A Night at the Fair. . .

Emma boldly walked up to the lady making balloons and stood next to her leg until the woman gave her a balloon. Then, with a big grin on her face, she looked at the woman and said, "Obrigada." (Thank you). She was pretty excited about her flower and puppy balloons.

Last Friday night we went to the fair in Horizontina. It wasn't really all that different from the fair in Ottumwa, except the carnies looked a little less carnie-like, and they were super nice, and not smoking. It felt clean. Emma rode her first ride that night. I almost cried. I remember my friend Autumn writing about her little girl growing up (along with a picture of her on a ride) and all those feelings came rushing at me as I watched my brave, not-so-little, two-year old climb into the front seat of the pink car. The only reason she's in the back seat in the pictures is because her mom thought it would be a better photo if I could see her face! After her ride, she climbed out and said, "Mommy, now I want to ride on the red one!" I wanted to let her ride every single car and take countless photos of this milestone. I didn't, but I wanted to.

We had to leave the rides at 8:30 because dinner was being served. We had tickets for a German dinner that was being held by some of the locals and we didn't want to be late. I'm not sure why. Nothing here EVER starts on time. No exception this time, but we were on time. We ate some purple deviled eggs, sour kraut, steamed potatoes, apple (apfel) strudel, and pork. Well, some people ate the pork. I'm still not a huge pork fan, so I didn't try it. I heard it was good though! We are amazed at the number of people here who speak fluent German. Many Germans migrated here and the evidence is everywhere. When we moved here, I expected to see dark-skinned people with dark hair. Instead, we see blond hair, blue-eyed Brazilians every day! We had a great time with the other ex-pats and also with our neighbors. We also decided we didn't really need to visit the fair again. Except for letting Emma ride the rides, nothing was different from the fairs we've known all our lives!