We can't help it.
She's like our first child.

the dot dot dots......

Emily: Hi all...we are back at school this week. It feels good to get back into a schedule. I will now be doing ESL with pre-ks on tuesdays for half an hour. You wouldn't think that five 4 and 5 year-olds would be that hard to control....you would think....

I gave Chad a hair cut the other night...It takes me a while, but he doesn't mind. It really would be easier to use a clipper, but for some reason I have to use scissors. I have to admit that everytime I have cut it I have had to go back and do a couple a "touch ups" the next week....maybe I'm really not that good at it...

I realize that I use the ......s a lot. I get it from my mother. Her emails look like this: Good morning..... went out for dinner with Geri last night. . . . had chicken salad.... . was yummy. . . I hope you are doing well sweetie. . . . . talk to you soon..... mom

I like it.

Chad: Well we just went to Brazil. So now if someone just casually asks, "So has anyone ever been to Brazil?" I would respond, "Why yes, I 've been to Brazil." So that's pretty cool. Brazil is very different from Bolivia. While there we seemed to gravitate towards anything American. I ate more McDonalds (which we don't have in Bolivia) last week in Brazil that I had in the previous two years. We got to eat Pizza Hut and go to Outback Steak House too.

I also learned that I don't speak Portuguese. People would talk to me, and I would have no idea what they were saying. Wa wawa wa wawa Charlie Brown. I couldn't even say yes or no in Portuguese. It's sort of close to Spanish though, so I would just answer them in Spanish and sometimes they'd sort of understand me.

We also spent a couple of days at the beach with several missionaries from Evangelical Church Mission. That was great. I must say that I think there were more people on that beach than there are in the state of Montana. Well, anyway I just wanted to close by saying that yeah I've been to Brazil once. It was sweet.

Chad: Feliz Navidad y Prospero Ano Nuevo, that's Bolivian for Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Well it's been an eventful week. Lots of things to share.

Friday: Mike and I were invited to play basketball at the colleseum by a friend named Silvana. Now last time she talked us into something we ended up playing in a tournament that lasted for about a month. We never knew when the games would be or what time. They would call us and ask us to play in like a couple of hours. We wanted to make sure that all we were doing was playing pick-up games. We went to play and there were these guys that were all members of the Bolivian championship professional team. They were huge. Mike and I played with them for about an hour or so. We would play two on two and then they would rotate new guys in to play against us. Afterward they talked to us and invited us to join their basketball team and play in a South American Championship tournament in Paraguay. They also invited us to a barbecue the next day. We went to that and played two on two against even more of the team. Not to be modest, we won a lot. It was sweet. We only lost one game and it was our fifth straight game in 90 degree weather. I was pumped. We got cut from our high school basketball team, but we were offered a position on a professional Bolivian basketball team. Now we debated and decided to stick with the missionary profession, but nonetheless are stoked about being offered jobs as professional Bolivian basketball players.

Sunday: We almost lost Sage yesterday. Emily had just let Sage outside to relieve herself of any excess fluid. She didn't do anything, so Emily let her back inside. Sage took three steps in the house and peed on the floor. Emily brought her in to the bedroom and I was petting her on our bed. I was ironing my pants and joking about our little Sage. I yelled to Emily in the next room that I'm sure Sage would now pee on our bed because she couldn't possibly be out of juice. I told her that I would outright kill her if she peed on our bed. I laughed looked up and saw her walking diagonally across our bed leaving little dropplets along the way. I then noticed a puddle on my pillow. Like I said, we almost lost her because I just about killed her. New house rule: No dogs on the the bed.