While many of you read the post title and think of your traditional holiday meals or perhaps just your regular daily dinners, for me a family dinner can take on a whole new meaning. I did have what would first come to your mind a wonderful family dinner with my parents and the Goo back home a couple of days ago. We ate delicious marinated flank steak off the grill, yummy sweet corn, green beans and red potatoes. It was the perfect way to end my time in Illinois.
When you live overseas though, family dinners possesses a different meaning. Tonight I had my Brazilian family dinner. No, there was not a single Brazilian there (maybe we should work on that) but I dined with my surrogate family that lives with me in Brasilia. Kathy's sister and aunt are visting from the states so she wanted to get together for a little pizza rodizio (all you can eat) dinner. Well, when you go rodizio, it's never going to be little and with my Brazilian family (4 Wolvies, 1 Andrea, 1 Sam, 2 Robertsons and me) which is nine members strong and tonight Libby joined us as well, it was a big meal all around.
Dinner was great. The food of course is wonderful. The waiters bring around pizzas sharing what the combos are and you just say yea or nay to the choices. Just a little pizza rodizio background for you. The pizza choices can include traditional U.S. types like pepperoni but it stops about there. Some of the combos that are really popular include: sundried tomato with arugula and tonight a new one California (calabrasa with peppers, pineapple and other sweet fruits). Then there are the dessert pizzas. These include a traditional pizza crust with cheese topped with bananas or strawberries that are then covered in chocolate. It's delicious! And I'm stuffed even just writing about it.
Okay, back to the reason for this post, my family here makes things easy. We picked up right where we left off with the teasing and joking and catching up on the remainder of the summer. It was great to see everyone smiling, looking relaxed and refreshed and kinda ready to start up school again tomorrow. I just like that even though I live so far from home, I have people here who can be there for me. Whether it's driving me everywhere because I've injured my foot and am in a boot (fingers crossed all for an injury-free year) or take me out to dinner when I have a bad day or just hang out and sing karaokee. They're just fab. We really don't have particular family roles like moms and dads but we're more like a bunch of brothers and sisters who just take care of one another. I'm just lucky. Thanks guys for being my family. Love you!
Love you too, Meg!
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