NEW YEARS!!!!

Well, this is Kati on New Years EVE!!!!! here with Mary, Mary quite contrary!!! We are having tons of fun!!! We are in shorts and tank tops, cooking out havin' some churrasco, mmmm,mmmm, good! My dad makes the best b-b-q in town! American and Brazilian!!!! It felt like 4th of July! We had some watermellon and b-b-q and fireworks and all that 4th of July stuff just with out the July! hehe
Well, that is all for now. Just felt like telling yall all that. Thanks for reading!

Wishing you a very happy New Years!
Kati and Mary, Mary Quite contrary!

Christmas Day Beautiful Sunny Brazil

Well, as you know we had our first Christmas in Brazil away from family and friends. But we had a great time! I don't think any of us felt homesick. It is probably because of the fact that we were sweating, but it is OK! It would have been a bad Christmas anyway if we would have been homesick. We all had a great Christmas. We all got what we wanted. It wasn't much, but we had each other and we had the gift of Jesus Christ and that is all that really matters.

I want to ask that yall pray for me. I am starting a ministry with another friend of mine. We have no clue in the world what we are going to do, but we know that in God's timing He will lead us in the direction he wants us. But please pray that we would be able to listen to God and do what he wants us to do and that we would be able to be patient and wait on God and his timing. Because we know everything will work out but ONLY! ONLY! in His timing alone.

One last thing and I will go: I have been doing a 40 day fast off of facebook for the last 3 weeks, and God has just blessed my socks off! Oh! Sometimes I feel I am going to expolode with excitement and overload with all that He is teaching me! God is so good! All the time!

In complete awe of Him,
Kati Cunningham

P.S. I want to thank Aunt Kami and Aunt Nanny for sending all the wonderful gifts and love and making our Christmas even better!!!!! :D

Christmas in Gremado

Hey Again!!!
Well, it is Christmas Eve, we have our tree up, presents (not under the tree because the babies would get them but we have them), stuff for Christmas dinner, and family. But still at that it doesn't feel like Christmas time. I guess it is a combination of it being hot, Nana and Pawpaw are coming in January, I don't know, but it is alright because right now I am not feeling homesick but, I think, if it were cold and we ad a big, real Christmas tree and everything, I would be homesick. So it has been a good Christmas season. We as a family have been able to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas because weather it is hot or cold or we have family or we have the 'Christmas spirit' it is Jesus' Birthday and that is all that really matters.
Well, on the 22nd we went to Gremado, a city about 2 hours from here up in the mountains. It was so pretty. they has lights and lights everywhere and all the decorations were mad out of coka-cola bottles. It waa the cooliest thing. I am going to put some pictures on here so you can see what I am talking about, about the coke bottles.
Fonduing! yummy
Big Rocking Chair :)



This is the coke bottle decor

Natal Luz (it was so cool!)


Ladies singing (in English)

Singing Christmas tree
Over looking this amazingly crazy view!!!

Been a Long Time

Hey everyone,
WOW! I didn't realize it had been so long since I have updated. I just seem to let it slip by and never get to it. I will try to do a better job; be like my parents and update about everything!
Well, it is nearing Christmas time. It is VERY, VERY different this year, for example, right now as I am typing it is December 21 (4 days till Christmas) and it is 93 degrees outside and inside.
We bought our Christmas tree today. umm...... it is very different from any others we have had in the past. HA! HA! HA! Totally different. It is a Triangular Palm. We wrapped lights around it and put presents under it, and there you go... a "tropical" Christmas tree. I don't have the pictures on my computer, but I will tell my mom to put them on her blog today. It is pretty funny :)

OK, I am going to go, but promise to keep everyone updated. Thanks for all the prayers and support.

Merry Christmas!!!!!
Have a Great Christmas!!!
Love, Kati C.

MY BIG SURPRISE!!

Well, I am sure you are are wondering what my big surprise was, so....I will tell you.
This past Saturday my mom told me we had to go pick up someone from the bus station for our friend. So we get ready and go to the bus station. So while we are waiting my mom is saying things like. I am afraid she won't know who we are and dah dah dah dah dah. So we waited for about 10 minutes and all of a sudden I see one of my friends coming up the stairs. I didn't know what was going on. I still thought we were waiting on someone and that we just happen to be at the same bus station at the same time one of my friends is coming in to Campinas. It took me a minute to get over the shock and I realize that she was who we were picking up. So I started crying and shaking and OH it was the best birthday present ever!!!
So after we picked her up we went to the mall and had Pizza hut!! and Sorvete de bolinha (Dip n dots) and they were really good!!! Then Rachel and I went to see The Forbidden Kingdom. It was a really good movie.
Oh and I forgot to mention that Rachel is the friend that I went to see a few weeks ago in Sao Paulo.
So we had a good time!! On Sunday we went to the park with some other friends that live here in Campinas and we just had a blast. It was the best thing ever!!!
I have pictures on my Facebook if you would like to see them and I will add a few on here as well. Thanks for sharing in the best thing ever!! HA! HA! HA!

