reunion, tapioca, and the lost suitcases

so yes my suitcases are still lost.. which means I have been wearing the same clothes for several days now... ok i lie, i went and bought a skirt yesterday for church today.. But let me tell you I look marvilous... but all of this just makes everything funnier, and makes it a real brasilian experience for my parents... but man i am loving it all...smoky smelly clothes included.

everything just seems so familiar, it is crazy. I love speaking portugues again, seeing the brasilian culture again, they are so sweet and so fun and loud. I feel so at home. and hello... can we just talk about being able to see michael again? wonderful!!! and now we can speak portugues together, which is a blast. He is skinnier, but just glows.... we all knew he was basically perfect before hand but now we can just expect him to be translated anyday now :)

he has been taking us all around maçeio, which is soo fun. It was St. John´s day yesterday, that means lots of parties, and drunk people, normal stuff for mike and I, quite an experience for my mom and dad. They are handling it beautifully. It is awesome to see the people He taught, we met the sweetest family tonight who we all fell in love with- especially their 4 year old son. (it is so great being able to hold little kids now.... not like my mission days!!) They all cried when we left and Mike said their goodbyes.

we also introduced my parents to some great brasilian food... tapioca (this is NOT pudding..way better) and rice and beans and forofa and conjica and hmm lots of good stuff. We told my mom she had to eat everything today at lunch or they would get offended (which actually is true) and I think we all laughed to see her eat more food then I have seen her eat my whole life. It is good for her... good practice for mission days ahead of her (eat more sister!!!!)

it has been a blast. i love brasil so much.... i am getting so excited to go to my areas in a few days. but now i am just enjoying to see what a great missionary my brother is.

Tchau ate...

and the adventure begins...

in typical brasilian fashion, we have now been traveling for 26 hours and are not in our destination. Sad, funny, and true...we are still in the sau paulo airport...where I have spent a good 20 hours of my life waiting in the past 6 months...hahaha.

But the adventure really began yesterday when our first flight was delayed... thus missing our connecting flight to brasil... so then we ended up being routed to Chicago.. where we had a 20 minute layover which was spent running through the airport... and obviously our luggage did not make it with us to our next flight to Brasil... and then that flight had problems and was delayed, so we arrived in Brasil late, and with the lost luggage problem, we missed our connecting flight to Maceio... so now we have to wait 8 hours until the next flight. and it looks like maybe tomorrow sometime we will get our luggage...which means no clean clothes for a few days. hahaha.

This is all quite funny in my book, except that I feel bad for my mother who is counting down the hours until she can see my brother. But what is one day when you have been waiting 2 years?

From this I have realized two things- first off, airports and airlines are tricky tricky things, and then with the foreign country factor, its hysterical. Second off, I will never,ever, ever, work for the airlines. It seems to be one huge mess.

So now we are burning time, I think I will go introduce my parents to some brasilian food. Oh the funny times are just beginning. This morning I taught them not to flush down toilet paper.. here in brasil you just throw it away. Mom thought that one was wierd.

A least I am enjoying speaking portugues, even if it is explaining for the 10th time that our luggage has been lost.... haha. And so yes... the adventure has officially begun! YAY!!!

that crazy family

So this is a post for my family. We are crazy... crazy fun!!! Here are some pictures of when I went home and we went biking at Cornado, and played at disneyland. Fun, fun!










Happy times at the Happiest Place on earth... and that chocolate banana is heaven!!

When the light went out

These are actual quotes that I have heard or read at work... all from ESPN magazines or the ESPN channel, (we watch ESPN while we work sometimes) and we worked our way through a whole stack of ESPN magazines the other day when the power went out... but they made me laugh, so enjoy.

From ESPN magazines:

"Sometimes the road to success is not a road."

"Develop a trade like plumbing."

"Studying rocket science is more fun when you have rockets..." (obviously...)

