Memorable things from our Christmas season

In no particular order...

1. Rudolph hunting!

This picture was taken on our last official Rudolph hunt of the season, December 23rd.  This was an extra special night.  Mike surprised the kids by pulling into Starbuck's to get them hot chocolates!  We found 25 Rudolph's that night!

2. Driving "yike Mater (as in Tow Mater from the movie "Cars")".
A new tradition at the end of our Rudolph hunts, only on pretty dry and not icy nights...


Drivin' yike Mater from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

3. Paige earning over $100 to send to children in Ecuador by selling her artwork and by doing extra chores.  One day she spent 4 hours raking and picking up leaves.

Here she is with her owl, rainbow, and kiwi pictures she sold to Daddy.

4. Jonah's favorite Christmas gift was a Spiderman toothbrush that has a suction cup at the bottom.

He attaches it to just about any smooth surface he can find, uses it to open and close drawers- it's a pretty cool tool.  Jonah has been marveling at how well the elves made and painted the toothbrush.  Who would have thought a toothbrush would top his list?!

5. Nana's elf hats.

Everyone in the family got an elf hat (made by Nana) to wear for Christmas.  The kids got their hats soon after Thanksgiving and Jack has worn his hat for almost every hour of every day since.  We have even caught him sleeping in it!

6.  Seeing the lights.

For the second year in a row, we went to the lighting of the Clam Lights at Gene Coulon Beach Park.

We also took a trip to downtown Bellevue for their "Snowflake Lane" with Aunt Barb and Grandma.  Drummers drummed, music played, characters (including Rudolph!) walked about, and (man-made) snow fell!

7. Of course spending time with our family and friends is here!  We didn't forget you!  But, we just don't have many pictures... and there are some of you who don't want the world to see you. We love you all!

1999 Toyota Tacoma

Well we did it. We finally caved and decided we couldn't continue to have only a five seat car (would be a tight back row as the kids get older too) and my truck. So, as the timing was right, and we had the opportunity to buy a very good maintained (mechanically speaking) mini van at auction price, we took the opportunity. So now Julie is driving a 2006 Chrysler Town and Country; 7 passenger. It is pretty nice, and we are already happy we bought it. But that is not this story, this story is about the other two vehicles we had and what we were going to do with them.

Julie and I are really not into having a lot of stuff. We are constantly talking about what we can get rid of next to simplify our life's further. So the idea of having three vehicles for only two drivers didn't fit. However, we were both fondly attached to our current vehicles. Julie had a 1998 Subaru Legacy Outback, and I a 1999 Toyota Tacoma. They were both in great condition, neither had ever been in any major accident, they both had 96,000-97,000 miles on them (remarkably low given the age), and both were running great and showing no signs of major problems in the short term future.

But in the end Julie won, and we decided the smart thing to do was keep the Subaru. The van does not have all wheel or four wheel drive, so we really wanted something that would be good for the family to take into the mountains or even just the snow. My truck won't cut it for five. Even for four it will be a little tight in another year or two; the back seats are pretty small. On top of that, the Subaru gets a little better gas mileage, and had a much lower residual value. So we sold my truck.

The truck was the first major purchase of my life. I took out a loan to buy it, but quickly paid it off within the first six months. When I bought it, I was so excited to have a nice new vehicle. About a month later, I felt like I had wasted money, and should have bought something a few years old. I then decided I would drive the truck until the day it totally died, and would proceed to walk home when it happened. I figured that would be around twenty years. I made it half way, but also now believe if I stuck to that commitment, I would realistically have driven it until I couldn't drive anymore, Toyota's really are that good.