Love,
Kati Cunningham

I will add

One Week and counting!!!!!

Well, as you can tell by my title we have one week left!!! Tomorrow is my parents last day of class and next week will be just a test and some exiting stuff we have to do!!! :D I am so excited!!!! My last day of class will be next week, I am still not sure what day.
I think I have already said this but we will be driving to Porto Alegre and right now our set date to get out of here is September 8th. Oh have I said that I am excited??? Well I am!!!
Well, since we are ending language school I will give some of the things that have been the hardest and some of the things that have been the best.....
I will start with hardest so we can end on a happy note.....

1. Not speaking the language
2. Not being able to love the Brazilian people, wanting to but there being a barrier
3. Not having friends here with me to share my heart and talk english with
4. Going to a Brazilian school
5. Being sick all the time!!!!

Now the happy things!!!!....

1. Meeting so many people like my language teachers and those people that would build me up when I was down
2. learning Portuguese, believe it or not
3. Finding God all over again
4. Getting to know the brazilian culture
5. and eatting all teh wonderful food!!!

well, those are some of the things that have been have and have been joys. hope you liked it!!!

Love you guys,

Kati C.

I just wanted to show you some pictures of how the boys are growing. Peyton and Pierce and walking now and Preston is growin' like a weed!!! =D Hope you enjoy!!

My Adventures!!!

Hey Everybody, I know, I know it has been a long time since I have updated and it has been very spiratic but I promise I am going to get better at posting.

Well, I will start with last weekend.
We were planning a trip to Sao Paulo but the babies and Preston were sick so my parents said why doesn't Kati go and see if Tori (another MK that lives in Campinas) wants to go with her. So we got it all planned, had someone that was going to be there waiting on us once we got to Sao Paulo, so Saturday morning at 8:30 Tori picked me up and we headed to the bus station. So, we got there and got our tickets and were set.......we thought......well turns out you need an ID number, well I had my passport so I had what I needed but Tori didn't, so she had to call her parents. Well the pay phone wouldn't work so she used my cell phone and called home, well her parents weren't there, only her brother, so she asked for him to get her ID number and he didn't have it. So she called her mom and couldn't get her, so she called her house again to see if her dad had gotten home yet. ***now let me note our bus left at 9:00 and this was 8:55*** Well her dad had not gotten home yet and so her brother said well I have your passport here, He had not put the two together so we get the number and ran to the bus......... and it was 9:00, we had no clue if the bus would still be there............so we get the the bus and get on JUST AS THEY ARE SHUTTING THE DOORS!!!!!! Oh I was so glad we made it!!!!
The rest of the trip was farily calm, we hung out with some friends and went to the mall. Coming back we got on our bus in plenty of time, Thank God!!!

Well, we have 1 WEEK and 6 DAYS left in Campinas!!!!! We are very excited. We started packing and our house is ready down in Porto Alegre!!! We are all set to go. WE will leave here probably September 7th or 8th, something like that, and we are going to travel to Curitiba(Coodichiba) which is about 6 hours away and stay the first night. Then we are going to drive to Forinopolis which is about 4 hours away from Curitiba and stay a few night there with some friends and see the city a little and just hang out, then we will head down to Porto Alegre!!!! We are so excited!!!!

Ok, I guess that is all the news i have so far, I promise to write more often and let you know what is going on with us!!

With Love,
His Princess in His Hands,
Kati Cunningham

Prayer

Well I know it has been a while since I have updated but I have a prayer request. I am sure many of you read on my parents blog about our week with all the missionaries around Brasil. Well, I got to know a lot of the Mks and fell in love with them the first day. One of my friends that I met, his mother died last night very suddenly. I ask that you please pray for the Lambach family as they will need in this time. Please pray for the children, they have 5 children, one in the military and on down to Preston's age. Please pray that God would be there all-sufficient comforter, their provider, and their ultimate healer. Thank you so much for praying along with us.
Love,
His Princess,
Kati

It's Game day here in Brazil!!!!

