In 2012...

... I want to exercise more* and to spend more time with my husband;

... I want to go to Brazil, my dream would be to go twice, but once will be good too;

... I hope to become better at teaching my classes and to make a difference in the life of my students;

... I wish that good health can be re-established for all those friends and family who are experiencing health issues;

... we'll travel a lot and I hope we can have wonderful trips, starting with South Africa in March and Brazil in the summer (winter there).

... my son will be ten years old, I can hardly believe that he's growing up so fast.

I'm sure there's more, but this is what I can think of now.

Happy New Year for everyone!!

* I know this is the most cliched new year's resolution there is, but it is something that I already started working on in 2011 because I started doing yoga.

The Best of 2011

• Our new house -- my only "actual wish" this year (in small print at the end of my "what has to happen" in 2011 post).

• My nephew's birth (my first wish for this year).

• K's whole family's trip to Florida that is ending tomorrow (and which I knew would be a highlight of this year). We took some great pictures here, but I won't share them in the blog since there are too many people involved.

• Meeting Jo(e) (another wish).

There were many other things and I'll try to write about them later, but I think these are the best.

What didn't happen in 2011

About a year ago I wrote a post about "what will happen in 2011" and one thing did not happen: my 7 year old did not lose his front baby teeth just yet... but I don't think they'll survive 2012. :( He's the one on the right:

I'm editing this post because there are more things that did not happen this year from my "wish lists:"

• I did not get to see my brother and his wife at all -- I suppose the "every two years, from two days to two weeks rule" will continue, maybe forever. :(

• Not everyone is healthy in the family (my brother-in-law had two surgeries to remove a tumor from his leg. My mother-in-law had a biopsy done in her thyroid, we're hoping the results will be OK -- she didn't get them yet because of her month-long trip here).

• I didn't plant raspberries and grapes and I don't think I ever will. :(  I did plant lots of bulbs, though, and I can't wait for them to bloom in the Spring!

• I wasn't able to meet other bloggers just yet, only Jo(e).

• And, obviously, I didn't get to post 365 times in the blog, but I will be able to post more than last year as I wished to.

I'm missing them a lot...

they are my babies, after all:

Lighted

Isn't it pretty?

Our Christmas, Before & After

The other families were too busy enjoying their gifts to come play with the wrappings. :)

Two Days Left

To post a whole bunch and be done with 2011. I'll miss this year, it was positively great and about to end in great style with K's family reunion.

Tomorrow night I think I'll have more time to post and try to meet my own challenge.

K & I took the boys here yesterday and it was awesome, except for the crowds (which we mostly beat with the fast track tickets we printed) and for missing the fireworks (long stupid story). More later, then!! (sleeping at 2 am every night and waking between 7-8 when the little kids get up is pretty hard!)

I don't know...

... if during this bustling week with family here in Florida I will be able to achieve my goal of posting more than last year, but I don't really mind if I don't make it. Blogging is important and meaningful for me, but way less than most everything else in life, as it should be.

I am enjoying spending time with K's family and we had a wonderful Christmas day yesterday -- I hope to be able to blog more about it, but if it doesn't, it's ok! Gotta go to bed now!

Our Old iPod 30GB Died...

... taking with it all the Christmas music we planned to play over the holiday. (Kelvin had transferred a bunch of music to the iPad, but then accidentally deleted it during an update and our laptop has no music and neither do our external hard-drives -- we'll change that soon).

Thankfully, Spotify saved the day and we were were listening to one of my favorite Brazilian Christmas albums when we opened presents this morning -- Ivan Lins' Um Novo Tempo (this link is only to one of the songs, all the others are also available in Amazon).

"Festas" is one of my favorites because is shows how Brazilians love feasts & celebrations (festas, which also means parties ;) and this album is the reason why now I really love "Feliz Navidad" (at least this version!) which I used to hate with a vengeance.