So why a post about a truck. First, I wanted too; ha, maybe you should be asking why you are reading a post about a truck... Really though, this truck was a huge part of my life. We drove away from our wedding in it. I used it as the primary moving truck when I moved into the Hitchings basement apartment with Julie, and again when we moved to our first and then second (current) house. I don't have many Scuba diving or hiking trip memories that didn't include the truck at some point. Even the silly things that happened or didn't are great memories. When I first bought the truck (well really until the day I sold it) I didn't like people eating in it, I was a little freakish about keeping it clean on the inside (the outside not so much). Mason (Hitchings) who was probably around four or five at the time we lived in their house used to love to joke with Julie about everything they were going to eat in my truck; 'We'll have ice cream, and put lots of chocolate sauce on it, maybe marshmallow cream, it will be so sticky and good...' And then how much Paige and Jonah would love to ride in the back, just as I was moving stuff from the house to the back of our property. They found it so exciting to be in the open air, without any restrictions, moving. The last great memories though are with Jack. Jack is obsessed with vehicles. Jack wants to ride in or drive just about every different vehicle he sees; the reason he calls motorcycle's "Jack-do!" But Jack had a certain fondness for my truck. I think a little because he didn't get to ride in it much. The back seat is not big enough for a car seat, only a boaster, and he isn't really big enough for that yet. So imagine a kid obsessed with vehicles and having one in his garage that he can't even ride in. Every morning when I leave for work he stands at the window telling the others that "Daddy go bye-bye in his truck, daddy truck, daddy truck." I think it was sadder that the truck left, than me. So anyway, when I could give Jack a ride I would; moving in or out of the garage, or moving cars around when changing the oil, etc.


Once sold it though, I decided we all need to take a drive together. So we put Jonah and Jack in the back in booster seats, and then Paige in the front in a booster seat. This left the hump for Julie. She managed to get both legs into the passenger side, but shifting for me was difficult. We have been in tight cars before, primarily in South America, where the laws are not quite the same as in the states, but this was really the tightest drive we have ever had legally. We only went a few miles looking at Christmas lights, it was nice. Jack was excited to take a real ride in my truck, and Paige was excited to sit in the front for the first time ever (I was able to turn off the passenger airbags).

The next day I drove my truck to work, met the guy who was buying it in the afternoon, and Julie and the kids picked me up that night. I am already adjusting to the car though, not having to shift in traffic is nice, plus the heated seats have been nice with the cold weather we have been having. But, when summer rolls around, and I can't just go pickup a load of dirt, or we can't just throw our backpacks in the back when we leave for a hiking trip, it will be sad again.

The Sweater

A short (but true) story about Paige's fashion sense.

This afternoon I received a phone call from Bubba (Julie's mom). Paige and Jack had spent the better part of the day over there yesterday. Anyway, she wanted to tell me a funny story about a conversation she had with Paige.

As you may or may not know, Bubba is pretty crafty, mostly when it involves a sewing machine. She has sewn quilts for all the kids and Julie, I have some favorite fleece shorts, we have wall hangings, this year we will all have matching elf hats, and apparently she made herself a sweater that she wore yesterday. The list of things she has made really goes on and on, but I think you get the idea.

So I don't have a recollection of the sweater Bubba was wearing yesterday, but as the story goes Paige asked Nana if she liked the sweater. Nana's response was something about it being comfortable and warm. Paige then asked if she made it. The answer was "yes". Then Paige told Bubba (Nana to her) that she should stick to making quilts...

But don't stop reading, the story isn't over yet.

When I was telling Julie this story at dinner tonight, she laughed a little at first, and then Paige turned to her and asked "Well do you like that sweater?" And before Julie even had a chance to answer Paige said "Me neither!"

It was quite a funny moment.

Funny little quotations from today

As we pulled out of the driveway this morning, Jonah noticed the thick fog around us and said "It's blurry outside"!

And then tonight I told Jack that we were going to have burgers and fries for dinner. He then looked at me very seriously and said, "I have my bugger in my nose". Needless to say, he was not thrilled about our plans to have burgers.

Peter Pan

Yesterday, we had a bunch of feathers out (The kids were making these cute little turkeys.) and they (the feathers) caught Paige's imagination.  She decided that a red feather looked like it belonged on Peter Pan's hat.  She went to her room with the feather and in about 5 minutes came out with a  colored, stapled and taped hat, followed by a sword and shield and ship.  I don't have a picture of it, but she even made a flag to go on their ship.  Jonah LOVED being Peter Pan and even insisted upon wearing his hat to QFC (where he got lots of compliments).

I love it when our children play like this.  Happy, creative and together.  I know I have said this before, but I am so thankful that we are all able to stay home and learn and have fun together.  I can't imagine us  missing  out on all of this!

Weird tasting oranges

My mom said that she was tired of looking at the mummy dogs...  Here is some new material!


Peeling Oranges from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Halloween

Happy Halloween!!!

We had a fun Halloween! We started the day trick-or-treating at Bubba's and Aunt Barbs before lunch, and then ate all the candy for lunch.  I tried to get everyone to eat apples and baby carrots, but my efforts were mostly in vain.  In the early afternoon Grandma came over while we were carving pumpkins and brought more candy for the kids.  Then in the late afternoon, we went to a nearby park and did a little Geocaching to burn off some energy.  When we got home, I made a special Halloween dinner; mummy dogs with monster blood to dip in, goblin fingers, and pumpkin pie milkshakes.  It was mummy...

The pumpkin pie milkshakes were really good.

Here are the kiddos in their costumes. Jonah is a lion and Paige and Jack are both butterflies.  Jack was supposed to be a clown, but he doesn't "yike" the clown costume (at least he doesn't like it today).  He wanted to be a butterfly "yike Gigi."  So Jack, if you are reading this as an older boy, just know that we did not make you wear a butterfly costume.  You chose it!

And here are Mike and I in our costumes!  Mike is a clown (wearing the wig and nose from Jack's costume) and I am a fairy godmother (Thanks Bubba for letting me borrow the costume!).  It is so nice having a child who is old enough to take a decent picture!

Our Jack-o-lanterns!

We have very special Jack-o-lanterns this year because we grew the pumpkins!  We only ended up with 3 good pumpkins after those silly deer and other animals who like to poop in our yard trampled and ate the rest...  3 is enough though!

Here is "Jonah's pumpkin."  He helped Mike design the bat.  He didn't like Mike's first drawing of a bat and said, "No Daddy!  That's not how you draw a bat.  It's like this"!  He drew a picture and Mike recreated it on the pumpkin.  It looks cool with the moon behind it.

Paige wanted a more "traditional" jack-o-lantern.

Here it is!

And this is "Jack's pumpkin."  I designed it to look like a clown.  You know, because he was supposed to be a clown.  Mike did all of the carving though!  You cannot see very well from this picture, but this pumpkin had a very curvy shape- a lot actually like Butter the peanut.

So, that was Halloween!  I hope you all had a fun day too!

Butter

This is Butter.

Butter is a stuffed peanut that Uncle Jason and his fiance, Michelle, got for Jack when they visited New York in July.  His tummy says, "I went NUTS in New York".  When Jack received Butter, we told him it was a peanut and he naturally thought of peanut butter which he simply called "butter".  So, Jack started calling the stuffed peanut "Butter" and the name stuck.

Jack LOVES Butter.  He sleeps with him at his naptimes and bedtimes.  Of course, Butter accompanied him to South America!

Here are Jack and Butter sleeping on the overnight flight on the way to Brazil.

And here Jack and Butter taking a snooze on the way back home.

Butter doesn't need a lot of sleep, but he lets Jack snuggle him all night long.  And he does this with a smile on his face.  What a sweet peanut!

And this is Jack sleeping in his BIG BOY BED with Butter!  Jack and Butter have been sleeping on the bottom bunk since last Saturday (and they've slept through the night for the last 5 nights! A miracle!  Jack has now slept through the night 7 nights in his life!  Woohoo!)

Goodnight Butter!

Brasil!!!

Finally! The kids and I got to go to Brazil with Mike! Mike has been working in a small city, Lins, about 5 hours out of Sao Paulo, for almost 7 years now. He has estimated that he has been in Brazil for over 300 days total. We kinda felt left out... I mean, he has a whole other family there! Just kidding. Still, I wanted to see what it was like and meet his friends from Brazil and see the cruddy little hotel room he always stayed in...
The first week of our trip, Mike worked in Lins while the kids and I vacationed at the nice Blue Tree Resort he stays at when he's there. They have a wonderful breakfast, the rooms are very clean and spacious and everyone was helpful and kind even when I mimed what we needed. Nao falo Portugues...
We loved the pool! Actually, there are multiple pools, all connected, that all start out at a hot spring. The water was warm, just perfect for the kids. There were waterfalls, slides, and kiddy spray toys... So fun! Here is small section of the pool. This is the "big kid" end of the kiddie pool. The other side has spray toys and lots of shallow water for the kids to run around in, jump into or practice swimming.

