Rio de Janeiro

Our first day in Copacabana we decided to do a beach day of course. It was pretty cloudy, but it was still warm so a great day for the beach. Compared to Joao Pessoa beaches the water is freezing, but the beautiful mountains that surround the area are beautiful. It's also very different seeing the flavela on the hill right there next to Copocabana. We spent hours digging in the sand, swmming, and snacking. They have a cracker named Globo, that is popular there. It reminds me of a funion, but without the onion flavor and more of a light cheese (it was strangely addicting despite the light flavor). We burried Kai, and he asked to be made into a gingerbread man. He makes a pretty cute gingerbread man. We ate a late lunch and opted for ice cream for dinner (which the kids loved).

The next day we headed to the old center to ride the street car and see more of the city. It was still really cloudy and we couldn't see the Christ Redempter on the hill. We saw some cool old buildings and then we waited in line for 2 hours for our turn on the street car. It was pouring rain the entire time, but stopped right before we got on the street car. We took it up and saw Santa Teresa neighborhood. I love the old look and feel with pops of modern graffitti art everywhere.

On our way to the WWII museum we stopped by Escadeira Selaron, a colorful, bright and quircky tiled stairway with tiles from all over the world.

The WWII museum was more of a memorial with a small display of items. We enjoyed looking through all the artifacts and the kids had fun bringing the art to life. We headed back home for a lazy afternoon/evening to watch Rio (the movie) and to shop for some souvenirs at the beach market.

The next day we signed up for a tour to do all the big touristy things in Rio. We headed to Christ Redemptor first, it was inspiring to see. Pretty cool that they have such a great reminder to think about Christ right there for the whole city to see. The views of the city are stunning from there as well. Rio is really one of the prettiest cities that I have ever seen.

After that we headed past the Sambadrome, but only got the drive by experience. I imagine it is a sight to see full and have a parade dancing by. The next stop was Maracana, the main football stadium. The boys loved it, especially Pace. Besides the World cup, it also was the venue for the Olympics opening ceremony. We also made a stop at the Cathedral de Sao Sebastian, which is another truly modern catholic church. The architecture is based off of the pyramids in central America.

After we headed to a Churrasco for lunch and ate lots of yummy meat and then we headed up Pao de Acucar. I think the area around it is one of the prettiest spots in Rio. And the views from the top looking back at the city are stunning. We were so blessed with perfect weather to see all these amazing spots in the city.

Our last day with the Yates we went to Copacabana Fort. Jane gad to match with Alexa, and is was so cute. The boys really loved seeing the guns on top of the fort, and Kai's reaction was pretty priceless. And then we spent the afternoon playing at the beach.

The Yate's flew out early Sunday morning, so we decided to visit the Iraja ward for church. It was a beautiful meeting and the speakers were such faithful examples to me. We then spent the afternoon visiting with Nubia, Hilton, and Tatiana. Jake said that Nubia was like a mother to him while he was serving in Iraja. They were so sweet and cooked us a delicious lunch with beans, sausage, mac and cheese, rice, shrimp, acai, chocolate pudding and more. On Monday we headed back to Nova Igaucu to visit Tarcila and her family. She was also like a mother to Jake during his mission and her family was so sweet to him. We enjoyed catching up with her and her daughter. It was so fun to meet people who are so important to Jake. Our kids were very tired of traveling and visiting so much on the trip home was very hard for everyone,3 of the kids fell asleep after lots of tears and anger. But we still stopped by the Rio temple just to see it. A little miracle occured when the guard let us in to walk around on the grounds, even though it was closed. Our family was able to pray together in front of the temple and the spirit turned hard feelings and tears into joy and love. The gaurd at the temple even told us to return always, which just felt like a message from God to us. We need the temple in our lives. We were able to go to dinner that night light and happy. We reminisced over a yummy meal and were sad to realize that our time in Rio had come to an end. After some flight issues we arrived home in the middle of the night and we all slept long and hard until late in the morning. This was a wonderful trip and so many memories were made. Rio is a bit crazy, beautiful, inspiring, scary, and full of life. It is truly a unique place