The Zinho

The zinho turned 9 months old while we were in Brazil, and I heard he celebrated it up....Big time! So we went into his checkup a little late, but here are his stats

length- 28in 37%
weight-20lbs 38%
head- 47.5 cm 94%
4 teeth!!

He is in such a fun stage right! I'd freeze time if I could. Although I think I've said that every month up to this point. He never stops chattering, he sleeps like a champ, and is usually the happiest baby ever! He is so fun to play with and he loves all of his toys that he got for Christmas that never stop making noise! He always has a smile on his face and flirts with all the ladies all the time. He also loves his "theme song" that his dad his written for him! He has also become quite the dancer! We love him so much!

The Ry-ster is another year older!

It was Ryan's birthday yesterday! And as I reflect back on the past year I can not believe all that has changed! At this time last year we had just moved to Colorado and were renting a small apartment looking for houses to buy! We had no furniture, no friends where we lived and I was pregnant! And at the time I thought I couldn't have been happier.....I was way off!! It's amazing the happiness and contentment that we have found! We moved....twice, had a baby, bought a house, Ryan got a new job, we were sealed in the temple, and continued to travel!
I continue to be amazed by Ryan's patience, calmness, honesty, and open mindedness (who knows if that's a word). And he sure makes me laugh a lot, and roll my eyes! He keeps life entertaining! And he is my very best friend! So happy birthday Lover!!

Final Brazil Post

We've decided that best places to take vacations are when you know someone who is from or lives there. We got hooked up on all kinds of ways in Brazil. Wednesday Diego's dad took us out on his boat for a day of fishing and hanging out on a less-crowded beach.

The boat was an awesome, old school, wooden boat!
We were on the boat for about a half hour going up the coast. One thing that was interesting was all the cactus' if you look at this picture carefully you can see all of them.

The men dropped us ladies off at the beach to hang out while they went out fishing. This picture is just to show a little of the eye candy we had all afternoon.
Diego had a family friend who owned a restaurant on the beach, so they took all the fish they caught to the kitchen and they cooked it for us for lunch! Talk about fresh fish and the catch of the day! This is one of the fish Ryan caught. Doesn't he look proud?

The finished product. Another thing I want to point out....they eat french fries on top of/with everything!!


On our way home after an incredible day at the beach.
Diego's dad! Gotta love it! Here's a funny story.......You can't tell from this picture, but Diego's dad, has quite a beer belly. Diego was joking around with his dad and told me his dad was pregnant. He patted his belly and told us the Brazilian women are so demanding they have now made the men start having the babies! I thought it was funny......




Thursday we ate our way around the city, eating new things and things I knew I would miss.
That night we went to a really nice restaurant on the canal and it was beautiful with a wonderful ambiance!
Friday we went and spent some time in Rio. Diego's cousin, Miller, drove us around the city and we flew out that night late. In this picture if you look close you can see the Christ Redeemer statue on top of the mountain the mountain that is always shown in movies!
This is on the little hike up to the statue with Rio in the background.


Everyone was taking pictures like this, so we figured we needed to as well.

Miller's friend, in the pink shirt, came with us. And Ryan and I joked that we were traveling with our tour guide, and body guard. They took really good care of us in one of the most dangerous cities in the world, we always felt really safe.

Later we went to Copacabana! We had our final Brazilian dinner before we headed to the airport. Except at the airport they still had pao de quiejo(so I had my final meal at the airport)
We had an amazing trip in Brazil. Ryan loved being back there and using his Portuguese again. The people we incredible and made us feel so welcome and loved. My favorite part of the trip was the food and the beaches! We both agreed we would love to go back, maybe not during the busiest time of the year, but we loved it. And our visas are good for 10 years, anybody want to come with us? This is the only vacation when I haven't been sad to come home.....because I was going crazy without baby! I missed him so much and cried several times while I was gone, so I was so good to be able to hold and squeeze him again! It was back to coats and winter hats again real quick! We brought Hudson back an official Rio Fluminence soccer jersey,and although it's still a little big,I think it's a sign of things to come!

Brazil Part II

After such a late night the last thing we wanted to do was get up early, but we all felt like we really needed to go to church Sunday morning. It was raining and we had to walk, so I kind of had a bad attitude about it, but once we got to the little old house that had been turned into a chapel I remembered why I needed to go. After such a rowdy, loud, and wild night I needed to feel the peace and calm that you feel in church. It was fast and testimony meeting and even though I didn't understand a word that was spoken I felt the spirit so strong. It was like a breath of fresh air. There was a missionary that was from Payson, UT and he had only been out for two weeks. He bore his testimony, and Ryan commented on how good his Portuguese was. Afterwards we went and talked to him and he seemed terrified, he asked Ryan how his Portuguese sounded and how long it took Ryan to be able to understand people. He was so sweet. I've been trying to get a hold of his mom and tell her we saw him, but I haven't had much luck.
For lunch Diego's mom made us an incredible lunch. She made a pot roast (Brazilian style) potatoes, pasta, farofa, and salad. She is such a good cook it was amazing what kind of food came out of that humble, teeny kitchen.
Later that afternoon we took a walk around the city. This is the canal where all the boats are docked.
On our way home we stopped by one of Diego's friends house. There were a lot of people there and all they wanted to do was feed us. We were still stuffed from lunch but Ryan had room for dessert. And these women were thrilled that he ate and liked it! They just sat there watching him like a hawk as he ate, waiting to see how much he liked it. He ate 3 plates full! They didn't give him much choice.
Monday it was still kind of rainy, so we went shopping! We laughed at how even the mannequins have big booties!
My favorite thing to get at Tocano's or Rodizio's is the cheese bread, Pao de Queijo, and I finally found some!

Later that night everyone ordered pizza. Brazilian pizza doesn't have tomato sauce on it. They put ketchup on it. I didn't like the ketchup, but the pizza itself was pretty good.
Tuesday was hot!! So we headed to the beach and ate our little hearts out. (not like we hadn't been doing that every other day) I loved trying all the new foods that people were selling in little stands along the beach.


Ryan wasn't feeling well, probably from all the dessert he had the day before.




Later we hiked over to the fort right on the beach.

This is the acai with granola and honey, that we loved so much.
And this was the cheeseburger that I loved so much. Mostly because of the bread to meat ratio!

Brazil Part I

A little back ground before I begin this post: Ryan and Diego work together at Rain and have become really good friends. Diego is from Cabo Frio, Brazil and his family still lives there. He is married to an American, Melissa, they have been married for three years. Melissa served her mission in Rio and met Diego when she went back to visit after her mission. Ryan served his mission in southern Brazil and still speaks fluent Portuguese ....which means I was the only who couldn't speak the language. Diego and Melissa invited us to come with them to Brazil, they were there before Christmas and we met there later...end of back ground.
Leaving Hudson was way harder then I could have imagined! My mom and dad came and stayed at our house while we were gone, so I knew he was in excellent hands, I was only concerned about myself. We had a layover in Dallas and Ryan caught the scent of that fried chicken he loves so much(that's not true he had researched before we left and knew exactly where it was) so we had to make a pit stop.
After a 10 1/2 hr flight from Dallas to Rio de Janeiro, we found a man holding a piece of paper with our names on it and found out he was our ride to Cabo Frio,which is about a 2 hour drive. We arrived at Diego's grandmas house, they call her Vovo-zinho (granny in Portuguese)and she had a GIANT lunch prepared for us. She made rice, beans, chicken, beef, sausage, fried porkchops, and vegetables. It was delicious! All the food we ate while we were there was incredible, we did not have one bad meal. I knew at the this meal I was in trouble.........big trouble. Then we took a much needed nap. This is the room we stayed in. The living conditions were better then I thought they would be, I think Ryan had prepared me for the worst.
It is summer in Brazil right now, and Cabo Frio is where the Brazilians go on vacation, so the city was packed. That night around 11pm we went out. There were a ton of out door shops set up along the beach and tons of little restaurants. This is Melissa and Douglas, Diego's cousin who actually spoke a little English. For dinner we had lots of chicken, beef, rice, farofa(a ground up tapioca flour with butter and garlic that they eat on their meat...and everything else), and some kind of Brazilian tatertot! For dessert we had my new favorite.....acai(kind of a smoothie with acai and guarana) with granola and honey, and a churro with dulce de leche.
After dinner we went to concert on the beach and to say it was crowded would be a gross understatement.
This is Diego, Melissa, Ryan and I at the concert. The music was fun to listen to,even though I couldn't understand it. I guess I thought Portuguese would be easy to understand because I can understand a little Spanish, but they aren't even a little the same! We got home around 3 am.
The next afternoon we woke up around 11 and headed to the beach....us and everyone else in the Southern hemisphere.

Ryan had a sweetened condensed popsicle, which I was skeptical about, but it was delicious.
I was a little shocked at the amount of speedos and G-strings and the types of bodies wearing both. But I'll give the Brazilians one thing....they love and are very proud of their bodies, no matter what the size!
Ryan enjoyed lots of Coconut water.
This is Melissa and Diego's little girl, Madalena. She is two months older than Hudson, and it was her first time meeting all of Diego's family.
For lunch that day we ate at a restaurant on the beach and we had chicken stroganoff, it wasn't anything like what we have here, it was made with creme de leche and served with rice and it was delicious!.....a successful day at the beach.
That night was New Year's Eve! Diego's cousin had reserved a space on the beach for a party. It was roped off and they had a DJ and food. There were people everywhere! Everyone wore white and a huge firework show went off at midnight then we danced the night away!

This is Ryan in line for another Churro, I think I had at least one a day.
Ryan and his dance moves were the hit of the party!!! It was fun to hear some songs I recognized from Zumba,so I had some sweet moves myself. People loved that we were Americans, people came up to us and asked if they could take pictures with us. We never saw any other Americans while we were there, except for a missionary from Payson at church the next day( more about that in the next post)

And this is the Vovo-zinho! Melissa, Diego, and Ryan would translate most things for me. But Vovo-zinho didn't care that I didn't speak or understand the language. She would talk to me as if I had learned Portuguese in the 5 minutes since the last time she tried to talk to me, and it's not like she would use simple words or act out what she was trying to say, or point to things, she spoke to me just like she spoke to everyone else and then just looked at me waiting for a response. But we loved her! She is quite the character. Everybody we met was so giving, generous, loving, and so willing to help us out. We met a lot of Diego's family- aunts, uncles, cousins, and you would have thought by how they treated us that we had all been friends for years. They would have given us everything they had, if we would've let them.