Jonah finally got up the nerve to do the "froggie slide"! Jack actually did this one too a couple of times but would NOT go down the alligator slide because of those scary teeth.

Paige LOVED the curly slide. Mike taught her how to go down on her tummy, face first. She was quite proud of this ability!

Jonah learned to swim without his floaties, although he still likes to wear them for security sometimes. Here is a little video where Jonah is swimming!

Swimming! from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Here the boys are, trying their first "coco." I think all you do is drill a hole in a coconut and stick in a straw and drink. We ordered ours at the pool bar and I didn't see how the hole was made. Jonah LOVED it. Mike and I hardly got any at all. Paigey didn't care. It was not her thing...

In the evenings, we went out with Mike's work friends. I don't have pictures of Silvio and Louise here (even though they are the reason the kids and I came to Brazil! You will see pictures of their wedding soon!).

Here is Alexandre, along with buddy Jonah at the Choppao. We went to the Choppao at least 3 times while we were in Lins. There are 2 restaurants to go to for dinner; The Choppao and the pizza place. We went to the pizza place once.

This picture was taken outside a churrascaria, a traditional Brazilian barbecue place. When we drove in for lunch, Jack saw the horse statue. During the whole meal, all I heard was "Jack on horse. Get on horse. Want to ride da horse". When we finally finished and walked over to the horse, Jack freaked. "No ride da horse. No on! No! No"!

Here is Karina, showing the kiddos a video of her dog that she had on her phone. This picture doesn't show it well, but you know Super Nanny? She looks just like her. And she was really good with the kids too!

Paige, Jonah and Jack all got to try on Alexandre's motorcycle helmet. Paige and Jonah were all smiles, but to Jack this was serious. The boy loves his "Jack-dos" (that is what he calls motorcycles).
After a week of Lins, we headed to Sao Paulo for Silvio and Louise's wedding! So fun!

This is obviously Silvio and Louise getting married. I liked the colorful church! I could say that the ceremony was nice, but I really don't know. I didn't understand much of it! And then I missed the ending when Jack decided it was time to poo in his underwear. Nice.

The reception was a great big loud party. Everybody dances. Not just those few brave ones or those in the wedding party... And they dance all night long while holding a drink in their hand. I don't know how they do this. I am not coordinated enough to even hold a cup in my hand while dancing, let alone drink something out of it that impairs my coordination.

Here is Jonah hugging Talita, another work friend of Mike's.
Louise and our slightly bashful Paige. I don't think there are any shy Brazilians...

A couple hours into the party, costume stuff was passed around. Mike saw this at the other Brazilian wedding he had been to, so we're assuming it is pretty traditional.

Some party entertainment... There was real entertainment (two samba drum bands competed , and the constant dancing and music), but this entertained me as well. Jack loved these votives that were on the coffee table next to the dance floor. After he blew them out the first time, one of the men (who you'll see in the video) would have Jack bring him the candles and he would light them again. There was a lot of lighting. Jack would blow out those candles so quickly! But then I recorded him and he seemed to have a little trouble... Note the drool on the table.

Blowing Out A Candle from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Here is Jonah and Pedro Monte, a guy who used to work with Mike. Fun guy.

Silvio and Louise. Note drinks in hands.

More entertainment. Watch Jonah's eyes!

Light Glasses from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Mike with Silvio. Even though Silvio lives in Brazil, he is one of Mike's closest friends. It was really important for Mike to have us all go to Silvio and Louise's wedding. And they were so happy that Mike and the kids and I could be there for thier special day. We were so happy to be there! I was so afraid of feeling like a fifth wheel here, not knowing many people and not being able to speak Portugese, but I felt more than welcomed. People were so friendly!

