It's finally warming up again! Yay! I mean, I don't mind a little cold every now and then for variety, but it's been at least a week now and I've had it. All that extra clothing is so... annoying! Cooling off at night is nice, of course...

Nothing much of interest has been going on in my life lately. I'm just working kind of a lot. We went to a cool Japanese festival a couple of weeks ago with Taiko drums and things for the kids to do, and it was pretty cheap, too! That was fun. It's to experience Japanese culture on occasion even now.

I can't believe Thiago's almost 4! (Next month.) Even though the school year doesn't start 'til August, I need to do the research for getting him into some kind of pre-school program NOW if I want any hopes of not having to pay an arm and a leg for it. I hope he'll be ready. We do "school" here at home sometimes and work on some basic stuff, and he's getting better at sitting still for awhile to do it. Boys! So ants in their pants!

I'm off tomorrow and the next day, so I'm trying to figure out some fun but simple things we could do as a family. Bowling, maybe? We went and played miniature golf a couple of weeks ago. It's great to finally have kids old enough we can do stuff with! Babies are adorable, but they aren't much for going out and doing activities with... I think I'm starting to have fun with this parenting business...

At least I'm safe inside my mind... -SpongeBob

So, not to be completely anti-social or anything, but I don't seem to have much time for minti any more! Especially with Christmas just around the corner, there just doesn't seem to be time to get on the computer and just hang out. Ah well.

Genesio and I went out and got lots of Christmas shopping done today! Yay! My feet certainly said yay by the time we were done! I've gotten a bit sick of the overdone fashion statement of flip-flops for everything in this region and wore real shoes today. Arrgh. It wasn't too bad, actually, but I was ready to come home by the time we did.

I must say the weather is really excellent here right now. It's nice and warm during the day but then actually cools off at night so that we can sleep comfortably. It's great to be away from the air-conditioning time of the year!

I guess I'll post some photos since that's become my habit now. Here's our annual Christmas photo:

Here are some photos from my dad's visit a couple of weeks ago. We went to the city of St Augustine which is a really awesome city! I'd definitely recommend it if you want to get a teensy taste of Europeanesqueness here in the States.

Here we are all freezing to death (it was 50F/10C and we're unaccustomed!) waiting for the trolley that takes us around to arrive.

This is my dad and his wife with the kids next to the original gate to the city and the pedestrian zone in the background.

Not a great picture of us, but I thought the building the background was nice. It used to be a fancy hotel, but now it's part of the college there.

So! Call me slacker, but that doesn't mean I don't wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah and Happy Kwanzaa, too! Happy New Year since I probly won't get back on and write anything before then!

Wow! December 1st already! Time flies!

Life's been busy for me. I'm still working a fair amount, although I had a pretty quiet week last week. I don't think that's going to continue as we get closer to Christmas though!

We went to a Brazilian festival last week and that was pretty fun. I was a little nervous about the part of town it was in, but we left before dark and there were plenty of police patrolling the area so we got out safe. We did see a couple of kids being arrested on our way back to the car though. Lovely.

We watched capoeira (Brazilian martial art) there and Emily was totally fascinated with it! She had to tell everybody about it afterwards and while we were there she'd want to stop and watch every time they formed a new circle and performed. I'm sticking in my video of it, but it's not very good quality cuz I just did it on my phone.

Here's a link to a good video of some capoeira.

Both kids got their faces painted, too, although Thiago's looked the coolest.

So that was our excitement for the duration. Now it's time to start thinking about Christmas I spose. We got all the decorations out yesterday, but that's about it! I'm slow to get to it, but I'm sure the kids'll make sure I get 'em up soon! I feel like I need to clean first, and I'm ALWAYS slow to get to that!

So, of course I should be getting some work done and here I am goofing off on Minti instead. Sigh. There's no hope for me.

We went to a Japanese garden yesterday that was really nice. It was kind of nice to be exposed to some Japanese culture again, as I haven't been around anything even remotely Japanese (Naruto doesn't count!) in several years. I resisted the urge to by a set of chopsticks (Thiago thinks they're for playing with and I get tired of arguing with him) in the little gift shop, and bought chocolate covered cracker-sticks that I used to eat ALL the time on my commute instead. Aahhh...good times, good times.

I can't believe Thanksgiving's right around the corner! I dunno if we're gonna have much of one cuz Genesio will probly have to work. I am thinking of inviting my Japanese student to join us (for...whatever) but she's a vegan and I'll admit I'm a little perplexed as to what I might feed her. Lots of mashed potatoes! We get along though, and she's not going back home for it, so it'd be nice to have her over. She can have Thanksgiving with us since my husband might not be able to make it. Sheesh.

Some photos: