home to Colorado: part 1

The day we got home from Brazil we did laundry, packed more stuff and the next morning made the drive to Colorado! We were exhausted when we showed up and are ready to not drive and fly so much for a little while now. It felt so good to come home and see my beautiful sis, explore with my now very active niece and spend time with my awesome parents!

vacation to Rio, Brazil!

Three-ish weeks ago Josh and I finished another semester of school, packed up all of our things, moved and then took off (on the longest plane ride of my life so far) for Brazil! Our first flight left at 1:00 pm and we arrived in Rio with Josh's parents at 9 am the next day! It was an amazing trip and we feel so grateful that we were able to go, thanks to Colleen and Kurt! I'm not sure what we all would have done if Josh did not speak Portuguese! We were all very grateful for him and for the talent that he has kept up. It was fun for me to see him speaking so easily with all the people that we talked to or passed by. I was able to understand a little bit of what people were saying because of Josh teaching me Portuguese and from my knowledge of Spanish, but I still can't say much.

Some of the things that we did were visiting the Christ statue, taking the tracks up to the sugar loaf, biking all along Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, walking around downtown, visiting cathedrals, soaking up the sun on the beach, sunsets and pretty city lights at night, trying lots of new food places, kayaking, figuring out and riding the buses and overall just exploring the whole city!

I'm sure what you all actually care about are the pictures from the trip, so I will get on with those. Brace yourself for picture overload here and some thoughts at the end if you can make it that far...

The Christ statue.

Guarana, my first drink of it! Its a popular soda in Brazil.

Botanical Gardens

Acai! I was SO excited to try it and then pretty disappointed by its taste :/ Josh still loved it though!

Just walking down the street, and beautiful sky.

That large rock is called the Sugar Loaf.

Our ride up to the sugar loaf!

The view from the sugar loaf.

Night time on Ipanema beach

Cathedrals downtown Rio

This graffiti was pretty good!

The arches

What the housing looks like.

Stairs made out of any every kind of tiles. It was random and fun!

Mocambique! (where Josh served his mission)

The ULTIMATE photo bomb. She is even smiling at OUR camera. It was pretty funny.

Our Condo that we stayed in for the week.

View from the sidewalk. If you look straight down the sidewalk, two blocks down in the beach. We were SO close!

Long bike ride up and down the beaches!

They have exercise equipment all along the beach! I found it pretty funny.

Perfect little mermaid rock :)

We rode the buses a TON. It saved us money and was pretty entertaining. This was us on our way to church the Sunday we flew out.

Church in Portuguese :) We found other BYU students attending the ward, of course.

Here are some panorama shots that we got.

The Sugar Loaf and its little beach.

View from the Sugar Loaf. See the Christ statue

Another view

The arches

View from the Christ statue

If you made it all the way down here then you are a trooper! Here are just some random thoughts about our trip:

• Living two blocks from the beach was awesome, but I hate that sand never goes away.
• The pineapple was delicious!
• Dinner on the restaurant on the beach was my favorite meal! 
• I loved the bike riding around the beaches.
• If I wasn't getting stared at for how white I looked, I was getting stared at because I was in the 2% of people on the beach that was wearing, not only something that covered my butt, but a one piece that covered my stomach as well!
• I've never seen so many butts in my life. Please America, lets never adopt the thong for a swimsuit trend. PLEASE.
• Overall, I didn't really love (or really like) the food. Which is disappointing to someone who loves food so much!
• The plane ride wasn't TOO bad, except for Josh could never get comfortable to sleep which meant the same for me.
• Met a guy on the beach from America, who was disappointed to find out that Josh is NOT my brother, but my husband. Awkward!
•  I loved the Sunday market but learned that if you find a painting you like, BUY IT. We showed up five minutes too late. Our painting was sold. 
• We had amazing weather the entire trip! But the humidity was not helping me out at all! I hate humidity. Mostly because my hair goes crazy  as seen in these pictures.
• And the whole time we were there it was hazy, which was a bummer for pictures of the city but I still think we got a couple good ones.
• Overall it was an amazing trip!!

I feel like the statement "the more I see the less I know" is SO true. I loved learning more about Brazilian culture and how the world really is so different outside of my suburban American life. I see how in so many ways I am blessed to live the places that I have.  I am excited for more trips around the US and the world through out our life!