Halfway Up the Stairs

Hey Y'all,
     Happy Halfway Day! I've officially been here 160 days today and I have 160 more to go until I return home. In honor of Halfway Day I'm posting about my recent vacation and then I'm sharing some exciting news that I hinted at in my Christmas post. So here we go....

My family and I spent six days at a family apartment near the beach. The beach was beautiful. We drove there, unpacked, and immediately headed to the beach. We were joined by our family friends who have kids my sisters ages; a 16 year old son and an 11 year old daughter. All ten of us were staying in a three bedroom apartment about five blocks from the beach. On the second day we went to the beach around ten am and stayed until about two. The brazilians preferred to stay on the beach and chill but Germany and I took off into the water. Germany decided to take over mom duty and remind me to apply sunblock every hour and when I rolled my eyes at her, like I do my regular mom, she took to spraying me with it when I was distracted. Despite the sneaky German's tactics I got horribly sunburned. I was bright red! I was sunburned everywhere; my back and shoulders, my legs and hips, and my face. It's by far the worst sun burn I've ever had in my life. It started with two days of mind numbing pain where it hurt to move. Then it bubbled. Horrible bubbles all over my front and back. Giant shudder inducing bubbles. Then came peeling. So the third and fourth day of vacation were spent with me hiding out in the apartment, avoiding all sunlight, and trying to remain as still as possible. Did I mention we had no wifi? I'm pretty sure I've now seen the Veronica Mars movie a hundred times. No joke. The fifth day i ventured to the beach again, this was after pain but before bubbles. I thought I was home free. Ha! I spent my time at the beach playing in the waves, drinking coconuts, and I bought knock off Ray Ban Aviators. It was a great day. The next day I bubbled. I bubbled hard. We went to the aquarium in the morning. It was sad to see how tiny the animal's cages are. Then we went back to the beach to ride a banana boat and a spinny boat. Germany literally shoved a t-shirt over my head and told me to deal with it and that I would NOT be making my sunburn worse. The banana boat was a fun if mellow ride but the spinny boat... well let's just say Mama, Auntie, and my youngest sister jumped off early. I was tempted to but was too stubborn to give in. The ride goes like this, this large disk like float is placed at an angle so we're all falling and gripping onto the handrails. The boats pulls us which causes all the passengers to flop around and fall all over each other and just generally get sick. Three people were tossed off of the one that went before us. I was determined to hold on despite the fact that I had a giant headache and being thrown around was definitely not helping. But I'm American and I had to represent. So we all spun around and cursed like sailors before being tossed into the ocean. We went back to the apartment and I took a nap to clear my headache while Saint Germany packed our bag, bless her. Finally, it was time to go.

The horrid spinny boat. If only we knew
what we were getting into.

Germany and me. I am not amused.

If you read my Christmas & New Years post you probably noticed that Germany spent both holidays with us and now went on vacation with us. Have you guessed the good news? The family has expanded to include one insane German who dances and sings Glee too much! The week before Christmas she came over for a normal sleepover when her host mother suggested she spend the weekend. This seemed a bit suspect to all of us but I shrugged it off until my host mother pulled me aside to ask how I would feel about her being my roommate for a month with us until she found a new family. I told her that of course that was fine with me. Germany's host parents were having issues and thought it would be best if she was moved to a new family while they try and work it out. She was quickly packed up and moved into our home. I'll admit that I was unsure at first how this would go. I'd only been with this family less than two weeks. I still wasn't completely sure of my place in our home. Would they like her more? Would I be slowly pushed to the side? Was it possible that she'd stay and I'd be shuffled off to a new family? Would she use all my mascara? The answer to one of these is yes but my mom sent me more mascara for Christmas so it's ok. We slowly but surely found our footing as a family with four daughters. My parents are saints for taking both of us in and immediately making us feel part of the family. Even our Aunts & Uncles, cousins, and grandparents instantly welcomed us to the family with Christmas presents and concern about our eating or lack of (is this a brazilian habit or just a grandma habit?) Around week three they announced that they were thinking of keeping her by buying a new car big enough to hold all of us. Then this week Germany's counselor called to tell our parents that they'd found a family that wanted to meet her. Our mother responded by saying, "She's my daughter now. She will be staying with us. We bought a car big enough for us all." And that was that. We're keeping the German. Have there been road bumps? Of course! We're currently sharing a full size bed until our two twins get here and I can tell you that she kicks and rolls over on me. (When I get married I'm definitely getting two twin beds.) Our poor father has four daughters and I'm quite certain the estrogen is just too much sometimes. Nobody in the family can tell us apart. We're both tall and blonde which apparently makes us twins, we've both learned to respond to each others names. We're thinking of getting name tags. When AFS asked me if there was anything I wanted in a family I told them I needed a sister. I now have three. Three sisters to share clothes and makeup with. Three sisters to jump on me. Three sisters to gossip with and who go through my stuff and harass me about boys. I'm never ever alone. There's always a sister somewhere. I went from the youngest with one older brother to the oldest with three younger sisters. The differences are astronomical. For example, I can't remember the last time Dave borrowed my clothes or asked me if his butt looked good in those jeans or came into my room at four am (when I was sleeping!) to talk about the latest text from the boy he liked. But at the same time I couldn't borrow his clothes, okay just his sweatshirts, and he refused to tell me whether my butt looked good in my jeans, and if I woke him up at four to talk about a boy he'd kill me. I'm excited to see my only brother in 160 days but it breaks my heart to think of leaving my three beautiful, wonderful, deranged sisters. If I could just get Germany to stop singing Glee it would all be perfect. Welcome to the family Germany!