My other favorite Christmas album is the quirky Mercy Me: The Christmas Album and for me two classics are Amy Grant's Home for Christmas and A Christmas to Remember, both absolutely gorgeous.

OK, here's my short-list of Christmas music. I barely heard Xmas music this year, so I think I'll listen to some more during the rest of the week.  More photos to come soon, OK?

Merry Christmas!! (Before and Before photos :)

Well... I'm glad that being stuck in traffic on Friday evening didn't prevent us to from going to buy a Christmas tree before we made it to the rental house. Our car was horribly packed, but somehow we were able to fit a (live) Christmas tree inside it! I'm delighted we did that! 

There's no mantel in the rental house, so we had to improvise where to hang the stockings. Oh, and we're all putting stuff into each other's stockings... ;)

Before fully stuffed:

 After significant stuffing (but before opening them!):

And here's the tree before all presents were under/around it:

 After most were there (but before opening, right?):

This Christmas promises to be awesome!

Beach!!

We're having a lovely time here!

We spent some time at! the! beach! on Friday and that delayed our arrival in Orlando and we got stuck in traffic for a good while. :( But it was, oh... so worth it!

  P.S. I took only the first photo, I think. K is way better photographer than me! ;)

Safely Here in Florida

We still have a few more hours of travel from Jacksonville to Orlando and we'll probably drive down for a bit along the beaches! The weather will be beautiful this weekend, up to the 80s, so if we can dig into our suitcases in the car for swimwear, we might even go into the water for a bit!! And then after Christmas, it will cool off a little bit (lower 70s, still nice).

K's brother ("K2") and his family are at a hotel a few blocks from us, but I don't know if we'll meet up with them or if they're in a hurry to get to Orlando. We can't get into our rental house until 4 pm... We need to go grocery shopping and to buy a live Christmas tree, but we don't have any room in our minivans for those items! We'll be meeting up with K's parents, though, and we'll probably fill their rental car with stuff!

I didn't blog last night because I didn't want to bother my sleeping family with the computer's blue light. Well... I can't wait for the biggest Christmas in K's family history (17 people, including the "babies" [two 18 month olds]) -- there will be hundreds of presents under that tree! That's why our car is bursting to the seams!

Oh, last but not least, the in-laws, as well as "K3" and "K4" and families just spent 5 days in Cancun --  lucky them!

Hey, I just opened the curtains of the hotel room to let in the sunlight and Linton said, when Kelvin asked for some music and I said we should have Christmas music, "It's not Christmas, it's summer!" I suppose Christmas in Florida will feel similar to Christmas in Brazil, since it's summer in the Southern hemisphere now. We'll enjoy it for sure!

I'll be back, but let me send out my first with for a Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Leaving in a Packed Car...

... instead of a jet plane. Sigh.

Well, packing for flying is even more stressful, though way more organized.

OK, gotta go.

Traveling to Florida

I'm not 100% packed yet, but I need to go to bed because I can't keep my eyes open anymore! :(

I hope I don't forget anything -- this concern, coupled with my inability to decide or choose what to bring (these small decisions are the worst ones in life for me and they make me miserable at times) is the main reason why I can't stand the day(s) that precede a big trip.

OK, I have to go to bed now... am I even making any sense in this post?

My Uncle Called Me!

Remember my uncle? Well, I guess that another update is in order, since I last blogged extensively about him nearly two years ago (post above).

Now that my brother-in-law moved close to my uncle, I'm seeing him and my aunt more often. We last saw them back in October and I even got to help care for my uncle by staying with him for one morning while my aunt went to talk to one of the ladies she works for (Have I already told you that she's been working for over 25 years for this guy's wife, so, consequently, at his house? She has an autographed copy of his book).

Anyway, physically, my uncle is doing pretty well, he can walk a little bit unassisted and he can have conversations with us and eat on his own. He sleeps a whole lot during the day, though. And during those 2 days in October, he was pretty confused. He was mixing up things he sees on TV with real life and the conversations we were having, but apparently he has good days in which his mind seems perfectly clear and he can talk to you normally.

