The Idea to Travel

The idea to travel to Brazil started a little over year ago when I decided that life is way too short to be waiting to do the things we want to do in our life. Traveling to Brazil was one of those things that we could put off forever. There would always be a reason not to go, and if we listened to those reasons, we would never go. So, last year we talked about going in a year. And, when October came around and we still had not purchased tickets, I realized we were putting it off again.

It just so happened that my Mother-in-law was visiting us in October and we traveled with her to Southern West Virgina. She is fantastic person to travel with and has tons of experience traveling. She traveled internationally for her job and lived in Brazil for decades prior to that job. I knew that if we told her about the trip idea, she would give us good advice about how to get there and how much it might cost. And, in a moment of inspiration around the breakfast table of the hotel where we were discussing this idea with her, I asked her to come with us.

Ernani had not been back in 20 years. He wanted to reconnect with the country and with his Dad and that whole side of the family he had not seen in a very long time. We had seen and I had met his half-brother Flavio who attended a year of college in Northern Illinois, but I had never met anyone else on his Dad's side of the family. His Mom had been back about a year or two ago. She is fluent in travel and Portuguese. She is fun to hang out with and we always enjoy our trips with her. Having her with us seemed a very logical and wise choice. Within two weeks of that breakfast, we had 3 tickets to Brazil from Dec 29 to Jan 8th and Ernani's Dad, Eduardo, helping to find us a place to stay while we were there.