Crazy Saturday nights in Monmouth

The troops are printing, stamping, and packing invitations, and soon they will be on the pony across the country and continent. We just hope customs doesn't confiscate them because they're so awesome.

Murilo was in charge of the printing (since he doesn't trust me to click the "fast draft" button anymore...) You can see he's having fun here. Really, what more can a man want for his Saturday night other than soccer, beer, and wedding invitations? BTW, on the computer is the Timber's first home game - sold out stadium, and they WON. Nice job Timbers. In case you missed the fun, the team is complete with mascot Timber Joe, who cuts off a piece of a log with a chain saw every time they make a goal. And I'm serious.Murilo's other job was folding since we decided he's more perfectionist than I am (this is still up for debate). I'm here stamping, embossing, and then transferring them to the oven to melt the embossing powder. Side note: a 400 degree oven burns the paper, but at 350 degrees the paper doesn't burn, and the embossing powder melts in 30 seconds. 60 invitations later and we called it a night - the other 140 can wait until the next Timbers game.

Fun fact PS: my mom and dad found the clip art and had this stamp made - pretty personal-touch-ish, eh?

Guest book: Progress

The guest books are covered (no, I didn't do that in one day...) but they turned out pretty darn cute. Here they are all stacked together, looking really book-ish...

These are the fronts:

And the backs...




All together now!!!




Next step: titles...

Guest Book: pink and gold forever!

My next little project is a spin on the guest book. The idea is to make a couple pretty books and label them with questions like "Where do you see us in 10 years?" and "What should we do for our 1st anniversary?" Then, instead of signing a guest book, people can answer a question and sign their name. Here's the supplies I've picked out so far:

Pink and Gold forever!

Favors from the Willamette Valley

Because I don't have much control over wedding things a continent away, I'm going crazy with the things I can control - I am becoming the DIY bride... Martha would be so proud...

These are going to be our favors: grape wine charms! It's our "made in Oregon" touch for the wedding. Which is your favorite color/color combination? Murilo thinks the pink ones look like grapes with worms... >:( thus it's in the back, but he is very supportive of the other colors...

Aren't they cute?!

A funny bridesmaid story...

Trying to be the easy-going bride, I first proposed all ladies pick their own pink, knee-length and above, non-cotton dress for the wedding. Only one bridesmaid liked this idea. As discussions progressed I moved to a more traditional "I'll pick the color, you pick the dress" idea. All picked the same dress. So we have come full circle, and all bridesmaids will wear the same dress in the same color... and here it is!!! (official color: guava)

Colors!

Thought you might enjoy the colors of the wedding: Gold and.... hmm... and pink? pinkish-orange? salmon... guava... coral... we're open to suggestion on names...

Heels or Havaianas? The bet is on.

Our gym is hosting a "90 workouts in 90 days" challenge... and Murilo and I are going for it. To sweeten the deal (and add the ultimate motivation) we've placed a bet:

I make it, I get to buy heels for the wedding
I don't make it, I wear Havaianas

(I asked Murilo what his prize was going to be and he said "health" to which I say "boo")

Who's going to win?

WEDDING FUN!!!

This is officially the blog-de-everything Meghan and Murilo... and most importantly (for now) will include wedding details!!!!!

*Special thanks to Amber and Jennifer for pushing for details :)

Taking off

So tomorrow I'm heading off to Rio de Janeiro!!! I'm super excited to go, but will miss our little family here in Maceio! Luiza is going to Joao Pessoa for her class tomorrow, as well, so old man Toby is going to be one sad little poodle. Anyway, I don't know when I'll have internet access, so for all you hard core followers out there [aka, Ma and Pa ;)], don't lose hope! I will post as soon as I can! And fear not, I will be safe: I promise to wear a helmet when I hang glide if it is required. ;) Ate logo!!

Amigos, Gaubi Vaz

Kelson's childhood friend, Gaubi, is officially one of the most accomplished people I know. And one of the funniest. Dinner with him, his wife, and their friend was fun and lively with lots of talk, food, and laughter. We showed them pictures of this summer, and played online with google earth, the blog, and skyped with Murilo.

One of the things Gaubi showed us was a video of him on youtube (oh, did I tell you he wrote and released a CD? because he did...). You've got to check it out - he wrote the music (I think... I know he wrote all the songs on his CD, Amigos), that's him singing, and it is filmed in Maceio right along the area where Kelson had his jet ski accident, so you'll get a little sound and sight of Alagoas! Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVKtMRHyXrY

Here's also a link to a blog that talks a little about him and his music: http://musicadoceara.blogspot.com/2008/09/gaubi-vaz-amigos.html

According to Muri, he's also phenomenal on the guitar... maybe by talking with him I'll get better... or maybe I should practice...

