Lisa n Tom (n James n Joseph)

Lisa writes: We walked into the Halloween party at Tom's Tai Chi school about an hour late, me waving my sign and little American flag, and it took the group about three seconds to look up, pause in mid-sentence or mid-chew, and start CHEERING. You'd have thought the real guy had just shown up. They are fans, and patriots, and athletic supports, those Tai Chi students. (Coach Pei in medieval Chinese cheesy movie actor garb.) Tom won first place in the costume contest. He beat out a cave girl and a sumo wrestler and Uncle Sam and a vampire. And well he should because, the fact is, not every guy can pull this outfit off. Or on for that matter. (Yeah, I've already used that line.)

1998 Halloween Originally uploaded by lisa.n.tom . Lisa writes: We make creepy look good.

Tom writes (still about Brazil): We had been diligent little campers and been to Mass on Saturday night and then to the LDS service on Sunday morning, and then it was off to the beach. But on the way, we could not help but stop for a moment as we drove by this... Remarkable! (1 min 10 sec)

Lisa writes: We dropped the kids off at Edivani's parents' coffee farm for a couple of days while we went to Sao Paulo and the beach. Edivani's family has been in the coffee business ever since her great-grandfather came over from Italy. Here is the traditional way to dry the coffee. They spread it out on concrete slabs to dry in the sun. Eco-friendly and free. The drawbacks to this method are that it's slow and sometimes they get rain during the harvest season (like this year -- warning: coffee prices are probably going up. Hoard now.) The family is now part of a co-op to grow, process, and sell their coffee to exporters. They are very proud of two big new pieces of equipment. One is a wood-burning, electric dryer. Faster, and still works even when it's training. The other is a sorter. Coffee is a bean inside of a husk. You roast it, the husk breaks, and then you have to separate the husks and the bean. A bag with fewer husks or pieces of husks is better quality. T...

Lisa writes: Christi's kids again. Christi says, It's Homecoming week for Utah State University. The kids were in the parade yesterday with their gymnastics team. Their "float" consisted of a double-mini trampoline and a full size trampoline on the back of a semi truck. So, they are basically doing tricks down Main Street on a moving trampoline 12+ feet off the ground. Tim & I walked beside them. At one point I heard a lady gasp and say, "Where is their mother?" and someone answered, "I think she's the one holding the camera." They had a great time. Christian's exact words "That was awesome!" P.S. This is Madison's little white belly pointing up to the sky & you have to click here to see Breanna's clip.

Lisa writes: Looking back at these Brazil entries, it appears that we spent 90% of our time talking to friends and seeing the country and only about 10% eating, when, in fact, the exact opposite is true. We ate and ate and ate and ate. Every minute was either eating, recovering from eating, or planning our next meal. I only ran into a couple of food items that were absolutely new and strange. Neither was scary. I'm sure they could have come up with something if they'd tried hard, but our suburban, college-educated hosts would have had to look up the roasted guinea pig recipe on the internet, same as me. First new item, to the right, was [Tom? spelling?]. It's a topping/sidedish of pan-fried corn meal mixed with beans or meat or sausage. Elison's dad (a former professional chef) made it one night with pieces of sliced Portugese sausage and diced mango. It was pretty salty both times I had it. You can either eat it straight or put it on top of your beans and rice. It'...

Lisa writes: In case you were worried about him, Woody Woodpecker is alive and well and living in Brazil . Those 1970s cartoons have been overdubbed into Portuguese and found spectacularly popular new life down south. Brazilian kids LOVE Pica Pau (literally translated "Peck Wood). He's on tv constantly, at all hours. Tom and Elison scored an absolute coup when we brought home this picture for the kids to see.

Tom writes: Before we left, I was kind of anxious about how it would go with Lisa in Brazil because of the language barrier. But as Lisa always tells me, what we worry most about does not usually come to pass. This was no exception. There were (at least) two saving graces. First, Edivani spoke more English than I realized and was willing to try it out. Second, both Edivani and Lisa seemed to hit it off really well. This should not come as a surprise, since she married a good friend of mine and both he and I have similar a similar outlook on life. Here is a picture of the two of them being cute after church... Along more mundane lines, lots of people in Brazil were very entrepreneurial. At the beach for example, there was an interesting vendor. This guy would go around with this box in his hand selling fried bananas and shrimp. The catch - there was a small (and hot!) oven in the bottom of the box to keep the food warm (apparently the beach was not warm enough already...) And n...

Lisa writes: 'Tis the season for the Trashbag Spider! We've had more hits on our blog from people looking for trashbag spiders (or trash bag spider or garbage bag spider) than any other thing. So, here you go, trashbag spider seekers. Click and click again and enjoy! P.S. Second most popular search? "Goat pants." Who ARE these people?

Lisa writes: All Brazilian passenger cars are dual-fuel. They can run on gasoline or straight ethanol, or any mix of the two. The ethanol comes from sugar cane. Ethanol is cheaper, but you get worse mileage, so basically you just watch the pump and see what the prices are that day. A sampling of what we saw on the road, from top to bottom and left to right: Motorcycles (lots and lots), Volkswagon Gol (Golf), Renault Clio Volkswagon Savero pickup truck, VW Bug, Fiat Palio Fiat Idea, Fiat hood ornament, Renault hood ornament

Lisa writes: The story of Èlison's car didn't turn out as neatly as we hoped. Yes, they got the door bent back into shape, but in the process it won't open anymore. Then, a couple of days later, the other back door locked shut and refused to open any more. The electronic lock fizzled out. So, for the rest of the trip, "the girls" (me and Edivani) had to climb into the backseat through the front seat. We got pretty good at it. It's funny what you can get used to. The real test will come after we leave and they have to figure out how to stuff two kids and two babyseats back there.

