Missing you

"But I miss him"
"Then miss him. Send him love and then drop it."
While my 'him' is actually multiple people, this quote from Eat Pray Love has felt encouraging. While I am missing my family and friends I also want to be living in the moment here and 'squeeze the orange' as my pappy would say.
One part of 'squeezing the orange' that is Brasil has been a trip to Rio.

Doesn't the helicopter make it look like a toy city? Well.. it's not. It's a big scary city.

Catch up

I've established that I'm not good at updating regularly, so I'm going to attempt, once again, to play catch up:
Fun times exploring:

 

Train at Taquaral Park

 

Contemplating the possibilities

 Makin' Pastels

Bamboo in our neighborhood park

A dead one-eyed lizard 

Mom and Pap came the 17th to visit. So much fun. I'm so grateful they traveled 20+ hours just to see me for 6 days... well and to see beautiful Campinas.

 

Thank you to those who stopped by from my mom's blog and left such encouraging messages, it was much appreciated!

A comida

Pinha

Jordania has me eating something 'exotic' every week, and this week was pinha. It has a soft almost banana-y texture and is super sweet.

Last week was Pamonha. It's very common in Northeast Brazil and is sort of like a corn fritter in texture but is very, very sweet. You buy it wrapped in corn husks (...is that what they're called?) but I savagely tore that off before I could take a picture.

While that food is satisfying my belly the Lord is satisfying my heart far more than I imagined. He's given me a heart for Brazil and just like my cute sister Shelby prayed over me, I'm feeling so satisfied here. My parents come in a few days which marks the halfway point and that blows my mind. Time has flown by and even though I so miss my family, friends, and good 'ol Norman the longer I'm here the longer I want to stay. 

I've had a verse in this gospel song we sang last Sunday stuck in my head:

I'm reaping the harvest God promised me, taking back what the devil stole from me

And I rejoice today for I shall recover it all

Yes I rejoice today for I shall recover it all

And if you didn't like that you obviously didn't sing it at the top of your lungs clapping your hands with someone in the background yelling "Jesus!" over and over. Grab a friend and try it again.

New house

We finally moved into our house! After months of waiting on the container to be released we finally moved in last Saturday. We've been working all day everyday this week on getting everything in it's right place and Jordania and I were beyond ecstatic to have grown up size pots and pans again.
On Thursday we bought a used oven after weeks of searching. Most ovens in Brazil are very small, for example:

It's perfect for little Tollhouse elves. But this is our new (to us) oven:

 

Pretty stinkin' cute, huh? Here are some more pics of the casa:

 

Backyard (that's a coconut tree in the middle)

Dining room

 My chambers

It feels so good to be in a home, and I really love this one.
Ciao!

Thought I forgot about you, eh?

So far going to the grocery store (Carrefour), has scored high on my list of favorite things. They have tons of all organic fruit including: every different kind of mango, banana, papaya, and

 the world's biggest avocado!

Today me and cute little "J" went on a flower photoshoot. Here's what we came up with:

I'll try and update pictures more often.
Bye!

Hi! I leave tomorrow for Campinas, Sao Paulo and am going to try and use this for pictures and what-not to keep my family and friends updated while I'm gone. Wish me luck!