We left the party early at about 1 am. In Brazil, the reception lasts all night. Sometimes they even serve breakfast to those who are still there in the morning.

Here are our party animals the morning after...

The morning after the reception, we drove about 6 hours to Ubatuba, a beautiful city on the coast, with the rainforest nestled right up to it. When we got there, we were welcomed in Ubatuba style- with rain. The nickname the Brazilian's have given Ubatuba is "Ubachuva". "Chuva" means rain. We had some beautiful days there though. I think it was just the 1st afternoon/evening and the last full day and the morning we left that the rain was dumping down. Seriously dumping.

We got to do a little hike in the Alantic rainforest!

I know this picture is blurry, but it's all we have of our littlest hiker on this day. He LOVED this hike!

We loved all of the different shades of green and just the lushness of the rainforest. So beautiful.

And we loved "our" beach, the one right outside the hotel. The waves were very calm and the water was shallow for quite a ways. Paige was always getting Mike to take her way out into deeper water and Jack was so happy to play in the shallow water. Jonah, as usual, played mostly in the sand, digging, scraping, mounding, building...that's Jonah!

This is a video of our family on the road out of our hotel in Ubatuba. Boy am I thankful for the roads in our country! There were so many roads that made me feel ill in Brazil. I dreaded this one out of our hotel. By the time we got to the main road, my stomache would just be in knots. The kids seemed to enjoy it though. Oh, and you should see the speedbumps (speedjumps) there! The roads are so bad that the speedbumps have to be that much worse. They were, as Paige would say, ginormous! You could easily lose the bottom of your car if you weren't careful. We did see a few mufflers close to some speedbumps. And they were not well marked, so sometimes Mike didn't see them until it was too late to really slow down.

The Road to Mar e Praia from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

On the rainy day before we left Ubatuba, we decided to go to Projeto Tamar. They rehabilitate sea turtles and then release them back into the wild. We were hoping that the exhibits were inside, but no. We just got wet! I am so glad that our kids are troopers!

The big turtles seemed to love Jack. I remember the same thing when Jonah was this size. Although with him, it was an alligator at the zoo who was eyeing him.

Looking good!

We loved Ubatuba. The rainforest, the beautiful calm beach, the safe feel. I did have a few issues with our hotel that I was glad to leave....I didn't think it was very clean and hated it when the kids or Mike would use the "community" blankets or would undress completely while sitting on the floor or on one of those dirty blankets! Jonah teased me about this by rubbing his little tush on the bedding. Mike licked the blanket. Eew! And for the whole time we were there (a week), I don't think the cleaning lady cleaned on or around the toilet and I could smell pee from the bed. And we were all dirty and stinky because the hot water was not working. And everything was wet and stinky and some things were starting to mildew...But for the most part (really!) it was sad to leave this place after a week. So, we headed off on our 3 to 4 hour drive to Rio de Janiero, which ended up being a nine and a half hour drive! We were stuck in traffic for three of those hours in Rio de Janiero.

We got to Rio de Janiero in the pouring down rain. It rained all night and then the whole next day. Lots of rain. This definitely put us in a bit of a predicament. What can you do in a place when it rains when all there is to do is outside stuff? Not much really. We walked around in the rain and even went to a mall (not my idea of a good time), but we had to do something! When the sun did come out, everyone in Rio de Janiero went to the big tourist places.

I think we stood in line for one and a half hours to get tickets to get on the 1st cable car (there were two cars) to go up the Pao de Acucar (The famous sugar loaf mountain). We expected to just get there and go up and then head to the beach for the rest of the morning. Nope. We got there before 10 am and we didn't get out until 3pm! But it was worth it. Totally beautiful. And I am so thankful to be a North American woman, dressed in casual clothes. Most of the Brazilian women wore high heels. Seriously. Even with shorts!

Here you can see much of the line to get to Sugar Loaf mountain. It isn't really a mountain though. Just a giant rock.



While we were waiting for the second car, we spotted a monkey. See the cute little guy behind Jonah?