What IS life without condensed milk?!?

Today was a busy day! In the morning I went to the gym, Toby and I went for a walk (and then he took a bath and now he is all fluffy... hahaha), I went to a couple more english classes, and tonight I get to meet the famous Goubi (Kelson's best friend). I'm trying to look really nice for this dinner with him and his wife because the last time the wife saw me I was dying in the hospital and toting a blue sheet around, not unlike like Linus.

A couple days ago I asked Zaira and Luiza what they vendor on the corner makes with sugar cane, so on the walk with Toby today I went and bought a cup of sugarcane juice (caldo de cana). It tasted pretty much like what you would expect the water and sugar squeezed from the sugarcane to taste like - delicious!! I'm glad I discovered that the third to last day I was here... I think agua de coco is a better habit to have...

I love going to the english classes. Turns out I'm one of those people who is energized by spending time and connecting with other people - anyone surprised? Anyone... I'm a little saddened, however by the most common question I get. They talk about the movies about high school that they see and ask me if it is really like this, meaning, are there such divisions among groups, and are the football players all cool and dumb, and are the cheerleaders all hot and promiscuous, and are there nerds who are smart and losers. On one hand it makes me sad that this is how the world perceives us, as anyone would if these movies were the only time they saw into the United States and our culture. On the other hand, I'm glad to be here and to have a chance to talk about our culture and show people here a "different" sort of American. I like to be able to subvert the rumors, and I love most of all to talk to students about myths about sex before marriage that our media passes out like candy. I think I was born to work with this age group, if only the crazy parents would relax about grades a little bit, and I think a dream of mine is to foster a small group of girls in the high school that talks about these things, that can learn from my mistakes and triumphs, and who can encounter God and bring him to their (our) culture!

My favorite conversation from today was a student who asked if we had brigadero in the U.S. Half of them were utterly shocked that my answer was no (I think the other half already knew this). The girl who asked me, still astounded, then asked this question: But what, then, do you eat at parties?!?! They weren't consoled with any of my answers, however, because none of it involved condensed milk, however they were a little relieved to hear that we at least had condensed milk in the U.S.

Alright, I'm out folks. I'm going to go help prepare for tonight a little bit more... with any luck they'll ask me to "help" make the brigadero!!! I need to go practice my innocent face...

The fruit club

Goiaba take 2 happened today - instead of eating the pretty green goiaba, I ate the yellow one, and low and behold, it was amazing! There was no pucker effect, the seeds were still hard, but the entire fruit is edible and it's tasty! To compare the ripe and unripe fruit, I took a picture. When it comes to goiaba, green does not mean go.

I also tried caju this week. The caju fruit is an accessory fruit that grows attached to the true caju fruit, also known as castanha de caju, or the cashew nut. The fruit is delicate and juicy, very sweet and tender with a slightly chalky aftertaste. And apparently I am slightly allergic to this fruit (or maybe to the potent skin irritant found in between the double shell encasing the cashew nut, which is also a toxin found in poison ivy?...

nah... ) because both times I ate the fruit my throat got all itchy and my hands got what looks like sunburn or hives... without the burn and itch. The goiaba I ate today was sitting next to the caju for the last couple days, and when I ate it I got the hand-sunburn reaction again... for the love... What a curse to be allergic to something that is so good! In heaven I'm going to have a caju tree.

A teacher of another sort

I've been volunteering at a local english school these past 2 weeks and today I talked to three classes. I appreciate being a volunteer more now that I'm a teacher - what a great lesson plan: bring in a native speaker, let the kids ask questions... I need to utilize guest speakers more... The kids are so much fun to talk with - especially the girls because they are so animated (lots of exclamations, giggling, gasping). It's helping me to get more excited to return to my own classroom!

Low Tide

It's the middle of the week, so of course the day is perfect. There are only enough clouds in the sky to be decorative and the ocean peeking between buildings is sparkly, so Toby and I scratched our usual around the block plans and headed for the beach. We hit waterfront when the tide was low and the bay was scattered with boats sitting too high in the water. We walked past one that was planted completely out of the water, but it didn't matter - there was someone still working on the boat and another working around it. In fact, most of the boats that were beached had people working on or around them.

As Toby and I walked I started to notice all the incredible beauty around me. The color of the water looked photoshopped, and the way the water had run across the sand left patterns that made the ground look like marble. As blue swirled below, the canopy of green above seemed to blossom out even more than usual. God's creation is so perfect - even as I walked down the beach I noticed that when I started to get to warm I would pass under the shadow of the palms into delicious cool air.

