warm weather today and headed to NJ for a few days. In the process I had to say goodbye to a few friends for a short while.



Amazing, but the highest temperatures here are a ways below our lowest, and the overall drop is around 30 degrees. Brrrrrr. At least we will be with warm friends and family! That should be the fun part.

Location:Arrowhead Rd,,United States

Pictures, pictures, where are they anyway?

I seriously need some help. We have pictures all over the place on our computer, some good, some not so. But there are many places like file folders, iPhoto, dropbox, etc, and loads and loads of duplicates. I've never been so disorganized about anything, especially computer related.

But there comes a time when everyone has to grow up, and that time is now. But what in the world do I do to get with it for pictures on computers?

I'm looking for advise on how to clean up this mess and stay organized when I take more pics.

Help, please!


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California Dreamin'

We had a great time in Southern California or "SoCal" as they like to call it.  We brought along our camera as we always do and actually took some pictures this time (oh, is that what it's for?)

With Kevin in Burbank.  We ate a hamburger at the original Bob's Big Boy.  Did you know the Hamburger was invented in California?

 Of course since we were this close, we couldn't not go to Grauman's Chinese Theatre - a movie theater at Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. It is on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

It is also home to where the actors put there hands and footprints in concrete.  Below are the prints of one of my idol's Jim Carrey (remember pet detective?)

No trip to SoCal would be complete without a stop to see America's favorite mouse. Disney in Anaheim was nothing to compare with the FL version, but we had a lot of fun acting like big kids.  Here you see my girlfriend in 3D glasses and riding a carousel.

 We spent overnight in this beautiful hotel in Newport beach, where we did one of my favorite things...nothing.  Here I am in my lounge chair by the pool...how relaxing is that!

 Next a short ferry to Balboa Island.  This is the kind of ferry that takes cars and people. ...the fare was $1 for either.  So for 3 bucks we had an entertaining but brief ride across the water together with our car.

 And when I say short I mean short!  It took only 3 cars at a time.  And only lasted 5 minutes.  I barely had time to get out of the car and take a few pics!

We stopped at a few beaches along the way south, Newport Beach, Carlsbad and LaJolla were notably beautiful.  We strolled the beach and went out to the pier in the picture below.

 These shots were of a spot in LaJolla where we could hear seals off the side of this low cliff in a cave, but we couldnt see them...we sure could smell them, though.  P.U.

Our last stop was to the city of SanDiego, where we took a Trolley tour of the high spots of the city. 

 I didn't take any downtown shots (we stayed in the gaslamp quarter, but the below were some shots of the Hote Del Coronado, a magnificent old hotel in incrediblely great shape (guests with lots of money stay here).

We also got off the trolley at Balboa Park and went to see this awesome car museum (at least I though it was).  This one shot is of a 1931 Cadillac.

 We wrapped up the trip with a visit to Little Italy.  Having lunch at an amazing pasta place where we ate way too much and came back to the hotel to a food comma.  We returned in the AM to visit the Saturday morning farmer's market.   And don't forget the Italian candy.  We had to have a few small boxes for the road.

 We had so much fun we're already planning our next vacation...:)

Spammers, bummers

I don't know if you bloggers have experienced this or not, but I've had a few comments left on old blog posts lately. The reason I know this is that google sends me an email when anyone posts a comment, and these were left on blog posts from a loooong time ago.

They weren't obscene, but instead seemed kinda friendly. But they were filled with links routing to other websites and key words to help search engines find them. That's how I know they weren't from legitimate readers.

(DONT READ THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH)
I know this goes over the TMI limit but I thought I'd explain the process some for the curious. Basically they were trying to take a free ride to gain a high number of search hits by placing these comments on a random blog...I'm assuming they do this in hundreds of places. This fakes out the search engines to get their website placed higher in the results order when people do searches for these key words.

NOW KEEP READING HERE...
Anyway.........all that to say I added a moderate function to my blog so that I can approve comments before they are posted now. Please don't let this discourage you from leaving a LEGITIMATE comment. It just might add a delay to when it will be visible to the rest of the world.

...and yes, I'll post some pictures and something about our recent trip to the left coast.shortly ;)


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Who has time to blog...when I'm so busy reading blogs?

Espresso

I quit drinking coffee a while ago, but being here in Brazil coffee has been hard to resist ...actually impossible. You probably know that Brazil is the coffee capital of the world, with bean trees practically on every corner.

What you may not know is that Americans drink coffee differently than everywhere else. We like tall, grande and vente coffee sizes, meaning large, larger and huge. Really these are cups of coffee watered down to make large drinks to suit our large lifestyle.