Here are a couple of pictures from the cable car rides and the views from the top. This rocks sits out a ways and from it you actually look back at Rio and the beaches. It was quite an amazing view. Here is a family picture we had someone take with Copacabana in the background. Our hotel was right off Copacaban beach. Notice the lady on the left side of the picture. Cut-off shorts and high heels.

A picture of Copacabana.

Looking out the other side to the city center. We never went out to the city center, except driving through in the rain at night when we arrive, but really that's not the point of going to Rio...

This picture looks all the way down to where our first cable car started. The beach is praia vermelha (red beach).

A picture looking back up, on the way down...

Another family picture. This time from the station between the two cable cars, with Sugar Loaf in the back ground.
A picture of just me!!! This doesn't happen that often, it is generally the kids or scenery. That's the city center side in the back ground

Mike with Copacabana in the background.

After visiting Pao de Acucar, we went to the beach for a little while, but the wind was blowing pretty strong and the day was coming to an quick end (it is spring there), so we didn't stay too long. On the way back to our hotel we bought some biscoitos, a popular (cheap) snack sold on the beaches in Rio. There are vendors contatinly walking the beaches that sell you everything, mostly food and drinks, but you could probably buy a car if you stayed long enough. These guys just keep coming by. We just took our biscoitos and ate them in our room.



For our final night in Brazil, we went to another Churrascaria. Brazilian barbeque is so good, and it is rodizio style, where the servers bring the different meats (or sometimes cheese, or even pineapple) to your table and cut pieces off for you. Then they take the meat back to the fire and cook the outside a litle more. It is a great experience, but it is easy to eat too much. There is also a salad bar to start, and of course we had to have ice cream and papaya cream (wow, papaya cream is really good!) to finish as it was our last night. We got one of the servers to take a picture with Paige and Jonah. He even let Jonah hold his knife...

Our last day started with another trip to the beach. This time the sun was really out and the people really started to come out. It was a little crazy. Rio is nice, but the beaches in Ubatuba were better, cleaner, and less crowded. The sand in Rio was "softer" though, so that was a plus. We played for a couple of hours at the beach; Jonah in the sand mostly, Mike and Paige in the water mostly, and Jack and I somewhere in the middle. Jack didn't like the water in Rio much because the waves were crashing to close to shore and were bigger, but this morning he did start to feel a little comfortable and had a good time. A great ending for him.
You see as the people are starting to show up. Remeber this is the off season...



Here we are walking on the Copacabana boardwalk on our way back to the hotel.


Mike took this picture from our hotel window. We really liked how the beach lines up perfect with the reflection of another area of the beach.

After we checked out, we had 6 hours until our flight left, so we headed up Corcovado hill to go see the Cristo Redentor (Crist the Redeemer) statue. We really thought (and had heard) that we could basically drive up to the top, park and walk to see it up close. Remember, the rain though...Yep, if we thought the 1.5 hour wait for the Sugar loaf mountain was bad, this was horrible. It took about 1.5 hours to drive close to the top, because there were so many people trying to do the same thing and basically only a handful of parking spots at the top (people were actually parking on the road, making the road only one lane wide in spots and just walking). When we got there we actually lucked out and got a spot pretty quickly, but then quickly found out there was still an hour line to buy tickets (it is a national park), and then another hour line to take a shuttle the 2.5 km's to the top, you could walk this, but we were quickly running out of time and energy. So anyway, we didn't make it. As we headed back down we took this picture looking up.


Then about 1 mile down, there was a really cool spot that looked out over the whole city again, but also back at the Crist statue. We wish we had been able to see it up close, but really I think this view is better. You can see millions of pictures of it up close, just seach the internet. It was just amazing to see just a large statue standing on the top of this hill looking out over the city! Our pictures don't do it justice.


Finally, on the way back down we made one wrong turn and ended up driving right through a favala (poor housing). It was really sad to see this up close, but it is a serious reality in Brazil and especially in Rio were between 20-25% of the population (over 14 million total people) live in Favela's. We took this picture looking back up at the Favala we drove through.

I think this post is long enough. It was really long trip though, and was hard to decide what to share and what to leave out. We were in Brazil for 17 days. We had a really great trip. I am sure we will be back to Brazil again, so much more of the country to see.