celebrating 4 years of becoming a family with David and Julia

In a world where 70% of father’s won’t receive a father’s day gift, my husband will never have to worry about that. This week we are celebrating 4 years of becoming a family with David and Julia and every father’s day his heart gets full remembering the reason we celebrate.


And this year is time for the soccer world cup again! The first world cup soccer we watched together as a family was 4 years ago in Moscow. Brian, who was born in Brazil, loves soccer and we were left in the hotel waiting for David and Julia’s immigration papers of to be able to come back home as a family, so we watched lots of soccer games together at the restaurant in the hotel in Moscow. David, who was almost two years old at the time, did not speak a word of Russian or English yet. We were too ignorant to think there was anything wrong with it and too hopeful (in God) to actually worry about it.

When watching the games on Brian’s lap, David said his first word: “Gooool” and he would raise his arms with papi. We think he actually tried to say “Shuta” (Portuguese word for kicking a ball)
Here is a picture of the kids in bed with Papi Brian that first day:

Yesterday, my brother and his wife Tracy invited us to watch the premiere for Toy Story. When we got to the movie theater she gave each child two for the characters of the movie. Their 3 children and ours are best friends and love to be together. We watched this 3D movie that talks about toys left behind in a place where they cannot accomplished their purpose for why they exist: to be played with nicely by children that cherished them. I was crying so hard remembering that there are so many real children left behind orphanages with no real parents to help them become … but, I won’t talk about that today.

Once we got out of the movie theater, around 5pm, we went to the beach (we live in south Florida and is summer time) and then my brother treated us for dinner at a small Italian restaurant Brian and I had discover 10 years ago the day we decided to get back together after a separation. The small restaurant has survived many economic storms, so has our marriage. It was close to 10PM when we told Mosh and tracy that we were celebrating this week the fact of becoming a family, and they were happy to know that they were inviting us for dinner to actually commemorate this moment with us. The 5 kids were in a separate table having fun and I was just like always amazed on how much happiness a heart can be when recognizing how precious is to have a family to cherish and to share life with.
Happy Father’s day.