He's Got the Whole World....

This is by no means the best picture we took at Iguaçu, but I think it says the most. D & M spent a lot of time just looking up, and down, and up, and down. They loved standing out there at the end of the platform, getting sprinkled with water. I wondered what they were thinking. I wondered if it was anything about how lucky we are to have this experience, how few peers have ever done anything this cool. When we finally drug them away, D was humming "He's got the whole world in his hands..." The answer to my question.

More on Iguaçu

Here are a few more pictures to share from Iguaçu.

This is a really good shot of the walk ways that took you to the edges of the falls. Both Brazil and Argentina took you up close, where you could feel the water spray, and the intensity of it all. The whole trail has outcroppings like this.

This was taken from the Argentina side. It was an amazing site. It was a deliciously green valley, separated by crystal, forceful rushing water decorated with a vibrant rainbow. Amazing. More than once on this trip I just had to stop and gawk. Not because I couldn't believe God could create something so amazing, but you have to pause and really appreciate it, be grateful, and make a memory.

This spot is called The Devil's Throat. It's amazing......massive amounts of rushing water. You can feel it in your chest several hundred feet before you get to this overlook.

The kids and I at the overlook for The Devil's Throat. It was built literally over the waterfalls. If you look straight down anywhere on the platform, you saw water plunging below you.Some of us who still had energy after two solid days of walking ventured the trails below the falls and the 300+ steps to go with them. New and amazing views. We were not disappointed. It reminded me so much of Hawaii. And then, not at all.

Just to prove that we were all there:

Travel Warriors

I think my kids are pretty good travelers. They sometimes fare better than their parents. But they've had a lot of experience. In the first year of Daniel's life, he never spent 2 months straight in his own bed. We were always on the road. (I'm not talking about Mediterranean cruises and Disney World vacations here...we spent our time wisely seeing the best attractions the USA has to offer....pumpkin patches, wheat harvests, apple picking, Grandmas and cousins.)

However, since we've moved here, we've never been more than 1 hour from home. I don't know why that is exactly. We were busying settling in to our house, then settling in to our new house. We were not familiar with the language. We were not familiar with the map. We didn't even know where to go. Admittedly, it was easier for me to stay home. DaddyHealy, on the other hand, has had a bit of Horizontina-fever...ready to get out of town, and see, do, eat something different. One of the many blessings of Grammy-cation was the incentive to just get out there and do something. Before DaddyHealy left to pick them up at the airport (about a 7 hour drive), our charming mini-van had a mere 2,800KM (that's 1,740 miles) on it. When we got home from dropping them off at the end of their visit, the odometer showed 6,900 KM (4,287 miles). That's 2,500 miles in 2 1/2 weeks! Like driving from Philadelphia to Los Angeles (most of the time averaging 42 mph). We drove a lot, we saw a lot, we ate a lot, we shared a lot, and slept very little.

Well....okay, except H. She was more creative in her napping. Some expat friends loaned us this backpack carrier and it was the perfect thing for H. She was contained, safe, and could see everything. She loved it, well....as long as she was being carried by me. H is truly an extension of my own self. She likes to be held or touched constantly by Momma. We worked out a system where I'd carrier her till she fell asleep and then we'd pull a switch-er-roo on her and Daddy would carry the sleeping baby. Tricky parents.

This picture of M just cracks me up. It's as if she were trying to collect Argentinian germs for souvenirs.

H has never in her life asked to go to bed. But we completely and utterly wore her out on this trip. Every time we got to a hotel room, she'd say "bed, bed!" and reach out for it.

D & M were even more exhausted. They didn't get the benefit of daily naps. We had early mornings and late dinners. Here I think they were so tired they forgot to fight about who is touching who, or who has more share of the pillow.

Story Time

The great thing about having a Grandpapa who loves to read is that he also loves to read to you. We've never read to the girls the way we read to D....it just seems there hasn't been time. A poor excuse, but our excuse just the same. But M loves books. What child doesn't? And now that D is a very confident and able reader, he not only reads to himself, but sometimes his sisters. We also find that here there is less demand on our time, and therefore more time to read. But M has never known a lap that is always available for a snuggle and read. Bless Grandpapa, he provided that. And M was quick to catch on.

Vigilance

DaddyHealy spends some time listening to Brazilian radio. It's interesting, good for language development, and he says the tunes are really catchy. I have to agree. It is not uncommon on a Saturday morning for him to be wandering around the house repeating 5 or 7 words of a song in Portuguese. D & M have also picked up on this. In fact, music here is very big. People love to sing and to dance. Karaoke is huge. At town festivals there is always an opportunity to get on stage and sing. As a result, we hear the same 2 or 3 most popular songs over and over across town on nights of festivals. At school the kids have music class, which sometimes includes songs similar to "The Wheels on the Bus" and "B-I-N-G-O", and sometimes it's a guy with a guitar taking requests and playing mainstream pop while the whole class sings along.

I like that there is no inhibition to use your talents (or in some cases, lack thereof), I like that boys dance at the school Christmas program without embarrassment. I am not sure I like that 4th grade girls have MP3 players and cell phone ring tones of the most popular songs on the radio. And I know I don't like that M came home from school this week singing one of the most popular songs. She said she learned it on the merry-go-round. It is tempting to be thrilled...."She's learning Portuguese!" But the prudent parent in me knows better. D is 6 and M is 4. I want to know what they are singing.

So, we spent the morning googling and translating the lyrics of the 2 songs that have most captured the attention of our children. It's not great, it's not terrible either. It's no different than what they might be singing from American radio. They don't understand the meaning of the lyrics, they probably wouldn't understand the meaning even if it were in English. But that doesn't change how I feel about my daughter singing, "The prettiest girl walked in front of me and I got closer and started to say, Delicious, Delicious, I swear you're going to kill me, I'm going to get you..."

I am not naive enough to believe this wouldn't be a problem in the US as well, but here it is easier to overlook because you don't completely understand the lyrics nor the nuance. It takes more vigilance.

Iguaçu Falls

We have seen some amazing things in our lives, but we were not prepared for this breathtaking view of God's handiwork.

Iguaçu contains over 270 separate waterfalls. It rates up there with Victoria and Niagara in the well-known department, and has been listed as one of the list of Seven Wonders of Nature. It's easy to see why. It lies between Brazil and Argentina and we spent a day on each side. On the Brazil side we saw jungle, tropical birds and wildlife, and amazing panoramic views of the falls. On the Argentina side, we played a game of "keep away" with the monkeys and coatis, who were trying to swipe our Doritos and we felt the water spray, the power, heard the roar and saw more rainbows in one day than in our whole lives combined.

Grammy-cation

Grammy and Grandpapa are here for a visit. Oh the joy! It's been a week and a half and the kids are still giddy.

Because there are precious few days the kids get to spend with them this year, we decided to take them out of school the whole visit.

I was mentioning to a relative that the kids were out of school for a while, and he (not realizing this was a Healy-only holiday) mentioned that the US is currently enjoying "Spring Break," but since it is fall here, he wondered what our vacation was called....

I assured him that we were going to have the best "Grammy-cation" on record!