Layin' low

Pool time, thunderstorms and dinner out... a routine weekend in Brazil.  We took it easy since we have a couple trips planned in March -- one to Rio and the other to a beach house in Juquehy for a long weekend. 

Guarujá Beach

We are off work until Thursday for Carnival.  So what did we decide to do yesterday?  Go to the beach on one of the busiest weekends of the year.  We ended up going to Guarujá beach and only caught about 1 additional hour of traffic on the way there, on the way back it was smooth sailing -- one way, the trip usually takes about 1h40m. 

Dylan has not been a fan of the beach up until this point, it usually takes him about 1 hour just to warm up to the fact that he's stuck there -- he would never even think about touching the water either.  So on this trip, for the first time ever, Dylan actually asked to use the potty for a pee pee -- he goes once or twice a day on the potty at home, but only upon parent request.  I think our son put in a strategic request for this one, knowing that we would have to take him off the beach to get to an area that would accommodate him -- unfortunately for Dylan, there were about 30,000 people on the beach and this left him with only one place to go.  So Cathy picked him up and he promptly relieved himself, obviously the next step was to get him in the water to rinse off.  Dylan was kicking and screaming the whole way to (and in) the water -- then to our surprise he instantly changed moods.  Now we couldn't get him out of the water, he would walk in deeper and deeper until it was up to his chin.  Dylan was fearless for the rest of the day, near the shore he would let the waves toss him down and he'd get up laughing!  It was a smooth day at the beach. 

The interview

Dylan recently had his "interview" to see if he was ready to start pre-k1 in August.  I translate the term "interview" into revenue enhancing opportunity for the school... it lasted about 30 minutes, they really just want to make sure your kid understands English and will actually follow commands.  Our 2Y5M2d old fared pretty well, I'm thinking Madison will have good company on her bus ride to school pretty soon.

Summer Breeze

Dylan is a bit more comfortable in the pool these days, he still won't navigate in the deep end yet -- but he does enjoy jumping in the shallow end.  We spent a solid 6 hours at the pool last weekend since it was close to 90 out.  With the hot weather comes heavy rain too, last Friday we got caught in a flash flood on the way home from work.  In 10 minutes it went from no rain to over a foot of water flowing over the road!  I could barely see where I was going, next thing I knew -- I was driving through a river, almost stuck!    Cathy wasn't so lucky -- she was about 10 minutes behind me, traffic was now stopped behind the river running over the road.  Fortunately Cathy was only stuck about 10 minutes before the flood waters came down and she could pass through.

Pizza night

Last weekend we took the kids to our latest favorite pizza joint.  We arrived promptly at 6:30pm and scored a nice outdoor table (since only a handful of people in this city actually go out to eat that early).

Afternoon stroll

I took the kids out for a walk a couple nights ago... without an umbrella (one more thing to carry).  Yeah it rains a lot in the late afternoons down here and I should bring one with me, but let's face it, the walk is much more fun without one.

Cool breeze

 

We've been taking advantage of the nice weather, I still haven't mastered a technique to get both the kids in a picture, looking at the camera, and smiling... even after 24,928 pictures (I just checked the tally in the Maddie/Dylan folder on our computer).