Brazilians drink espresso, which are small cups of concentrated coffee. These are the shots that are used in frappes and other coffee drinks, but here they drink them straight up with sugar.

Espresso is served everywhere, even in the grocery store. And it's drunk in small plastic cups like the ones below, doubled so you don't burn your hand.



It's not uncommon to see men gathered around the pot enjoying a quick shot and then on you go. It takes just a few minutes, maybe 1or 2 to have a shot...effectively a pick me up.

I like this style of refreshment...you can keep your double shot half decaf black and white extra hot with low fat whipped cream. Too bad I'll have to quit again when heading home...too much caffeine for me! Then again the coffee back home just doesn't compare anyway.


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Flying over Anapolis

Come on...is this the best vacation or what?

Today Jeyson took Stephanie and I on a flight in a 1977 Sessna 172 (Vickie stayed home to watch Elijah, and was perfectly happy doing so ;). This is one of the fleet of planes owned by his mission Asas de Socorro; this one seats 4.








Jeyson piloted like an expert. You wouldn't believe how many safety checks are done for such a short flight. Jeyson gets to count the flight time as hours and we got to enjoy the view. And the views over Anapolis were spectacular.
















As you can see Anapolis, the city where they live, is a small, thriving metropolis. From 1,000 feet you can see the entire city. The green at the far end of the below pic is the edge of the population center where the farmland begins and is visible in all directions.



You can see the runway as we came in for the landing.


A perfect takeoff and better yet landing made for a great time.


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Family time

We hung out on Sunday after the baby dedication with Jeyson, Stephanie and Jeyson's family. It's a common sight to see Stephanie in the kitchen. She makes lots of meals, some Brazilian and some american.


Here are some shots of the backyard too...notice the washer in the back yard. Weather here is comfortable year round so this makes perfect sense.





Jeyson's family and their mutual friends all came over and we enjoyed sitting and talking together, and eating of course.


Meals are an important part of Brazilian culture, but the big meal of the day is lunch! Here is a shot of one of the desserts we enjoyed... sagu is a tapioca with red wine and cream. It's delicious. Of course we also had plenty of chocolate for Vickie too.



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In a foreign country

We are experiencing life here already, attending a Portuguese church service where they had a dedication ceremony for Elijah, and enjoyed some native foods. Pamonha is a sweet corn mixture wrapped in corn husks and fruit drinks made with milk yum. We also tried chowder of various types....Jeyson had the one made with cow stomach, but we of course chose more traditional blends.







Vickie is holding something of interest...this is the standard sized paper napkin, a single 1ply sheet is so small you could never put it on your lap, a whole stack would make up the equivalent of a single dinner napkin in paper. Oh well, life is different here for sure.



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Little Eli

Now that we are partially coming around to the time change we're starting to realize where we are, and who we are with. It is soooo nice to be with family, spending time with Stephanie and Jeyson. Now, we have one more person to spend time with - Mr Elijah.




This little guy is grown up. The fact that we waited to come for 2 1/2 months really made a difference. He is attentive and smiles a lot and coos with eye contact. And the outfits he wears are adorable.
He is such a good baby. I cannot imagine why all three of our older girls have had delightful children since the older two were such pips when they were young LOL, but I fully understand why Stephanie and Jeyson have a good one, since they have such easy going personalities and because Stephanie was such an easy baby (e.g. she slept thought he night from the first day home from the hospital.)
More on him in later posts.
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Cache delivered

We made it to Brazil, safe and sound. Its sooo good to see Stephanie, Jeyson and Elijah. Here's a list of the stuff we brought with us:




9 New York style bagels
Old spice deodorants
Camera and lens
Altoids mints
Plate hangers
Baby jumper
Coffeemate creamers
Salad dressings
iTunes card
Baby Elmo
Craisins
Baby plate and bowl
Children's books
Many baby clothes
Baby jogger
Panda bear
Peppermint and butterscotch chips
Baking chips
York peppermints
Pie fillings
Camelbak water pack
Child Activity table
Large Taco seasoning
Baby wagon
Bibs
Many bike parts
Snack catcher baby cups
Assorted makeup
Sophie giraffe
Many baby outfits
Several different Wombies (they didn't have these when we raised children)
Ranch dressing mix
Poppy seeds 2lbs
Last word game
Ink cartridge
Bike shoes 2 pair
Custom baby quilt
Tire pump
Peeler
Baby socks
Decorative farm signs
Meat thermometer
Rattles
Pacifiers

Oh yeah, and we packed some of our own clothes too.