Smells like the US

I have never looked forward to weekends as much as I do now. There is just something about Eric walking through the door on Friday evening and knowing that we have the next two days to spend as a family of three that makes my heart swell.

Saturday we went to Rancho do Boi, a place just outside of town, for Gabriela's first restaurant experience (not counting the cafe she and I had lunch at one day). We hadn't been in quite a while, but it is one of our favorite weekend lunch spots because of its gorgeous setting in the mountains.



After lunch we headed to the brand new Leroy Merlin that they opened up in Belo Horizonte. Leroy Merlin is sort of comparable to a Lowe's or Home Depot, but this new one has a lot of home decorating items too. It is almost a cross between a Lowe's and a Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It's a huge store, nicely organized, neat, clean . . . we were impressed. But that could also have been because we were served champagne when we walked in. When was the last time you enjoyed a glass of bubbly at Lowe's?!? (Granted, I don't think it is standard procedure there - more of a grand opening celebration, but still . . .)



What might have been my favorite part of Saturday occurred as we were walking into the new store though. As we were coming up the escalator into the store from the parking garage, there were two guys right behind us. One loudly announced to the other that it "smells like the United States in here." Now, the chances of saying something like in BH that while standing behind a couple Americans is slim to none. (We considered turning around and telling him it was just us. hehe) And furthermore, I had no idea that a country could have a "smell"! The store sort of had a new construction smell about it; is that is the smell that characterizes the US? I have no idea, but I have giggled about it at least two dozen times since then. And then Eric and I started trying to decide what Brasil smells like. Things just went downhill from there, but left us both laughing pretty hard.

Sunday I was treated pretty special by my two favorite people. After waking up to orchids and a really sweet note for Mother's Day, we had a visit from a couple friends to meet Gabriela before we loaded up the car and drove out to Alphaville to Minas Nautica Clube for the day. We spent the entire afternoon lounging around the pool and walking around the lake. The place was pretty much empty so it was really quiet and completely relaxing.




We had a couple other firsts with Miss Gabriela this weekend too. Now that breastfeeding is well established, we decided to introduce her to a bottle so her Daddy can share in feeding her too. She took to it right away, gulping down nearly 4 ounces.




Then last night we decided it was time for her to start sleeping in her own room instead of in the bassinet in our room. She's become known as Squeaky around here since she makes tons of little squeaking noises while she sleeps. It's actually pretty cute - unless you're trying to get some sleep yourself! So she spent last night in her crib and slept awesome. We put her down at 10:00 last night and she didn't wake up until 6:00. She had some breakfast, and then she slept three more hours in her crib until 9:00. We are so blessed to have a baby who sleeps at night!!! And now that we don't spend the night listening to her squeaks, we're sleeping well too!

Sunset over the lake in Alphaville on Sunday.