Well, this afternoon he called me. I think it was the first time in over three years that I talked to Uncle O on the phone (he had his surgery 2.5 years ago). He wasn't confused at all on the phone, we had a lovely conversation about this time of the year, he thanked me for the Christmas card that they just got in the mail from us yesterday (I mailed them last Friday) and told me about their plans for the holidays (they're going to Ocean City). It was so nice to hear his voice and talk to him! I wish he could recover fully, but the likelihood of that happening is very low. :(

In any case, his phone call made my day! I have to see if my cousin (his only daughter who lives in Vienna now) will be still there when we return from Florida because I'd love to see her!

OK, I have to go back to packing and cooking dinner now, but I just thought I'd share this today.

15

I have to write 15 more posts before the end of the year to beat last year's posts. I hope I can make it, in spite of the busy times ahead with K's family in Florida. Had I told you that we're going to Florida? I probably did.

OK, gotta go to bed now.

Free!!!

Yeah... free from grading to go work some more, and more... Make packing lists, pack, pack, clean house and garage, get people in the airport (a favor for a friend), pack car... shop for the Xmas presents that I still didn't have time to buy. Host friends so we can eat some yummy food... and cancel lunch with friends because of going to airport to pick person up. :(

and K thinks we won't be able to leave on Wednesday morning to Florida, and he's probably right. :( Oh well... I wish I could work faster than humanly possible, but I went to bed at 3 am last night and I'm sooo tired!

Well, let's see what happens. I'll keep you posted. Grading take SOOO much time, but the truth is that I like to do it all concentrated in a couple of days like this. It's crazy, but I think that I go way faster. The good news? My students got tons of As!! Which is fine with me! If they fulfilled all their obligations and my expectations, why not As for those who earn them? Yeah... that's what I think.

OK, gotta go pick up the boys in school.

17 Years Ago...

... K and I got married! I blogged about it before several times (16th - last year, 15th -- with photos!).

We were able to leave our sons with a friend and go out to eat some Italian food and I had very yummy tiramisu (I needed it to be awake grading).

OK, now I have to go resume the "regularly scheduled programming" of grading jail. Sigh... (that's why I wrote earlier that the timing for our anniversary will always be a little troublesome).

In Grading "Jail"

I have to grade everything today and I'm actually thankful for the deadline (tomorrow). It will be a glorious feeling to be free from that. Too bad the timing is of this grading period is not good and it will be the same thing year after year for me and K... (you'll see why at a later post today)

Let me get to work now!

Ayrton Senna do Brasil

The year was 1994 and my job was teaching English for one class period (45 mins) a week for 2nd-4th graders. Maybe you'll think I'm lying, but it's true that the week after Senna's crash, I couldn't really teach my 4th graders. They spent all of our 45 minutes of class humming his name under their breath "Senna, Senna, Senna."

I watched the crash live with my dad, as I typed a paper on the computer next to the TV in our family room and from that day on, after 10+ years of watching Formula One races as a family nearly every Sunday, I never watched another race.

I just found out through wikipedia that Senna was the last pilot to die in an F1 race -- they changed many things in the sport to avoid another tragedy such as this one.

This is the song we heard throughout my childhood time and again on Globo television in Brazil during the "victory lap" whenever a Brazilian pilot won (I believe they still play it today, but I could be wrong) -- I have it on a CD and my boys are very familiar with the song (and other TV Globo songs from my childhood):


And here's the trailer of the Senna documentary (not yet released on DVD), which won the Sundance Festival this year and which I didn't even know existed until last night when I clicked on Michael Moore's twitter link to his theater in Michigan and saw their schedule. My lucky brother got to watch it on an IMAX screen in New Zealand:


I can barely wait until the DVD is released here to see it. The reviews say it's a riveting documentary, just like Senna himself. I wish I could fly to Michigan to see it in Moore's theater. :( And I wish I'd found out about it earlier, while it was still playing in more places.