The Brasil Trip Continues

sorry for leaving the z out, I prefer Brasil with s the way we write in Portuguese :-)

I'm visiting my brother's house for the first time in 10 years! He lived 8 years abroad and I haven't been to Brazil for the past 2.5 years.

A quick summary of the past two weeks: after we arrived back from the trip to the state of Paraná and the Falls, my sons spent a week hanging out with their cousins who are closest in age (sons of "K2" who lives in Egypt). They rode bikes, played tons of WiiU and some Minecraft and we all spent an afternoon making tie-dye t-shirts for ALL the kids in the family -- the 8 grandkids of my in-laws + K's aunt's 2 grandkids and 2 shirts for my twin friends' kids (the two that were there with us), plus two t-shirts for my mom and one for me). And I still dyed a giant towel with the leftover dye.

My sister-in-law was at her mom's house all week with my niece (who is 3 and the cutest, sweetest little girl ever) and nephew (4.5), so I spent as much time with them as I could.

In the middle of the week I went clothes shopping with my mom at a nearby town that has lots of textile factories and stores and we also got hundreds of liters of spring water from a local spring (my parents do that every few months so they don't have to buy good drinking water).

Then my husband arrived on Friday (7/14) and his family members started to arrive, one brother on Saturday and the other o Sunday for the BIG reason for this trip: his grandmother's 90th birthday party and family reunion. My mother-in-law's two sisters and two brothers and their children were there on Saturday already and we had a lovely lunch celebration at her cousin's house. The birthday celebration on Sunday night was awesome and the next day nearly the whole family went to a hot water springs resort a few hours away where we stayed until yesterday (Friday).

It was great, but a lot of the kids got sick with the stomach flu. :-(

I hate to end on this negative note, but this will be a BIG week -- we're going to Rio for a whirlwind pre-Olympics tour!!