Tag: food

News

Waves of Change

LS

One of the many benefits of being in Brazil so long is that we have the opportunity to learn a lot more about the culture and to try new things! Today, as we drove back we had the chance to experience the scenery along the 3 hour stretch. The country is beautiful and we managed to see both the ocean and the mountains in a single day.

During our short get away trip, we also experienced another cultural opportunity. Very close to the hotel that we stayed in there was a Pizza place that had a Rodizio option. The Rodizio option is basically like an all you can eat, buffet concept. The difference is that you don’t ever have to leave your table. The table has a little spin wheel which allows you to request more pizza (savory or sweet…or both) or indicate that you need a break. The waiters then come out of the kitchen with the freshly made pizza and ask if you would like a piece. Every few minutes another waiter stops by with a different type. The variety was quite impressive and the kids loved the concept so much that they requested it for both nights. It was a bit more expensive than what we would normally do, but the benefit was that the food was immediately ready (something very key with impatient kids), it had lots of options, and everyone had more than enough to eat (in fact, we might have reversed our weight loss :D). We are thankful to have saved up some additional funds that allow us to take advantage of something like this which is fun, cultural, and memory building! It also allowed us to help our kids think about finishing what is on our plate first before eagerly jumping to get the newest option. Thankfully, we have been working over the past few weeks on the concept of finishing food and not throwing it out or wasting it. We suspect that this was simply never taught before and so it is brand new to the kids. Furthermore, they likely also didn’t have options before…there is a high chance that dinner was simply whatever was made and if you didn’t like it, you just had to wait until the next day.

We are also getting lots of Portuguese lessons every day! The kids more or less manage to understand most of what Luke is trying to say and they help him correct his pronunciation during family worship time (imagine reading the Portuguese equivalent of a King James Bible that is very formal and not using hardly any familiar words). We have mastered the words Sorvete (ice cream) and Salgadinhos (chips or other similar snack foods like Cheetos or pretzels). Can you tell that our kids are very interested in food? They have also come to dread the realization that dad’s most often used word is Talvez (maybe) because there are so many requests for different items.

Today, before heading back, we also got to experience a bit of the Brazilian coastline. The kids loved the beach and even though we had no beach equipment whatsoever, they were very happily engaged in body surfing, collecting shells, and having a fun time. There have been so many waves of change for all of us lately – it is hard to believe it has only been 19 days since we became a family. There are so many things all of us are learning…it feels like we are all facing a majorly exponential learning curve. Amidst the waves of change, it is refreshing to take a little time for just pure fun. It is easy to lose sight of all the stress we are all under and to just get exacerbated that things are not going the way they “ought to be”. It is easy to get frustrated with children that don’t listen and do the very opposite to your face, to be annoyed with the inability to communicate exactly what all of us want to, to be at our wits end with another son who seems to be showing all of his negative behavioral actions on steroids, and to get impatient with one another because we are tired and barely holding it together for plenty of moments. In these times, we are grateful that the Lord allows us to visit the beach, to enjoy playing, and to have this time apart from other responsibilities to build both memories and family. And we are thankful for your prayers, your encouragement, and your financial generosity! You have no idea how much we need all of these! They act as anchor points as the waves of change crash in and they allow us to build an incredibly critical foundation for our family.

News

The Path of Least Resistance

LS

Sometimes the best way forward is the choose the path of least resistance. Adding 4 very active kids means that we are often trying to decide exactly how important are certain things to us? Take today, for instance. After a fairly long walk to try out a new park (very disappointing for all as it had essentially nothing to do), we decided to take some very hangry and tired kids to a local buffet rather than spending more time making food at home. The nice thing about Brazil is that they don’t charge for certain ages. So despite having 7 of us, we were only charged for 4.5 meals (the waiter wisely assessed that Elijah would be eating enough to constitute a half meal despite his age). The buffet was a thrill for the kids as options and as much as they wanted of what they wanted probably hasn’t happened too often. This buffet had grilled meats that could be collected in a separate section at the end. We made the quick decision to only have one parent grab an assortment of meats for the whole time, while the other parent kept an eye on the table. The restaurant probably ended up making out fine despite the discounts, as the path of least resistance means that mom and dad eat little bits fast in order to beat any children and be able to help them in getting food when needed (thankfully many of them could navigate this on their own, but one was a bit overwhelmed when there were more people in line).

The afternoon had us going to a larger park with one of the helpers hired as a part of our fees. The older children were especially excited and really looking forward to the small amusement park at one end of this park…it had been the talk for a few days and had the boys super excited. So it was especially crushing to walk all the way through the park only to discover the amusement section does not open until 17:00. We do try hard to minimize no’s and disappointments, especially considering backgrounds and the ways this has impacted their lives. As a smaller consolation, we ended up getting ice cream and discovered it was an ice cream buffet…a kids dream (perhaps a parent’s nightmare??). We immediately set about to being the scoopers of ice cream to control quantity while simultaneously trying to keep toppings to a set amount…trying to do this with 5 kids is a bigger challenge…especially when seemingly out of nowhere there were suddenly 5-10 people behind us in line and a few kids (not knowing it was pay by the weight) began eating their ice cream. The path of least resistance meant that mom and dad chose to get everyone fixed up and have the treat of a few moments of sitting in silence with a gaggle of happy kids over getting ice cream. On the bright side, this may turn out to be one of the more effective diets invented…the jury is still out on this one, but we will let you know how well jumping from 1 to 5 kids works on fitness (we are already moving a lot more just to answer the calls of “pai” and “mae”).

And – we can share a few photos since no faces are visible 😀 We can’t wait to share the other many we are accumulating as they are awesome! But this will need our official ruling first…speaking of which, please do continue to pray for Article 5 issuance…no news still although we were hoping Lifeline would be able to set up a call with the embassy.