U.S. Trip and Back to Brazil!

Bella and Rufus

Summer!

Brian and Jack--this is pretty much what we did in the U.S.!

Okay, so I thought I should start this post by looking like a crazy dog lady! I took very few pictures this summer, and the ones I took are mostly of dogs...hmmm.

So, we just returned from a month in Atlanta. It was absolutely wonderful. We did a LOT of dog cuddling (obviously) and spent tons of time with friends and family. During the last week there, I also turned into a professional Brazilian shopper. We took one fun trip to Athens and one fun trip to Savannah, but stayed still most of the time (other than bouncing between 2 houses and 3 families!).

It was sad to leave. But I feel like we spent good quality time with the people we love the most. Next year, I want to make sure to swing by Minnesota and Wisconsin to see the rest of the family.

So, we took the lovely Atlanta-Charlotte-Rio de Janeiro-Sao Paulo-Campinas route back on Wednesday/Thursday. We were told that our carry-on luggage (which had to be gate checked in Charlotte) was lost, so we spent the whole night flight worrying. BUT, it turned up in Rio thank God. So other than that, the trip with 5 huge bags and 2 carry-ons was as easy as can be. Since I am moving back to 2nd grade this year, I brought a ton of my old 2nd grade books and other things with me. Hopefully we won't have nearly as much stuff with us next year!

Getting back to Campinas has been nice although WEIRD without many of our old friends here. It has been absolutely beautiful weather here, so the "winter" is pretty great. 

We met most of the new teachers on Friday night, and it is a HUGE group. Everyone seems really nice and positive, so that is a relief. It is going to be pretty nice to not be the new, lost teachers at school this time around. Although, with the grade-level change, there is a bit of that.

Tomorrow, we will take all of our stuff to school, and then we'll have a week to unpack and set up our new classrooms. Brian will have a BRAND NEW classroom (so jealous), and I will be finally moving in to the elementary building, so we have lots of unpacking and organizing to do. I will post some pictures as soon as it's all done.

Maybe, just maybe, I will blog more this year. I have high hopes for this school year. We are much more established and settled than last year, we have an idea of how to get around and do most things we need to do, and we have a car. Which is huge. The learning curve is not nearly as steep.

Now that we are heading back to school, it's time to start planning some fun trips for this year.

Here we go!