Ola Joao Pessoa!

Flying from Tokyo to Joao Pessoa is no small trip. They're two cities almost opposite from each other on the planet. So we had a 40 hour itinerary, over the international dateline. We left on a sunday morning out of Haneda and our flight attendant was so sweet. She offered to let our kids go in the cockpit with the pilot! Unfortunately they were all being shy, but Pace finally decided to go up with Jake and check it out. I think that he is happy that he did.

The flights went really smoothly with some really long layovers. After about a 13 hour flight we had a 7 hour layover. Customs and immigration took more than an hour. We ate tacos. And then the kids and I rode the interterminal shuttles (which looked like off roading armoured buses) to pass the time. We also enjoyed guessing the different countries flags that decorated one of the terminals. We then ran races down the hallways and caused a fair amount of commotion. And then finally boarded our flight to Sao Paulo. This flight is about 10 hours. When we arrived we were all tired...but we didn't realize how tired. We got cheese bread and sandwiches and pointed out as many differences about Brazil that we could see. Then we proceeded to the gate where the kids fell asleep. When it time came to board we tried to wake up the kids to get on the flight and they we were all truely a wreck. Every child was screaming or crying and we couldn't get them to move. So we finally made it on as some of the last to board and by that point even I was crying because it was too much to handle. The flight attendants were so helpful as our kids refused to be seperated. And all of us fell asleep before the plane took off and slept the entire flight.

We got to Joao Pessoa as the sun was setting. Jake's coworkers came and picked us up and drove us to the hotel. The hotel at first was a bit of a shock as the airconditioning took a minute to kick in and I wasn't used to the halls not being lit inside of a hotel. So I thought I would hate it. But I have learned to love this hotel. In the next couple of days we played at the beach and tried new foods and realized that speaking Portuguese is harder than expected. So many big emotions, and it feels kind of like a rollercoaster. But we love the people here, they are always offerening to help and always congratulate us on our big beautiful family. And the beach has become our place to relax and have fun. Here is a view from our hotel.

This is our first beach day in Joao Pessoa

Here are the marmosets we can sometimes see from our hotel balcony.

And here is a Sunday lunch of feijuada. Grant and Louis especially like this dish. Some other new favorite foods include brigadeiros, acai bowls, cuscuz (think cornmeal couscous), and tapioca (which is tortia-like and usually filled with cheese, meat, or other filling).

We arrived at the very end of carnival so we caught a few of the festivities. Some of the celebrations include drum bands and bear costumes.

We have also walked and biked around our neighborhood to explore (as we don't have a car yet). We found an exercize park the kids enjoyed playing at. We like the cool lizards here. We have a food truck park near us that has some fun photo options.

And I explored a local grocery store and found fruits that I had never seen before. Aparently cashews grow fruits that they make juice from, but you have to be careful handling the fruit.

And our trip to the laundromat included a friendly visit from a crab.

And we got this mazing picture of our kids on our bed.

So there are a lot of changes with our move here, but we're so excited for our new adventure here in Joao Pessoa.