Feliz Natal!!! Merry Christmas from Brazil!!!!

Fors Christmas Letter 2013

Feliz Natal!

This year’s Christmas letter finds the Gretchen and Eric Fors Family way down South in Sao Paulo Brazil wishing you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Eric’s work with Whirlpool Corporation took us down to Brazil for the latter part of 2013. We have had an amazing experience as a family immersing ourselves in Brazilian culture, dining on Brazilian cuisine and seeing all the beautiful sites this country has to offer (Rio de Janeiro, Itamambuca/UbaTuba, Campos do Jordão and Paraty). We are going to run out of time before we have seen all that Brazil has to offer.

The other big news that we have to share with the world is that we are expecting twin boy in March 2014. The balance of pink, er, power is shifting ever so slightly back to the masculine J

Carli is our little sparkplug! Never in our lives have we seen a child with such a gift for mashing her yogurt into every conceivable nook and cranny within her arm’s length. She’s also demonstrated tremendous range in how far she can chuck her yogurt cups (BYU has already given her an early accept softball scholarship). Her favorite food, er, condiments sans food are ketchup and A1 Sauce.

Eliza has had a great year exhibiting her God-given abilities as an interrogator. Eliza will hold you accountable for everything said since her memory began. She enjoys asking “why” to just about everything. Her favorite filler expression is “by the way”. She has enjoyed going to bilingual school here in Brazil which included weekly swimming lessons helping her to become a great Brazilian swimmer.  

Gretta is asking for early admittance into the “tweeners” club. We’ve put an indefinite “stay” on that request. She is making her parents nostalgic given that her latest cartoon interest is “Care Bears”. Just goes to prove once again they don’t make cartoons like they used to! She’s turning the big “Ocho” this year and is excited to be baptized into our church.  She has also enjoyed bilingual school here in Brazil and swimming weather. But, she is super excited to return to Michigan for a little winter so she can enjoy the snow hill at school. It’s the little things that make kids happy J

Gretchen is the glue of our family. She has definitely exhibited some “pioneer gumption” in lugging three kids and “two in the oven” down to Sao Paulo. She’s been courageous in meeting other expats at the local Newcomer’s Club, shopping at the local “farmer’s market”, and enjoying some quality time with our daughters.

Eric is optimistic about the future with two little boys to wrestle with and balance the pink with blue in our house. Working in Brazil has been a great experience, and we will be a little sad to go home, but it has also made us keenly aware of how blessed we are to live in the United States of America.

We wish you a wonderful and prosperous 2014!

Eric, Gretchen, Gretta, Eliza, Carli, Baby Boy “A”, Baby Boy “B”

Christmas Eve- Brazil Style

Christmas Eve is a much bigger holiday here in Sao Paulo than Christmas Day. 

Our neighbors, Alex and Dani Isnenghi, were nice enough to invite us over to their house to celebrate Christmas. 

They put on an incredible evening. We comically went down our social elevator to then come up their social elevator, when our two back service doors are literally right next to each other.

During the evening, we enjoyed the following activities: 

Dani put together a live nativity reading, where all of the children participated. Carli and Eliza were wise wo(men) and Gretta was one of the shepherds. You can see in the picture below that Carli had a tough time letting baby Jesus go :)

We also got to sing some Christmas carols (in Portuguese) with everyone in attendance. It was fun to sing some familiar songs, albeit in an unfamiliar language!

We also got to take some family pictures holding a "Feliz Natal" sign in front of their Christmas tree. 

Santa Cookies

Eric knows how much making Santa Cookies each Christmas means to me. With my limited energy it was a big task for me. Eric was super nice and made them for me with Eliza. Then we frosted them a few days later with the neighbor girls on Christmas Eve. The girls had a good time frosting them and everyone sure enjoyed eating them at the Christmas Eve Party. Thanks so much Eric!!!

The Indanoplis Ward in the Santo Amaro Stake Christmas Party

We are excited to attend the Ward Christmas Party and it was a BIG Party. They moved all of the pews to the front and we used the Chapel for the party. The turn out was good and we all had a good time. The kids favorite party was when they brought out the ice cream for dessert. I guess when it's over 85 degrees ice cream makes the best dessert for a Christmas Party. My favorite pictures is Nicholas trying to feed ice cream to Carli. All the older boys were out playing soccer in the soccer court. 

Christmas Lights

We decided to go drive around Ibirapuera park to see the Christmas lights. They have a big Christmas tree (the pictures do no justice as to how big the tree really is) and also a water light show.  We were able to see part of the water light show from the car and get a good view of the tree. We didn't end up getting out of the car because the crowd was huge and the parking a mess. 

We instead decided to go to try and see the lights on Ave. Paulista which ended up being the worst idea ever!!!! We made it all of 2 blocks in about 2 hours. Then my amazing husband made an illegal left turn to get out of the mess and headed home. It still took a long time to get home, but at least we were moving. 

A Long Day at the Hospital

 This morning I had to come and have echo cardiograms on the babies because I am over 35 and having twins. I think at home Maternal Fetal Medicine would do a mini echo on the baby, but here they just told me I had to go to Cardiology. I am getting pretty good at getting to the hospital by myself and also navigating the hospital. My experience at registration was better this morning and they found a nice English speaking concierge to help.

The echo's went well and both babies hearts are healthy! Here there are no ultrasound techs. The doctors do their own exams.  I could feel the babies moving a lot when she was doing their exam. She said they were playing together. Their hands are close to their heads and I think they are already having boxing matches. 

Then I had to go to the lab for my glucose test. At home you fast and then drink the orange drink and wait one hour to get your blood tested. Here you come fasting, get your finger pricked to test your fasting blood sugar and then get a full blood draw if it's normal and then do a 2 hour glucose test. They put a hep lock in which is genius! At home when I had to have the 3 hours glucose test that involves 4 blood draws they just poked me 4 times. Here I got the hep lock, so I have only had one big poke. They have a nice chair for me to rest in and I got a WiFI password. So it' hasn't been that uncomfortable at all. Every time I come to the hospital I am more and more impressed by how it's run. I am almost considering having the babies here. If someone could promise me they wouldn't end up in the NICU I think I would do it. My Brazilian neighbor who wears a brazilian bikini reminded me that having a c-section here is much better than in the US. She has a tiny scare and it's so low you can't even see it when she wears her tiny bikini. I haven't talked with the doctors at home about c-section vs  Vaginal, but I think since I am having twins my chance of having a c-section goes way up. I am pretty sure my scare at home is going to be MUCH bigger! I guess it's a good thing I don't plan on wearing a Brazilian bikini anytime soon!

UPDATE--- The good news is that I passed my glucose test. Barely but I passed. I go to the OB on the 7th. We will have to see what she has to say about the test. I think it's a good thing we have been in Brazil during this pregnancy because I have been eating much more healthy than I do at home. Lots more fruits, vegetables, and lean meat. 

St Joseph Reunion in Sao Paulo Brazil

Of all places to reunite, it turned out to be in Sao Paulo Brazil! 

Terry Malone (right) and Jacob Whittaker (left) were the ones who originally recruited me during BYU's MBA Program to come intern with Whirlpool Corporation during the summer of 2010. I ended up actually working for Jacob that summer. We ended up choosing to come to Whirlpool on a full-time basis during the summer of 2011. 

Terry and I are still with Whirlpool. But, Jacob recently left Whirlpool and moved to a company based outside of Minneapolis MN, with international operations in Sao Paulo. So it turned out that Terry was in town on Whirlpool business and Jacob was in town on company business. So we were able to catch a quick pic of the original "Three Amigos" from my earliest days at Whirlpool.