"You may not tie an alligator to a fire hydrant." (an actual law)

"NBA games are being stripped of any aesthetic merits and becoming more and more a battle of monsterlike bodies instead of basketball skills." (a chinese paper)

"It is illegal for married montana women to fish alone on Sunday, and illegal for unmarried women to ever fish alone." (an actual law)

"If I win I'll hug my parents, build a robot, and shave my back. You know, normal stuff."
(shaun white)

From ESPN (during the Eurocup... oodles of fun )

"The German's have been down right pilly wally."

"The future of the italian soccer team rests strongly on his broad shoulders."

"It has all gone disasterdly (does this word exist?) wrong for germany."

Olic... (yes that is his name) it sound like Lichtenstine...

"all hands on deck for Croatia."

"If you were planning to go out for a few minutes, don't. Change those plans."


I feel so enlightened now... Thank you ESPN for the fabulous entertainment.

speaking of....

Speaking of things that are random and crazy that make up my life.... we all know that I have been here at BYU for awhile now. huzzah to that. I really love college, and that is part of the problem. I love taking classes that have nothing to do with my major... Take this next fall for instance, I would love to take several classes that are rather ridiculous... floral design? C.S. Lewis? An HTML internet class? Absolutely unnecessary for my major... but it is just too fun! I would love one or all of these classes, but I fear that I need to graduate...

Speaking of fear... fear not Mom and Dad... I will officially have two more semesters left of college life in a matter of days... Spring term ends next week, something I am absolutely ecstatic about- one because it means I can just work insanely, instead of now where I work insanely and study insanely. Sounds good to me...

Speaking of insane work... yesterday I helped out at photo shoot for Isis Dei, one of the companies I work for... and what did I do? Graffiti. Yes that is right, I took sidewalk chalk and was in charge of drawing designs on the walls... who would of thought that my job would include vandalizing public property? I felt nervous, but the good news is that it is only temporary vandalization... (is that a word?) because the rain will wash it off. Now it just has to rain soon... (oh and the design did turn out awesome!!!)

Speaking of rain, I actually hope that it doesn't rain. Because as a student I got an amazing discount at 7 peaks water park... and I got a season pass... and I have plans on going tomorrow... which is highly important and high on the priority list.

Speaking of high things.... so on Monday night I was excited because I was going to finally go to bed early... and all of a sudden there was an explosion/earthquake in my room... Last weekend I spent a bit of time cleaning out my room, and what did I get for it, on Monday night my two shelves fell down... with all of my books on that... it was hysterical, only because I had just cleaned my room extensively... So I spent an hour or so sorting through books and papers and trying to put back the explosion. I did find some books i hadn't read in awhile, and so it wasn't an evening lost... I laughed so hard too... why is it in my most awkward moments the only response I have is laughter?

Speaking of awkward moments.. So I got a new computer at work, which is SOOOO EXCITING and I was really stoked about it. Nothing beats Macs I tell you... so i am all pumped up about my new computer and the only problem? I couldn't find the on button... I looked, and looked, and .......................looked. I was so embarrassed. What sort of person can't figure out to turn on a computer? Finally I resorted to shame and asked my boss... who pointed it out where I had already looked.... in my defense it is on the back side of the screen on the lower left hand side.. a fairly odd place to put it if you ask me. But the good news is that the computer it turned on, and I was only laughed at for a little bit. (as in all morning)

Speaking of morning... its pretty late....(as in the AM hours of the night) I am really tired.. and I need to sleep. So there you have the news of Felony Melanie.... really no news, just trivial information that makes my life fantastic and blonde... And that is huzzah for sure.

Numbers

So... just for fun, lets just count some of the things of the past 5 years....

apartments lived in: 9

roomates: 28

school credits: 120

classes taken: 50 (wow...)

countries visited: 6

jobs: 5

surgeries: 2

cars: 2

computers: 3

wow.... lots of random things. I think the number of classes is the funniest...