Lisa write: We left Varginha on Friday with Èlison and Edivani -- without the kids -- for a couple of nights in the big city of Sao Paulo. I'm not kidding about the "big." It's a bajillion million people. Huge shopping centers and people in Land Rovers. Slums slapped together from plywood and carboard boxes and kids offering to wash your windows at stoplights. And everything in between. We stayed at the Formula One Hotel. The rooms were the size of a walk-in closet, but very new and clean and cleverly designed, á la Ikea, to have everything you need within -- literally -- arm's length. (Important cultural note: "Hotels" are legit and charge by the day. "Motels" are something else and charge by the hour.) Friday night, we hit a super-de-duper fancy churrascaria with guys in gaucho pants (and the southern Brazilian accent to go with them) serving big slabs of meat from skewers. It was so fancy, the restaurant sends a car to pick you up from your ...

Tom writes: And here is where we have been staying for the last few days. Too bad we are leaving for Sao Paulo tomorrow. :-(

Lisa writes: About eleven years ago, Tom was studying Portguese and happened to hear a sermon from a visiting priest from Brazil. He went up to talk to him afterwards and ended up getting invited to visit the priest's community. Tom took him up on the offer and stayed for six months. Through that visit, he met Élison and Edson and everybody else he knows in Brazil, and that´s how I ended up being were I am today. (Tonight. It's late.) Padre Pepe, as everyone calls him, looks like Bob Newhart and acts like the Energizer Bunny. He has big plans. He rounded up funding and donations and built a nine-building community out in the middle of nowhere. Here's the current building under construction. It has living quarters for 40 people downstairs and a chapel upstairs. Padre Pepe and Tom. The view. Click to appreciate fully. They got nailed with hail and gale force winds about a month ago. Took the roof right off the big open air chapel. (Élison's brother-in-law, who was nice ...

Lisa writes: Just because I thought he was cool. There are finches and yellow pet store canaries flying around, and lorikeets, and these things that they call scissortails. They're black and white with ridiculously long, forked tails. This guy, though, was the coolest of them all.

Lisa writes: Every time Tom is in Varginha, he gets a haircut at this place. It's three brothers who run a very tiny, very busy little shop right across the street from the E.T. plaza downtown. Tom is a trusting soul. Ignore the sad face here. He LOVES getting his hair cut. And these guys pay more attention to detail than any other haircut I've ever seen. It took 30 minutes and, I swear, they examined every individual hair.

Lisa writes: Bad thing. We woke up yesterday morning to find that some jerk had tried to use a crowbar to wedge open the back door of Élison's car. Didn't get the door open -- and there wasn't anything to steal in the car even if he had -- but it bent the the door open a couple of inches and scratched the paint. Ugh. Yesterday was also a city holiday, so there was nothing to do but tape a garbage bag over the gap in case of rain. Good thing. Tom and Élison managed to bend the door back a little bit, which made them think it might be repairable. They took it to the shop this morning and not only can it be repaired, but it will only cost R$50. That's US$25! So, bad news is that people can be jerks. Good news in that Brasilian cars are made out of tin foil.

Lisa writes: Day trip to visit another of Tom's old ministry friends. Edson (not to be confused with Èlison) is a campaign advisor. (Note: The Portuguese word for "advertisement" is "propaganda" so basically it's ALL propaganda around here.) In fact, it seems like the two main industries in town are coffee beans and politics. The three amigos: Edson, Élison, Tom. Edson's family: Dad, João Vitor, Sara, and Andreia (she's a lawyer). Note the highly popular DoodlePads. No stupid monster books this time. We learn. Walking around the lake. Churrascaria -- Brazilian steakhouse. Click on this one to see the great heron trying to take advantage of the fishermen.

Lisa writes: La familia Santos. The whole gang. Eliane, the oldest. Me with Lucas (2) and João Pedro (4). Vovo (grandpa) and João Pedro. Edivani, Elison's wife and mother of the kids. Elison and Lucas. Trying to get a pic of Vava (grandma) with some toddler interference. Tom and the DoodlePad, which went over like gangbusters... ...Unlike the Little Golden Book´s copy of "There´s a Monster at the End of This Book." Anybody remember that one? It's Grover, from Sesame Street, saying "Don't turn the page! There's a monster at the end of this book!" and then you get to the last page and it turns out the monster is just Grover. I remember thinking it was a funny book, which is why I picked it up at Target before we left. Perhaps my memory is a little off, because it scared the kids to tears! Whoops.

Lisa writes: Church on Sunday. Very nice medium-size chapel on a steeply sloped street. See the angle of the sidewalk at my feet? The whole road goes down like that.... ... and then back up. (Hard to appreciate in these pics. Real easy to appreciate when you're walking them in heels!) Sunday was also an election day in Brazil. All the mayors and city council members were up for election. There were literally thousands of people on the ballots, and all of them had posters, flyers, and cars driving around blasting music. One guy even dressed like a clown and shook hands with people going into the polling station. (He won.) Pile of flyers. This is illegal, by the way. No littering. Also, voting is mandatory. If you don't vote, you don't get arrested or anything, but it goes onto your public record. Makes it harder to get a loan, for example. The elections were peaceful. Maybe partly because all the bars were closed for 24 hours beforehand. But once the results were in, the...