Well, actually game day was yesterday but I will tell you about it today.
Let me start at first by telling you a little bit about how Brazilian soccer works, to earn the title of “champion” you have to play 2 games. They narrow it down to 2 teams and then you play your first game on one Sunday. If you win that one it is a good thing; you are most likely to win. The next game you play is the last game. In order for the team who lost the last game to win they have to beat the other team by 2 points. If they don’t then the other team wins.
Ok now that, that is said I will tell you about the game yesterday. The two teams that played were Ponte Preta (said.. paunchy preta) and Palmaras (said.. paulmadeus). Ponte Preta is the oldest team in Brazil and they have never won a Championship so a lot of people wanted them to win. Well, last week Palmaras won the first game so everybody was really rooting hard for Ponte Preta to get those 2 goals and maybe they could win but in the first half the other team had already scored two goals so there was little hope for Ponte Preta. So in the end Palmaras ended up winning 5 to 0.
One last thing about the soccer game… there were people getting hit over the head by the police with sticks. Many went away bleeding. Scary HUH?

OK well as a lot of you know I have been having a hard time in school and not picking up on the Portuguese so the director of the language school decided to try something different. From now on I will only go to school for some classes and everyday at 1:00 I meet with a private language tutor. I started with my language tutor today and she is very nice.

Well I have got to go. There are things to be done around the house, I will write soon.

Love,
Daddy’s Princess,
Kate

Yes this is in Brazil. We went to a confederates festival and celebrated with the Brazilians their heritage of some confederate soldiers that came down here after the Civil War
This is just a picture that we took when we were driving down the road. How beautiful!
Isn't that right? Biscuits next to the Confederate flag.
This is the only anaconda I want to come in contact with.
P.S. The sign that is behind me sayd no climbing on the snake. (HA! HA!)

Hey Yall

Well it has been kind of boring around here that is why I have not updated in a while.
This weekend we have had a Holiday so we get an extra day off of school (yea me). Saturday we went to the park and saw some Capybaras and if you dont know what that is it is a giant rodant. It almost looks like a giant guinea pig (they are really ugly).

So this holiday that we have this weekend is named after a guy who planned a revolt seeking independence and there was a trader among the group who turned them in. The main man (Tiradentes - his name means teeth puller) got hung in the town square for all to see and his body was quartered and buried all over the state of Minas Gerais (the state right above Sao Paulo). Kind of gross.
Well like I said it has been really boring around here so I do not have much to say but I would really love it if you would email me. ( PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE email me).

I will update when there is more to talk about.

Love,
Daddy's Princess,
Kati Cunningham

What I have been up to

Well let me start off by saying i am terribly sorry for not updating my blog in so long. The babies have been sick off and on I have had school and this week I started my homeschooling back. So needless to say it has been quite hectic around here.

School...
Well, school is getting better. I am starting to understand a little better and th kids are trying to talk to me more. I guess they are getting use to me being there or realize that I am learning more Portuguese. On Friday I wrote down all of the words that I recognized and it was about a page full. Now I could not tell you whaqt they were talking about but I could pick words up out of sentances that sounded like jibber-jabber. So it is a start.

We are adjusting well and the babies are getting better. They will sometimes run a low grade fever but other that that they seem to be getting better (we hope).

I guess I will tell you a little about the fun and quirky things that the Brazilians do.

I think I have written this before but they have bread stores EVERYWHERE. Some better that others but all good. A lot of people go to the Padarias for breakfast and snacks. They have some of the BEST things you have ever tasted. They have these things called coshinos (that is how it sounds not how it is spelled. I am not sure how to spell it.) it has either shreaded chicken or a hot dog in with mashed potatoes around it and it is fried. It is really good. They also have Pao de Quesio (translated: Cheese bread) That is my all time favorite thing ever.


Well I need to go now but I promise to update sooner. If you would like to contact me for any reason you can email me at cunninghamsinbrazil@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you.

Love,
His Princess,
Kati Bug

FIELD TRIP!!!!!!!!!!

Well I went on a field trip Wednesday with my class to Sao Paulo. Now their field trips are not like ones I was used to. We left the school at 7:30 and went to a Science Museum. We were there for a few hours and it was pretty cool and would have been cooler if I could have understood it but still it was cool. The museum had this planetarium thing that you walked into and they had stars and constellations lit up above us. After that they had this big spill about electromagnetic currents and how it can pass from one person to the other. We all held hands and one guy touched this electric charged wand thing to one person and it went through us all. That was pretty cool!

After the Science Museum, we went to have lunch;we went to McDonald's. It took us forever to get there because at first the bus driver went to the wrong one and then we found the one we were supposed to go to and the bus driver passed it so we had to go all the way back around to get to it and it took us like 15 minutes to do so. There are lots of one way streets in Brasil so it is no easy thing to get back to where you need to be.

