Party weekend!

Vacation time is here, or as I said to Matt this morning, "let's go to vacation land!" The kids had their last day of school on Friday, and then we inaugurated our vacation with a weekend of fun. On Saturday we went to our friends new house in Nova Lima; the wonderful, amazing, hospitable and kind friends who hosted us when we first got here. They've been working for 10 years to build this house (Brazil!) and just a few weeks ago they moved in. It is truly beautiful, a little outside of the city, so it was quite and green and lots of space for our kids to run around. Here they are playing:



On Saturday evening, I had graduation at the Canadian school, and Matt took the kids to a Baby Shower in Pampulha. Dora enjoyed the hammock:


Yesterday (Sunday), we went to the Christmas luncheon for the Filarmonica. We posed by the new car in our nice clothes (finally, a picture of the car!)


And finally, a birthday party! One of my English students invited us to her grandson's 3rd birthday. The party was beautiful Brazilian chaos: loud music, super hot, the birthday boy waaay too stimulated, kids drinking coca-cola by the gallon, a candy free for all, and of course, the requisite cake and brigadiero table. It was glorious. I took two pictures of the brigadeiro table, but they really don't do it justice. The table was probably 3 feet by 4 feet big, with a luscious chocolate cake. But most importantly, hundreds of brigadeiros and little candies, all laid out in an impressive design. And the table was surrounded by big plastic animals, and then a balloon "tent" for lack of a better description. Enjoy!