Seattle to Newark to Sao Paulo to Pizza

Whew! Here I am writing from Sao Paulo and I can hardly believe it! My last week was craaaazy--several papers to turn in and a final to take before I could even think about packing or heading to Brazil to celebrate my dear cousin Grace's wedding to the wonderful Andre Serpa. Here's the lovely couple:

So after 2 hours of sleep Monday night, Ruth and I left Seattle at 7:20 a.m. on Tuesday morning. It was 14 degrees F. when we left! brrrr! We were sure excited to be headed to the southern hemisphere for a little bit of summer. Oh and here was our little amusement in the Sea-Tac airport:

With a 6.5 hour layover in Newark, we enjoyed spending the time with Ruth's dear friends Gary and Denise who drove 3 hours to see us.

Gary and Denise are such godly and encouraging people and it was a blessing to be able to spend the long hours talking to them and enjoying their company! We ate at Chile's, Denise brought tea and macaroons for dessert, and then we played some speed scrabble--a little hard to do when your brain is suffering from lack of sleep, but still fun. What a wonderful way to spend a layover!

Here we are getting ready to leave Newark:

And here we are after an evening of flying through the night. Thankfully we both popped a niquill and slept a good 5-6 hours! Fantastic!

Customs took a little while, but thankfully since Ruth's conscience dictated that we should declare our beef jerkey (gifts for the Portelas) as a food item, we ended up in the shorter line and found our smiling Aunt and Uncle as soon as we were free to enter the country. Then we walked with them to the other side of the airport to wait for our parents to arrive. Within a minute of getting to their arrival gate, they came out too and we were all together once again! Uncle Solano bought some beautiful flowers for mom and we spent the time waiting for our driver to come pick us up talking and catching up and taking pictures:

The funny thing was, that the driver who had dropped off Tio/Tia went to park somewhere but never came back to get us and he wouldn't answer his phone! Soooo we hopped in 2 taxis which took us home through the crazy Brazilian traffic. At home we saw Uncle Solano's parents, as well as David and Taara, and met little Lucas for the first time! He is adorable! (Sorry didn't take a picture yet, but I'm sure you'll see plenty of him through the week!) but the poor guy was a little overwhelmed by all the fawning adoration of his cousins and great aunty. He warmed up to us soon enough though. After a quick lunch and shower, we headed off to see Grace at her apartment and then on to dinner of pizza with the whole family. Yum! This was a place that I went to several times with the fam when I lived here but haven't been to in about 8 years. It is all you can eat and the waiters just keep coming round with the most interesting combinations of Brazilian pizza. It is definitely different from American pizza!

Our favorites included a kind of Brazilian cream cheese called Catupiry. Ruth really liked the one with scrambled eggs on it, and of course you can't go wrong with the dessert pizzas! And you most definitely need to use your fork AND knife when eating pizza in Brazil.

Here I am in love with my chocolate/banana pizza. yum!

What a long but wonderful day of enjoying our friends and family! We are truly blessed and thankful for a safe trip and the joy of family reunion. Tomorrow we will be spending some time with Gracie at school and then doing some wedding things. Also Darius and Jenn join us from California tomorrow so that will be another great addition to the family festivities!