For those of you who haven't seen our new house yet, here are some pics. We didn't want to put too many good pictures here, because we want you to come experience the house for yourself!
This first one is when Private First Class Don "arm-strength" Joshua Barrand came to our house for easter, and that was great! We loved seeing him! He was fit and trim and did some one-armed, clapping push-ups.
This is Sam's bathroom. I think Marcia did a great job with the decorations. Sam really likes the jungle theme. In fact we are working on potty training, and we tell Sam that there is a turtle in the toilet, and the turtle wants his poop and pee. So when Sam says that he wants to go to the bathroom, he says "I want to give some pee to the turtle". He has been doing well recently with going to the bathroom on the toilet.
Before Christmas, I told Marcia that I wanted a Wii after I graduated this summer. And the way she awkwardly responded, I thought she was going to get me one for Christmas. Really she handled the conversation awkwardly because she wasn't excited about getting a gaming system.
After Christmas, I was excited to receive the presents that I did, but deep in my heart I really wanted that Wii. We weighed out the belt and the crock pot, and the Wii, and we made the tough choice to take back some presents and sell some books so we could get the Wii. Since then we have had a lot of fun playing together, and with others. Sam likes it a lot too.
If we get a decent video camera (next christmas?) then I'll put up some video's of Sam playing. He is really cute!
Here it is, our final Brazil post. The last stop on our Brazilian tour was Iguassu Falls. This is the second largest water fall in the world. It is right in between Brazil and Argentina, so there is always a fight "the Iguassu falls is ours-" the Brazilians say and the Argentines say " No , it is ours" . Guess what I think? It is ours , of course.
In this video you can see the lookout point we walked to over the falls. This video doesn't do the falls justice. They are so amazing, and are even considered one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. You can also see a water park we went to. We were the only ones at the park, so we had it all to ourselves.
Porto Alegre ( in English "Happy Port") was our next stop. We went there to visit my sister Regina and her family. Porto Alegre is famous for their "churrasco" (barbeque). My brother in law made us a big "churrasco" and it was so good... Here is my sister, second to the left and her family and some friends This was when we were saying goodbye
In this video we see Kentchan playing a little Brazilian football. He is our nephew, and Sam's cousin. Next is Sam playing on the swings with the twins Narumi and Yukari. Then Bryce does his magic backflips, and then tries to teach Yukari.
Sao Vicente (next to Santos) is the oldest city in Brazil. It was founded in 1532 by Portuguese explorers. The town has been recently updated and it is a very pretty place. It is in the Guinness book of world records for the longest beach front garden. If Bryce were to live in Brazil, it would be here.
Marcia's mom grew up there and her aunt still lives there, so we went to visit her and Marcia's cousins.
The first is a picture of a monument dedicated to the foundation of Sao Vicente.
Next is a cool lit up bridge that leads to a neat little island.
This is Sam and Bryce on the beach in Santos
Marcia's aunt and cousin. The little boy holding Sam is Marcia's second cousin Joao. Sam loved him.
In this video you can see Sam on the beach in Santos on a very windy day. That ball kept blowing away from us. The next clip is of Sam and another second cousin named Artur running around in a parking lot.
This time we visited one of the world's largest cities: Sao Paulo. We went to the SP Zoo and I don't need to say that Sam had so much fun. He loves animals, especially lions and the monkeys. We went to a Museum where we didn't have to pay anything to enter and we enjoyed it so much. There were lots of originals paintings by famous artists like Van Gogh, Cezanne, Picasso, etc. We were amazed that no one tried to steal them. Besides being one of the largest cities in the world, Sao Paulo is also one of the most dangerous. Marcia made Bryce grow a goatee, wear dark sunglasses, wear a Brazilain soccer shirt, and he had to leave his hair a mess so that he wouldn't look like a clean cut American, fresh shaven American. View of Sao Paulo City. As you can see in the video below and this picture, the city is monsterous. This is the size of city Marcia was used to when she came to Salt Lake City for the first time, and was very suprised at how small it was. She kept asking people where the "real downtown" was. In Sao Paulo, we also went and visited Marcia's family. This is her aunt and cousins. These people were very nice and gave us some great food.
Visiting my grandma was one of the main reason of this trip. She is a 99 year old Japanese lady who went to Brazil in her early 20s, who speaks Portuguese with a very thick Japanese accent, who sings all the time when she is not talking and who had a "crush on Bryce". She used to say: "handsome husband, Marcinha really lucky"
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It took us so long to post the 2nd half of our trip to Brazil. To be exact, it took us 6 months. But here it is. While we were in Taubate visiting my parents, we took a quick trip to Rio, the famous Copacabana Beach City and where the Christ Statue is.
Sunny Day on Copacabana Beach. Our hotel was just across the street from the beach. The sand was incredible. Very soft and white. It is a famous beach for a reason. Christ Statue ( Corcovado-Rio) Rio City View from the Christ Statue. The land feature in the upper left of this picture is called the Sugar Loaf.
This is a video taken from the lookout at the foot of the Christ Statue. As you can see the view from up there was breath-taking. The land is very hilly and extremely lush. As we just started driving up the long, windy, cobblestone road that lead up to this incredible monument we saw a chubby guy on a bike struggling his way against the steep slope. Marcia asked our Taxi driver: "Do people ride their bikes all the way to the top?!?!" He replied that some do, but "not that guy."
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