Road Trip (Part 3 of?)

I'm often in interesting places on my birthday (e.g., on cross-country train trips, in foreign lands, on airplanes, at girls camp).  This year I happened to be in Needham, MA.  When I learned that Mike and Tanya were hosting a BBQ before the traditional July 3rd Needham fireworks, I made sure to let Tanya know that I wanted to be invited!

Howard sneakily ordered a cake for me at Dudbury's (that's what we used to call Sudbury's) the day before.  (I don't know how they messed up my name so badly. The name 'Kathy' bears no resemblance to Eunice!) Anyway, Howard bought candles and even remembered to buy matches!  He arranged the candles in the prime factorization of my age.  It was so fun to visit with lots of 'old' church friends at the BBQ and at the fireworks.

3 x 3 x 3 x 2 = the prime factorization of my age

Earlier that day, we drove up to one of my favorite little coastal towns, Rockport.  We spent a few hours there walking around, taking pictures, eating lunch and fudge.

Road Trip (Part 2 of ?)

We spent a week in Boston.  Our first day there, Monday, July 1, ended up being Brazilian day.  Our first pilgrimage was out to Framingham to eat at our favorite Brazilian restaurant, Terra Brasilis.  It's the first and only place I've ever been where they figure out the price of your meal buy weighing your full plate.  My plate always used to weigh less than Howard's.  I'm embarrassed to admit that my plate weighed the same as his this time.  I'm going with the idea that he was trying to eat less.

(source for all 3 photos)

After lunch we had to go to A & J Seabra Supermarket, a Brazilian grocery store, to find Howard's favorite guarana soda.  Once upon a time I had no idea what the guarana fruit was so I googled it.

 (source)

I can't believe that such a yummy drink is made from bulging eyeball fruit.  It's just too creepy!  We didn't find Howard's favorite guarana soda, but we did find a bunch of other Brazilian products to buy - especially in the pastry/dessert section.  Howard bought a brigadeiro.

Here's a brigadeiro tutorial I found on youtube.  Give it a try and tell me what you think!

We spent that evening visiting a family that we adore.  We got to know them when we spent our last year in Boston serving with them in the Portuguese Branch (a small geographical church unit).  Their 14-year-old daughter had just returned home from a one-week stay at the hospital after having back surgery.  Rosie, her mom, had stayed with her all week at the hospital and was exhausted.  Sergio insisted that we come over.  They were exhausted and hadn't eaten dinner yet and treated us like we were the king and queen visiting from Nashville.