Brasil...Here we come!

I just booked tickets for Dez, Cai, and I to spend 8 weeks in Brasil this coming May and June. I am so excited! I will have to remember to pray every day for nothing to interfere with this trip. In our 6 years of marriage, I have had tickets two other times for big trips, but had to cancel both due to job changes, moves, or babies. Last week, Dezi was praying and said, "Please bless Papai to work really hard so we can have enough money to go to Brazil this summer." I hope my boys grow to love it as much as I do.

I think Dezi will do fine with the portuguese, but Cai seems to rely heavily on Dezi for translations. I need to focus on speaking more portuguese. It's a lot easier to get distracted than I ever thought. I think I made two mistakes in speaking portuguese with my kids: 1) Once we started having more social interactions with others, I felt obligated to speak English so the other people could understand, and2) Once Dezi started talking English a lot, I corrected his gramatical errors by repeating his sentence the correct way in English. Somehow, those two small changes let English creep in as our dominant language. I miss the days when Dezi was 2 years old and we spoke 99% portuguese.

As for me, this is the longest in my life that I have been away from Brazil. I never imagined it would be eight long years of separation. I've already had some people react to the duration of the trip by saying, "Two months!", yet I know the truth. The reality is that on that 52nd day when we are driving to the airport, I will be already crying with saudades, longing. Just like every other time I left Brazil, I always leave a part of me there and never feel quite whole again until I return. I eagerly await for the tears of longing that I've randomly shed these past eight years of separation to be replaced with tears of gladness when our plane finally touches down on the soil of my patria amada, my beloved country.