Then we went to an Art museum. We were getting ready to go in and they would not let us in until 4:30 (it was about 3:15 then). So needless to say, we did not go there. We went back to the bus and went home. It was about 2 hours to get back home so we didn't get home until around 5:45.

That was my first field trip experience in Brasil and it was tiring. Ate Mais (see you later)

Love,
His Princess in Brasil,
Kati Cunningham

2 Weeks In

Well Hello again,
It has been 2 weeks today that we got to Brasil and it has been tough. It is a lot different than just going on a mission trip for a week or so. You have to start learning the language and going to the grocery store and getting accustomed to the culture and food. It has been hard but all the Missionaries here have been so helpful and so encouraging and ou guys back at home praying for us. It just gives us hope that we will make it through this.

This Past week it has been hard because all of us have been sick. Sunday night my dad and Preston started throwing up and then about 11:00 that night I got sick and Pierce was sick that night too. The only ones in our family that were not sick were Peyton and my mom, but we are getting over it now and are getting better.

Preston and I have started school and Preston had a great time. He met so many friends and he is figuring out ways to comunicate with them even though he can't speak the language. So Preston is just doing wonderful. Now me on he other hand I am struggling. the first day I had to sit through a 2 HOUR science lecture and I had no clue what the teacher was talking about. So you kids who complain about going to school in the states yeah I wouldn't do that because at least you understand what your teacher is talking about. It is getting better though. I am picking up very few words but at least it is something. I even trasnslated a Portuguese phrase for my parents.


Well I will go but until next time. Ate Mais (see you later)


Love,
His Princess,
Kati Cunningham

Brasil

Hi Everyone,
It is Wednesday and we got here yesterday.On the plane ride over; it was very,very love. It took us 9 hours from Atlanta, Gorgia. The babies did ok, didn't sleep much and were a little fussy but were ok. So we got to Sao Paulo around 7:00 and then had to drive 2 hours to Campinas.

We did not do much yesterday except get aquanted with the house and unpack. The house is really Pretty. It is COMPLETELY tile even the back and front yard, but it is pretty.

Today Preston and I have to meet with educational consultant and talk with her. Then after that we are going to the grocery store for the first time so who knows how that will go. Well ok i need to go so please please please remember to pray for us it is a little tough adjusting. Thanks.

Love,
His princess in His hands forever,
Kati Cunningham

Hey Yall,

I just wanted to give you an update on when we are leaving. Our house in Campinas (language school) is not ready and the man who is in charge of making sure it is ready is out of town and won't be back until February 1st. On top of that the first week in February is the big

holiday in Brasil called Carnival and everything shuts down and nothing will get done. But we are leaving on Feb 25 and our houe should be ready then. Well there you have it. So we finally have a set date. YEA!!!

Love,
His Princess,

Kati Cunningham

My favorite pics

Our Visas

Hey my people, we have our Visas in our hands. We should be leaving for Brasil in 3 weeks or that is what the people at the language school we will be attending said they wanted. My parents have asked for 6 weeks so we can can go to a mission conference at our church and get the people fired up about the mission in Brasil. Our house in Brasil is not quite ready so they my need a little extra time to get our house ready so it might work out perfectly if we stay 6 more weeks. So we have our visas and we will be free to leave for Brasil in 3 weeks.


Love,
His Princess,
Kati Cunningham

Virginia Good-byes!

Visa Process and our Brasilian house

Hey everybody, I wanted to give you an update on our visa process. The way it works is we each (all 6 of us) have to have ,I can't remember exactly, maybe 3 copies of our birth certificates and some other legal documents, approved by the state and then sent up to Condeleesa Rice,in Washington D.C., to be approved by her and then sent down to the Brazilian Consulate in Miami for them to look at our papers and then sent down to Brasilia (the capital of Brazil) for them to approve it and then sent back to Miami for them to send it to us so we can take it back to Miami, where it just was.

So now that you understand that, we got our paper work back from the consulate so next Monday my parents are going to Miami to apply for our Visas in person because that is what is required by the Brazilian Government. After my mother and father apply for the Visas we should get them in about 4 to 6 weeks. We had some friends that were in VA with us ,that were also going to Brazil and they are there now, got theirs in 3 weeks so you just never know when you will get them.

When we get to Brazil we will be in language school for 6 months ,in Campinas. After that we will go down to the city we will live in Porto Alegre. The cities name means Happy Port. I think that is a cool name. We are going to live in a 3 bedroom 2 bath house with an office that can be turned in to a bedroom just depending on if dad needs the work space. Another thing that the house will have is a 7 foot ELECTRIC fence and a guard that is right across the street. I am not sure if that is suppose to be scary or comforting.

Well until next time, leave me a comment.

Love,
His Princess,
Kati Cunningham