Birthdays!!

Garrett and Blake both have their birthdays this month. Garrett turns 9 today and Blake will be 39 on Tuesday. With Easter between them, our weekend is proving to be very busy! Garrett is having a birthday party here at the house with his friends. We will be making Garrett's favorite food , fried rice, for lunch and a chocolate birthday cake for dessert.
Tomorrow for Easter, we have invited a LOT of people, most of them work for Guardian, or are on the heat-up team (these folks come in from all over the world specifically to heat-up the furnace which is a very tricky ordeal). I'm not exactly sure who all is coming, but I do know that I will be BBQ'ing for quite a while. Blake and I went to the store the other night and stocked up on meat, beer, cheese and pineapples. Most of you are probably wondering "Where is the ham?". Well, there wasn't a single ham at the store, but there was a TON of fish. Cod to be exact. Brasilians eat fish on Good Friday and then again for Easter dinner. Since my hubby doesn't like fish, we chose to go against the grain and cook picanha (yummy red meat).
The weather has cooled off since summer but, it is still usually in the hi 70's to mid 80's most days. Our BBQ should be quite a bit of fun, and I'll make a birthday cake for Blake (ssshh don't tell him) to surprise him and get everyone to sing him Happy Birthday!
Happy Easter to everyone reading this. I'll post again soon. Pam

Diamonds

Today is the day we've been waiting for. Blake and his crew are turning on the burners in the furnace to start "heat-up". After 51 (?) weeks since ground breaking, the furnace has been started!!!!!!!!!!! The heat-up crew has been arriving for the past week and a half, and every hotel in Tatui, as well as half the hotels of Sorocaba are booked. It's been pretty intense. Blake hasn't really had a day off in a few weeks now.
Garrett and I are still home-schooling, and I have settled in with 3 english students and the Friday art class. (The cooking class has been cancelled due to her new college class schedule). I have been keeping the agenda up to date, and running a pretty tight ship. From out of the blue the other day, Garrett asked me about diamonds. "Mom, why does it take so long to make diamonds?" he asked. I replied "Diamonds are created by extreme pressure and time. Unless the rock goes through this transformation, it will remain just a lump of coal." To which he replied, "What does transformation mean?" I told him," the difference between change and transformation is the like a traffic light can change from red to green. It doesn't stay one or the other, it just changes. Transformation is a process, like cooking a turkey. You start off with this cold, slimy dead thing, and then through the transformation of cooking it, it becomes your dinner. The same thing with diamonds. Their value comes from their time dealing with the pressure that makes them what they are."
Pretty deep stuff, huh? Hope all is well with you and yours. I will post again soon. Pam