The month of August was a bit of a blur, and by a bit, I mean a complete blur. Why?
1) Apartment Hunting, Contract Negotiations, Packing & Moving:
As soon as the World Cup was over, Michael and I started looking for new apartments. With the addition of Colt and his ever increasing mobility, we had definitely outgrown our old place.
Clearly we needed more space…
We wanted to basically stay in the same neighborhood and remain close to a) Michael’s office, b) Joe’s apartment, c) the grocery store and d) the park. We wanted 3 bedrooms, more space and were hoping for some good, kid-friendly common space in the complex. Long story short, apartment hunting is a challenge anywhere, but Brazil and São Paulo do a few things to make it especially challenging, so when we found “the one,” with everything we wanted, we didn’t let it go!
Date night at Nagayama to celebrate closing on the apartment!
Our old contract didn’t officially run out until October 1st, but we decided to get out a little early and start our new contract on Aug. 20 so that we would be able to move in before my mom arrived (Sept. 1) and we left for South Africa (Sept. 3-17) which would be directly followed the Harpers’ visit (Sept. 20-27).
We decided to move ourselves as much as possible and only hire a truck and some guys for a few hours to move the big, heavy furniture, so once we knew when we were going to move, I started packing boxes at every spare moment — not an easy thing to manage in a small space with a mobile toddler! Add to that testing paint colors, measuring furniture and walls to no end, selling a few items…it’s a lot!
Once we got our keys we painted the walls and starting moving boxes each day. We lived in a small space and didn’t feel like we had that much stuff, but somehow it seemed to multiply with each load we took over. Our first weekend we moved the big furniture. I am still a little traumatized by how difficult the whole process was but let me just say that without our dear (and handy!) friend Trent Hudson, we would never have gotten moved out and in. We still don’t have all of the pictures hung on the walls and I still have some closet type organizing to do, but we got sufficiently settled to hand the keys over to my mom just in the nick of time.
**I’m excited to share a tour of the apartment and complex soon!**
2) Girls’ Weekend / Guys’ Weekend:
The weekend before we moved, we had guys / girls weekend trips!
The boys had been planning their weekend for months. It was affectionately known as “Shooter Weekend” and their itinerary was as follows: Friday: Big steak dinner at 348, our favorite Argentine steak house then pile in the rented bus to ride up to the fazenda (ranch property) where they stayed. Saturday: Paint ball at the fazenda (they had a company come to them and set it up on their property!) followed by a group viewing of the movie, Shooter. Sunday: Bus ride back home.
Shooter Weekend Crew: Trent, Kenneth, Brian, Zach, Brad, Hayden, Jamie, Alex, Joe, Michael, Jeff and Tom!
Michael (obviously) had an absolute blast but (obviously) came home a little rough and ragged.
Some of the wives (5 to be exact) decided to do a little getaway ourselves so we retreated to a beach house a couple hours away for a quiet and relaxing weekend (with babies). It was lots of fun but with my hands constantly on Colt, this is my only photo from the weekend!
Colt and Jack sleeping like champs as Michelle and I pulled up to the beach house Friday night.
3) A Bad Cold:
Unfortunately, I returned home from the girl’s weekend with a yucky virus that made me sick for about 10 days, several of which I hardly even made it out of bed. It was totally miserable and I couldn’t be around Colt for the first couple of days which meant Michael had to help out more at home. All of this put him behind at work and us super behind on the move which just ended up meaning that the last half of August was that much more hectic and frazzled.
4) Rio Half Marathon Trip:
You’d think that for the last weekend in August, our first real weekend in our apartment and the days before my mom arrived, we would stay home, get settled, maybe even relax a little. Instead, we flew to Rio so that Michael could run in a half-marathon with a bunch of our friends.
Colt was just so proud he couldn’t stand it!
The runners! Michael, Michelle, Suzanna, Brad, Bryan & Alex.
It was a really fun weekend with friends.
Colby, Suzanna, me, Brett, Jana, Michelle!
Colt & Michael owning the pool at the Copacabana Palace!
However, just to give you a quick glimpse of the chaos that was our life: on the trip, Michael forgot his running shoes, Colt was getting both of his bottom 1 year molars so he was sick with fever and general pain/misery all weekend and when we were getting on our flight home Sunday night, we realized that we had left one of our bags at security so Michael had to hop off the plane – leaving me with a sick baby for the flight home – and he had to run out, try to find our bag, switch his flight, etc.
Snuggly, sick baby.
And the next morning, just hours after we returned home from Rio, my mom arrived!! We had a couple days of overlap with her to show her the ropes of our new place, all of Colt’s routines, and get her fully acquainted with everything before we took off for South Africa!
Whew – I am exhausted just writing about it all again. It’s crazy that all of the above happened in just a couple weeks but that was the reason for the lack of posts since early August. Lots to catch up on!! More soon on my mom’s visit, our trip to South Africa, our new place and the Harpers visit here and to Rio, but for now, here are some other random moments from July and August:
July: Colt’s 1 year check-up!
Michael with Trent in the Hudsons’ “shop” busy working on Colt’s “Rocking Colt!”
July: Cutie-pie in a bow-tie! Thanks to our talented friend Colby who made it!
July: Michael and I at “Copa da Glitter” Game Night!
The Copa da Glitter WINNING Team!!
July: Rubba dub dub, fun in the tub!
July: Park toys.
July: Park fun!
July: Stick-selfie.
Aug: Family fun at the Pracinha.
Aug.
Aug: Fun dinner at Sallvattore with the O’Connells — Colt’s godmother’s parents!
Aug: Colby’s birthday dinner at the Joneses.
Colt facetiming with Michael at the office, and somehow he figured out how to take a screenshot of the moment! I love it.
Jeans & A T-Shirt 