Goings On

Since I last wrote, Luan finally uploaded all the pictures from his cellphone to the computer. So, here are a few:

once upon a time at an interact meeting
Hellen's front row center, holding the Interact T-shirt
Kyle's and Sven's heads are poking out in the back, behind mine

at Itacare- Hellen, Luan, me, and Kyle
Everyone thinks it looks like a band photo. So we joke that Hellen's on keyboard, Luan is base, I'm vocals and guitar, and Kyle is drummer (damn, I wanted to be drummer!).

Me wearing Sven's ridiculously large rain jacket

Also, I spent Christmas with my host family! Brazilians celebrate on Christmas Eve. So, all dolled up (dress and makeup and such), I went with Sandra, Paolo, Marcell, Luan, and Breno to the grandparents' apartment on the other side of Itabuna- and joined in with 60+ family members from all corners of Brazil.
No joke. The place was crowded. I imagine if you brought together every Thrumston in the history of Thrumstons, there still wouldn't be as many as there were Carvalhos on Christmas Eve 2008.
Brazilians, with their huge Catholic families, don't do gift giving the same way Americans do either. They do a simple secret santa- everyone has an assigned person to buy one present for. In turn, supposedly, they receive one present from their secret friend, or "amigo secreto".
I made Caro, a cousin from Sao Paolo, a scarf, and Sandra threw in some soap perfume lotiony thing from Victoria's Secret.
I received some Christmas bars of soap from Chris, another cousin from Sao Paolo.
I also made Sandra a scarf (she loves it.. ahem), I gave a book to Luan, made a scarf for Hellen, and gave a calendar to Paolo.
I received some more Christmas soap from my host mom. Huzzah for the spirit of giving!

me and a cousin.. whose name is (ready?) Dorris Day.

The Carvalho Brazilian christmas tree

Dorris' mom with baby Anton (not her baby, but the only one in the whole family, so he gets passed around and doted over)

Carol, my "amiga secreta", e Rafael, her fiancee
they're getting married in April. They just had a wedding shower at the beach house yesterday. Lots of food and party games and such. In one of them, Rafael and Carol had to dress up in each other's clothes.. it was some pretty crazy shit.

Tasty Brazilian food