Toby was loving his time at the beach - he almost seemed to prance in and out of the scattered seaweed. He thought the seaweed flowing with the current was alive, so I sat, entertained for a while, watching him tentitavely reach out his neck as far as it would go in order to smell it and then a wave would catch the seaweed and more it a little, so Toby would jump back! Then he'd paw at it and leap sideways! I'm pretty sure he would have stayed there with that clump all day.

A giant sandbar was uncovered because it was low tide, and it stretched out nearly half way across the narrow part of the bay. It was packed with people, and we wove our way around them in order to walk out to the end. I walked in the warm, shallow water while Toby was a little more hesitant, but he started to prance in and out of the little waves and soon was wading across the little channels all by himself. When he came out of the water he looked hilarious - since just his legs were wet, they looked really tiny and spindly and his fat little fluffy body sat on top. He looked so out of proportion that I couldn't help but see him as a cartoon character - he would have been pompous royalty prancing around with his nose in the air, a white ruffly collar on, being tailed by a butler carrying a silver platter of doggy kibble. He is just so happy at the beach.

As we walked back, the beached boats seemed to be collecting people. The one stuck completely out of the water now had 3 people sitting on it, drinking and talking, another one was being rolled out to the water on logs by 2 people, and as the sun got hotter the fishermen seemed to be doing more socializing and less fishing.

Oh how I will miss Maceio!! I love it here, and I know that my dreams during the rainy, grey winter in OR will be of walking along this beach.

Erin was right: 3rd grade is hard!

I've been looking for that magic bean, the one method of learning portuguese that is going to make it click for me. I'm starting to think that there is no such thing as magic or clicking... On the down side, portuguese is difficult and I have days where I am so frustrated about my lack of understanding and progress. On the positive side, there are moments of glory when I realize that I actually am learning - when I understand a whole sentence said on a TV show, or when the check out lady at the grocery store asks me if I have a number, and I can give her an answer without receiving that scrunched-eyebrow look that is so very familiar (and often followed a few seconds later with an ... ohhh... )

I'm starting to think that there is no one method that will get me to learn, but rather the more methods I employ, the more fully I will learn. I'm trying everything I can think of: I took a class, study from a text book, listen to an audio lesson, watch TV/movies in portuguese, read/translate children's comic and story books, play games on line, and I recently bought a book of cross-word puzzles and word searches. I tried watching children's shows, but most of them on the Barney level, which is what I need these days, make me want to stab myself with a fork... or stab the TV, or maybe Barney. Anyone else have suggestions? (stalkers out there?)

I'm also starting to think that there's no "click." I keep waiting for the moment where I'll all of a sudden be able to understand what people say and be able to respond (in more than 2 year old speech...) But I'm starting to think the learning process is less like stair, or a series of times when you just get it, and more like climbing a hill - it's a gradual accruing of knowledge and understanding.

If you're praying for me out there, pray for patience. I have more empathy for kindergardeners and other early learners these days; as a famous teacher once said: 3rd grade is hard! Excuse me while I go read "A Princesa e o Sapo."

BOPE facility

It is said that BOPE training is the most hard-core prepared in the world: above the Israel police, if you can believe it, due to the nature of urban warfare that they have to survive. If you haven't already, check out the movie Tropa de Elite, or Elite Squad, which tells a story through training and operation of BOPE. For one reason or another, Maceio has a BOPE facility, and proudly our Boxing instructor at our gym is ex-BOPE. I took these pictures of the front of the training facility as we drove by (thus the quality...) Note their seal, Faca na Caveira, or Knife in the Skull, (nice, right?) and the mural painted on the words BOPE. CRAZY!

A little too ironic...

We pulled up to a restaurant before deciding to go to Bar do Bahia yesterday. As we were sitting in the car waiting for Kelson to see what it was about, I noticed all the chickens in the yard. One mama hen had ten or more baby chicks running around her. Luiza and I watched them, talked about how cute they were for a while, and she told me the word for chick was pintinho, which I thought was nothing like the word for chicken, galinha. As I was reminiscing about the good times with Peeper (our pet chicken we had when were little), and the good ol' barbie doll car days, Kelson returned to tell us the specialty of the restaurant: chicken.

