Happy Summertime from Sao Paulo!
It's been nice and hot here the last 5 weeks. Makes for some sweaty days at work but as soon as we get home we head to the pool. We've been spending most of our weekends at the "Clube". This is the central area of our complex where there are 4 pools, saunas, game rooms, pool and ping-pong tables, work out rooms and and an indoor and an outdoor restaurant. We pass the time swimming and running around with other kids but always stop to eat chicken nuggets, popsicles and drink Caipirinias and beer towers (This is a wonderful addition to our restaurant's menu, you can see it on the table below. It is a 3 liter cylindar that sits on the middle of the table on a lazy-susan and you just spin the spout around infront of you and top up your glass, it even has a cooling tube running down the center of the cylindar.). Gavin and Zoe have been practicing their swimming. Gavin started swimming lessons on Tues. and Thurs. two weeks ago and so far, so good. He seems to enjoy them and we're hoping that by northern hemisphere summer he'll be swimming on his own. Below are some pics from a typical weekend.
Here is Zoe doing what she does best these days, aimlessly running around. She is a very busy (almost) 15 month old. She is into everything and does not want to be left behind the bigger kids. If they can climb on or jump off something, so can she. She is so cute, and her first word was "NO" but a close second was, "daddy" (sorry Kim). She is also saying "mama" and "Agua" as well. Gavin and her continue to be good friends although Gavin does get frustrated with her as no matter how many toys there are scatter around the house to play with, she wants whatever it is Gavin is currently playing with.
Here is Gavin with several of his friends munching on some pizza at one of his friend's birthday parties.
A few weeks ago we had our week-long Carnival break from work. For three of the days we headed off to Itatiaia National Park on the boarder of Rio State and Sao Paulo State, about 4 hours out of the city. We travelled there with our friends Matt, Karen and 3 month old Eli. We stayed in these nice little cabins and did a little exploring and jungle hikes. A few of the trails were a little over grown so Gavin, on foot and Zoe and Eli in packs got their first experince with bush wacking. One of our adventures ended at a small water fall, but is was a little to cold to swim.
Flying through the jumgle!Dan and Kim are doing well. Both busy at work though things are calming down for Dan as he has finished grading his major assignments and they have been sent off to IB headquarters to make sure he is accuate in his grading. Kim, Dan and Gavin are training for a Half-Marathon at the beginning of April. Kim is doing great and just did a 20km training run on Sat. at Uni. of SP campus. Since Dan is a headcase and has issues with his trasition to becoming a recreational runner, he can't run in 10 k's or 1/2 marathons and be satisfied running times much slower than he used to run so he has to set other goals. Therefore, in April he wants to run his fastest half-marathon ever, while pushing Gavin in his jogging stroller. Gavin is pretty excited about it and has been really good about spending 1.5 hours in the stroller on training runs, maybe it is the chocolate treats he keeps getting feed every 15 minutes or so that keep him and his spiderman action figure in such good humour throughout.
Well, that's all from us for now. We have three long weekends in April so we expect it will fly by, and before we know it we'll be boarding a plane to the cottage! Let us know how you are!
Love, Dan, Kim, Gavin and Zoe
