Car number 4 2007-2008+

Car number three 2002-2007

Almost time to do online checkin...

Can't do that until less than 24 hours before boarding, so have to wait a few hours. We are packed. Still getting details together like cleaning the house (although how to do that with 2 children bent on playing with all their toys everywhere in the house, ARGH)

Will leaves tomorrow - down to 3 days away

We are packed and mostly ready to go. I can't believe it is almost time!
Will leaves tomorrow and then we have Monday all day and until Tuesday at 2. I have a ton to do here at the house, cleaning, etc, to get it ready for us to leave. I should be in good shape and ready to relax and wait for traveling.

I'm pretty relaxed about the trip, although extremely excited. It is going to turn out just beautifully, I know.

I'll try to post pictures to the blog if I can access an internet cafe and download pics somehow. Otherwise, I guess y'all will have to wait!

OH MY GODDESS!

We are down to 10 days away from traveling. Folks have been asking me if I am excited and I haven't been. Until now. WOW! I get to do this, and very soon. Have been packing away. Once I give away all the goodies I am taking as gifts, my suitcases will be extremely empty. Found out that the nano ipod i bought for my uncle is incompatible with the recorder system making it a very expensive, not terribly useful gift. might rethink that and get something else and return all the ipod accessories and etc.

gotta get dinner!
.5

Have Brazilian passports, have started packing...

So just with stuff that doesn't even include clothes, i have one carryon rolly thing full and a medium almost full. This is because I am taking a tupperware set, a pan, two large jars of Peanut butter(as gifts), two small jars of peanut butter (for K who won't eat much else), other rand0m toys and crap!

I spoke with a friend who took her almost three year old at the time with her to the same place we are going. She used the ergo to carry daughter, one wheelie carryon, one suitcase, and even took the carseat. No stroller. So that made me rethink taking the stroller and all. I had given up on carseats at all... now I think I'll take one for K. That will make me so much happier.

Change of plans...

Am feeling much more peaceful since I decided to avoid travelling anywhere but where I have family. I am not going to make it back 'home' to Olinda, Recife or the Northeast. I am choosing to have sanity instead. My children are not travellers. They must have inherited this from someone else. I tried to go letterboxing with them and barely made it 200 yards before both were whining about being hungry and tired and blah blah blah. This while I was carrying K on my back. ARGHH. It made me realize that if I am trying to have a month-long adventure, I'd better have backup. Cuz otherwise I will just go to the looney bin.

New plans are fun. My uncle Ted and his wife Dede' will pick us up at the airport in Sao Paulo. We'll drive to his house about 4 hours away. Spend a week there, then drive with Dede' and Ted all the way to my aunt Becky and uncle Ricardy's house (supposedly 12 hours). We will spend about three weeks there. Then we will bus it overnite to Sao Paulo to catch our flight back home. A lot less traveling and much more peace for me.

Have Brazilian Birth Certificates...

for the girls and will receive their passports this week in the mail! YAY! Had to take a whirlwind trip to Chicago, got wet (what is it with me and wet Chicago weather), lost, and then found.

All while Will and the girls were on the Dunes enduring wet weather in the tent. Bummer...

But it is solved. Now if I can just buy my tickets!

Next things on the list:

tickets
ipod for my friend Romerio to use in his work (he's an ethnomusicologist working with Indians in Pernambuco recording oral histories and songs, if you'd like to contribute $$ to his ipod, let me know!)
rain jackets for girls and I for our trip!

Off today to mom's once I get my car back from Lafayette. It broke down on our way home last night. Had to rent a car today, ai ai ai.