Holy Cow!

So this might be the most random and unpleasant post yet, but it's part of the culture here so I just have to include our experience from the weekend. Don't get me wrong, this isn't something that all Brazilians do or do every day, but it's certainly common and normal here What is it? Stock up your freezer with a grass-fed cow. In the States people are always talking about the importance of being more organic, natural, etc. Well here in Brazil it's not hard at all to get as close as you want to be to all-natural food. This weekend we got REALLY close when Jeyson's parents had one of their cows slaughtered. (Warning...pictures of mass amounts of meat ahead!)

The Brauns hired someone to come slaughter the cow (which I did NOT see!), but we then spent 4 hours the next day putting pieces in bags for the freezer.


Here is the hired help cutting up the larger sections into small ones. If this seems unpleasant to you, this is what we see all the time at the butcher anyway when you buy meat! I guess we get desensitized!

Jeyson's mom and brother-in-law bagged

Jeyson's sister labeled

And though there is no picture, Jeyson and I used my Kichenaid mixer grinder attachment to make ground beef. To me, this was the best station since the meat already looked like good, dead meat :) We ground about 45lb of beef! The mixer didn't skip a beat. I seriously think a kitchenaid mixer is a basic, necessary tool for missionaries with all of the from scratch kitchen work we do!

Later the freezer was loaded up...with about 175lb of beef (not even including ribs, etc)! The picture below is not even a fraction of the total!

After the umm...interesting?? day, I realized just how far I've come in life to adapt to my new reality. Maybe in some farm parts in the States this is common, but up until I moved to Brazil, I had always been a city mouse :) God really did a work in my heart for me to adjust to all of the new things we do here! It was quite an experience and the reward for making it through...we now have about 20 lb of good quality beef in our freezer here at home and I'm sure Jeyson's parents will load us up again when we run out. Totally worth the work!

His Perspective

I love when Jeyson takes the camera with him so I get the chance to see what his day looks like from his perspective. It's wet season here, meaning it rains almost every day. Flights are much harder to fit in between storms so it's the perfect time for some serious maintenance work. Here's a glance around the hangar these days:

Lots of projects and inspections underway...

One of the newest mechanics, Andres, who is from Columbia lost behind an engine

Dan and Bruno -

I'm sure Jeyson could tell you just what they're working on in the engine, but all I can say is it looks intense!

Everyone busy at work...

Including the best looking mechanic at the mission...

But I'm a little biased :) Thanks, Jeyson, for letting us tag along today!

It Happened!

I can't believe this little guy is going to be 2 months old tomorrow. The time is going SO fast! It's been incredible and incredibly tiring at the same time :) But Wednesday night it happened...Elijah slept through the night! Pretty impressive for an 8 week, nursed baby! Thursday night he woke up once, and again Friday and Saturday night he made it through the whole night again. We're 3 out of 4!

I'm not sure if it's me (mostly) following a babywise routine, if it's his new Woombie swaddle, or if what his shirt says really is true...
(hard to read but it says "Mom's Little Man") But either way, I'm LOVING it! The first morning I woke up and looked at the clock and saw that it was 6:30, I wasn't sure if something was wrong or if maybe I had fed Elijah in my sleep and couldn't remember it :) When I realize it had finally happened...the first real solid night had finally come, I couldn't contain my excitement. Poor Jeyson, I woke him up to share the news! I'm so excited to be feeling a little less exhausted!

Mission Retreat

To start this year off, our mission had it's big retreat. It only happens every 2-3 years and this year it was a huge deal because all of the missionaries from all of the bases in Brazil got together. It was tons of fun to see some people again after several years and meet others for the first time. We had a great speaker who really hit the nail on the head with the topics we needed to hear about. It was a great time! This is about half of the mission's missionaries in the picture.

Free time included this zipline that dropped into the lake

And lots of time hanging out with friends.

One of the highlights for us was seeing our good friends Andres and Camila who moved to another base a year and a half ago. We've missed them a ton and it was so fun being together again. We both had our first babies (both boys!) only 5 weeks apart so it was a blast being in this new phase of life together. Tiago and Elijah have no choice but to be best friends.

Me and Camila

Drinking some Brazilian style Mate tea.

The camp was fun, and so was Christmas and New Years (when we were also away from home for 3 days to be with Jeyson's family)...but now we are MORE than ready to get into our routine again and be home without plans to be away for a good while!