Dinner and a Show

Yesterday we went sight-seeing around a small town and one of Maceio's famous beaches. One of our stops along the way was a restaurant called Bar do Bahia. As soon as we pulled up I noticed squirrels in the trees?? I couldn't believe it, so it was the first place I went - around the restaurant to the chicken and cat-infested "yard" in between the restaurant and the river it overlooked. Chickens and cats, who would have thought that was a good combination... Anyway, sure enough, there they were - little fuzzy things scampering around the trees... although the more I watched the more I thought the tail was too long, and the head was the wrong size, and sometimes they sat rather than stood on all 4's... so I asked my tour guide,Ms. Luiza, and low and behold, they were MONKEYS!!! I'm not kidding - they were these cute, squirrel-sized monkeysscampering around the branches in the trees!! I was ecstatic, think Nolan in the aviation museum, mouth open, eyes bright, I might have been shaking a little bit. Luiza looked at me for a little bit and then said, "Yah, but they bite," and walked on into the restaurant. I tried to get pictures, but turns out they are not paparazzi-friendly little guys. They started yelling, or squeaking, and ranfrom tree to tree until I was too far for a descent picture. The rest of the meal I think I spent looking in thetree-tops rather than enjoying the view of the river.

The restaurant's owner was around and he would move from table to table and hang out with the patrons. He was this charismatic guy who would chat it up with us and when we needed something he would shout, "Menino! Colher!" (boy! spoon!), or "Menino! Coco!" (boy! coconut!). It reminded me of the movie "Behind the sun" where you never hear the boy's name,

only not as sad. Turns out the owner's nickname was "Bahia," and he seemed to think the name of the restaurant (Bar do Bahia) was pretty funny, and it was pretty funny that he thought it was pretty funny... When he found out I was american, a sparkle showed up in his eye, and as he gestured towards the wall he told me that I had to tell his cousin hello for him when I got back. See the pictures below.

I'm compiling a "Things you'd never see in the US" list, and this Bar has made the cut: In the US you'll never see the owner of a restaurant go catch the food (in this case, "Cidi," a type of

crab), prepare it and then serve it to you!! It's like dinner and a show!

Caught in the act... again...

Like I said earlier, I bought some unknown, interesting-looking fruit the other day from the store, and I decided on Thursday that today was the day to engage with the maracujá (aka Passion Fruit). I love the picture of the maracujá cut in half, looking at the inside... it just screams passion, right?

So I got all prepared - did my research on line (wait until it's wrinkly, cut in half and eat seeds... check check check), got the plate, found the right knife, found just the right mouth-sized spoon, cut the sucker in half, (pause for the picture), scooped up a not so brave spoonful, looked closely, smelled the seeds, opened my mouth... and then this voice behind me interrupted, "você vai comer isso???" (or something to that effect... all I really needed to hear were the three question marks...) Busted - Zairinha has such great timing. I explained (successfully, I

think!!!) that I read online that this was how you ate it, and she gave me that classic "dear, sweet child" smile, took the fruit from me, and told me she doesn't think it's good to eat that way and she'll show me how to make juice. As she was scooping one half out into the blender I pretended to examine the fruit and again not-so-slyly ate a couple seeds. They had flavor and were fairly sour - I had to think about a parallel for a while, but think it's close to a pomegranate experience (flavor with a little pucker... mostly pucker for my maracujá.)

So Zairinha made me juice (maracujá, sugar, water, blender), and it was AMAZING. She wins food points on this one, for sure.

I'm learning (slowly, but nonetheless) that half, and possibly more than half, the battle with the enjoying the fruit here (other than knowing how to eat it) is knowing how to pick it out, and

knowing when to eat it. At the store I usually just wait until someone else goes to buy the fruit, and they try to pick out fruit that looks like the fruit they picked out, aka fruit stalking. Sometimes it works... the knowing when is another story, we're currently employing the trial by fire method there... I killed a couple papayas I tried to buy the other day - apparently you shouldn't put them at the bottom of the grocery bag, even if they are currently harder than all other fruit. I've never seen bruised fruit grow mold that fast...

I think Zairinha's inspired, though - she has put together a mental list of fruit and is on a mission to find them so I can try, and I think I'm going to like this game.

My greatest discovery

This week, I discovered The Hammock. There are two hooks in the bedroom I'm staying with, in perfectly opposite corners of the room. The hammock stretches diagonally across the room when strung up, and can be rolled up to hang in a tidy ball when not in use, which is where it's been since I've been there. One day this week I was looking for interesting things to do while I waited for the family to get home from work, and I decided to unroll the ball. As I did light streamed into the room and the birds started singing, I tenuously sat down, testing the strength of the hooks in the wall, sank down, and then didn't get out for a couple of hours. I've decided it's my new vice. :)

For the last couple days I've been thinking about trying to sleep in it... other than the naps I sneak in... daily... so last night I gathered my courage and sheets, and rocked myself into a deep sleep. Usually I wake up once or twice during the night, and last night: nothing. I woke up rested and so very comfortable - it was hard to get myself to get out of the hammock. I guess it actually is fairly difficult to get out of, but it's also hard because the hammock is like a giant cuddle blanket that holds you. mmmmm... hammock.