The Brauns in Brazil: The Past Few Weeks

The past few weeks have been jam packed with exciting and fun happenings. Here's a bit of what's been going on in pictures.

Jeyson often rides his bike to the hangar, and occasionally drops Elijah off at preschool class on the way

2 weekends ago was Carnival. That's basically Mardi Gras times 100 here in Brazil, and the whole country gets Monday and Tuesday as a holiday for it. So, we had a really nice 4 day weekend. We had so much great family time. We went to a pool/water park one day, our church retreat another day, Guyana another day, and just relaxed one day. I feel like it's been so long since us really spending good quality, non-busy time together. We were all recharged.

On the way home from one event, we took a stretch stop by this field as the sun was going down.

Even Elijah's preschool class celebrated Carnival. The kids could all come in costumes on day. Eiljah went as a baseball player

And he got some extra decorations for this picture with his teacher (who normally does not have red hair of course)

I thought you might also like seeing what random items us Americans love from Guyana. These are all things we can't get in Brazil that make it exciting to go across the border. Salsa, Kraft Mac and cheese, stir fry noodles, blueberry honey bunches of oats, whole wheat flour, US cake mixes, sour cream and onion dip, peanut butter, shake and bake mix, sweet corn (canned), blue cheese dressing, chinese soy sauce, construction paper, and more. It's always a bit of a treasure hunt there since it's not a "normal" stable grocery store like in the US. The stores are very tiny and depend on trucks coming down difficult dirt roads to supply the shelves. You just never know what will be available or not.

The second half of the week we were busy with guests. Remember our mission's new plane that was stuck in the US due to paperwork issues? After 40 days there, the pilots and plane were finally able to head back to Brazil.

Their first stop in the country is Boa Vista, since we're the farthest city north. Steve and Jefferson stayed at our house and we enjoyed the company, news from the "outside world", and serving them some typical food, and of course helping them get on their way. It was also great to see the plane in person before it headed off to the headquarters base where it will be located.

Then, this past weekend, we headed up 2 hours north and had a wonderful time with our missionary friends, Donna and Eric. They even babysat Elijah for us so we could do some shopping and have lunch together. It was great.

The drive to their house is just beautiful...pictures just don't do justice

We returned home Sunday and we've finally been back in a normal work routine. Some of the administrative duties I had temporarily while one missionary couple was on furlough, have become my regular duties even though they are back. This frees them up for other jobs. And Jeyson has had about 4 out of 20 theoretical classes with our chief pilot to learn the ins and outs of flying in this region. He is also busy on the second airplane's SIDs inspection...which has involved many tasks including painting (before picture of a project below).