Pics and Stuff

Michelle wanted me to post to the blog...

H-O-K-I-E-S Hokies!!

You have to train them when their young, I have already begun Rachel's training to the Maroon Side of the Grid Iron.


Look how cute she is in her little hat and mittens!


Just look at the boots...what would she do without an aunt that works at a shoe store.

...so I did.

Halloween

I have some good news and some bad news. I'll give you the good stuff first: Rachel's costume was pretty cute and she won our apartment complex Halloween party costume contest for the second year in a row! There were only about 10 kids total, but we'll take the win anyway. The bad news is we had a heck of a time getting a good picture.

The belt was really the only thing that distinguished the Princess Leia dress from a ghost costume.

We went to a Halloween party at Sara and Brandon's and our friend Tony was Darth Vader. Rachel was none too happy about this picture, but Princess Leia doesn't really like him anyway, right? And now, please prepare yourself for the cutest costume in the world:
It's Roxie the witch! Is that the best costume ever or what?

Our little toddler

Rachel and her "bling". She plays with her necklaces all day long.

Rachel is quite the little walker now. She got really good at it while we were in Brazil. Now that she is walking she can wear dresses a lot more. It made her pretty mad to try and crawl in a dress. So for our last month of summer she wore a dress several days a week. Winter isn't quite as convenient since her little legs get cold without tights, but September was great :) It's so fun to see her toddling around. She still falls over A LOT, but is usually a good sport about it (unless she is tired). Her latest lovely trick is taking really big bites of her food, gagging, and throwing everything (and I mean everything) up. She did it 4 times last week alone. This morning I made the rather stupid mistake of taking her out of her chair to try and calm her down so she wouldn't do it. She puked all over me, herself, and the floor. Lesson learned: it is a lot easier to clean it up of the high chair tray. Don't worry, though, I didn't take a picture of that!

Rachel enjoying some tasty ravioli.

A Weekend of Gluttony

My little sister Jen visited us this past week. We did a lot of stuff: went downtown, shopped for nail polish (she's a reformed nail biter and now enjoys painting her lovely long nails), played with Rachel, took naps, read books, watched movies, played monopoly, annoyed each other, birthday doorbell ditched, visited a pumpkin patch, etc. But mostly we enjoyed my personal favorite of the seven deadly sins: gluttony! We ate ourselves sick. It was the best visit ever, despite the severe overeating. I hated to drop her off at the airport this morning. Luckily we get to see her again at New Years! See you soon, chum! Thanks for having so much fun with us.
** Note about our Brazil posts: Matt's parents in Portland watched Rachel for us. She had a good time with them and actually cried a little when she saw me for the first time after getting back. We were glad that we could vacation happily knowing she was in good hands back in Portland.

Bedtime story. What a cute pair of redheads!

Jen getting her workout by swinging Rachel up and down.

Jen (going in to get Rachel from her nap): Michelle, do you think Rachel's crib will support my weight?
Me (in the other room): Probably not, so let's not test it.
Jen (a few seconds later): Michelle, come look!

The pumpkin patch! The pumpkins that we got to take home ("included in the price of your admission!") were considerable smaller. As in Rachel can easily hold hers without any help and there is no way we can carve them.

Rachel didn't love the slide...
I wanted to add another picture of Jen petting the goats, but the darn computer won't let me. Let's just say that Jen loves goats and the goat pen was almost the highlight of her visit. Rachel was just mad that we wouldn't let her play with the goat poo.

Brazil: Part 3 of 3

For the last leg of the trip we went to Iguassu Falls which roughly translates into "a whole bunch of water falling down a cliff" or something close to that. Notice our matching park sweatshirts that we had to buy since we were not prepared for the cold. The first two pictures are on the Brazil side, the next two are on the Argentina side...and here they are:


Michelle and I near the falls.

Cool isn't it


Up close and personal at the "Devils Throat" I think the Portuguese sounds more ominous "Gargantua do Diablo" either way it was big and cool.


Your two favorite people on San Martin island. The falls consist of 2.6km of cliffs with over 206 identified falls. Doesn't that just blow your mind.


Michelle's shoe or a tasty snack? This toucan sure could not tell the difference.


And Michelle with a Macau on her arm. And the rest is history.

Brazil: Part 2 of 3

Next stop was in Rio de Janeiro. Our first day was spent just hanging out at the beach and finding our way around the town. Both of Rio's famous beaches were near our hotel and the first day we went to check out Copacabana (pictured below). After spending some time in the tropical sun we went in seach of some grub and went to an italian resaurant recommended by the tour company which was alright. Mostly it was cool beacuse it was right on the boardwalk directly across from the beach.



The next morning it was up bright and early for a full day city tour. The tour took us around the nicer neighborhoods of Ipanema and some of the historic areas from the colonial period which were interesting. There was one street where there were period buildings from Brittan, France, Germany, and Portugal. There was also quite a heated debate on the tour bus when the tour guide pointed out the school for the deaf and dumb and one of the people on the tour tried to tell him that it was deaf and mute since the people are not "dumb"; it was never resolved as the guide quickly found something else to talk about. The bus then dropped us off at the train that took us up to see the famous statue of Christ which is built on teh highest point in Rio. The artist that designed it found he did not have the know how to complete his plan so he went to Paris to study sculpture for several years before returing to construct the statue.



On the way down there was a Samba band to entertain us.



Our last stop of the day was sugar loaf hill which offered some better views of the harbor. When the Portuguese arrived at the harbor they figured there must have been a river flowing into it and since it was January 1st when they arrived they named it "River of January" I'm sure they were surprised to find there was no river at all but the name stuck. We rode the cable cars up to the top and took in the amazing vistas


There were lots of these "monkeys" called saguis that are something more like a cross between a squirrel and monkey. Anyways, they were cool looking and were all over the place.



The view from Sugar Loaf hill


The next day we took a tour of the Tijuca Rain Forest in the morning and below is a picture from one of the stops. One of the best parts of the tour was a species of tree that grow hollow in the middle and usually has a colony of ants living inside so when the guide hit it with a stick the ants had swarmed out and were all over the place in a few seconds.


On our last day we just hung out at the beach and (fortunately for you) did not take any pictures. Although we did get a good deal on a couple of beach chairs and drank coconut water straight from a whole chilled coconut.

Brazil: Part 1 of 3

Our first stop in Brazil was Belo Horizante, where Matt served his mission. I've decided to just give a few highlights of each of the three places we visited to keep the length under control. The best part about our trip to Belo was meeting some people from Matt's mission. His friend Vinicious showed us around the city for 2 days. We had a great time with him and really would have been lost on our own. He doesn't speak English, so Matt got back into Portuguese immersion style and did a lot of tranlating between the 3 of us. Vinicious was so friendly and accomadating, it was great for me to meet him and for Matt to see him again after 6 years. He promised to come visit us when he gets rich :)


My favorite part of this leg of the trip was meeting a family in La Fayette (a city 2 hours away from Belo Horizante) that Matt baptized. He baptized the 2 sisters in the family, Ana Paula and Barbara. I don't think Matt had heard from them in a while. When he emailed them to tell them we were coming, he found out that a younger brother and their mom had joined the church too. The brother served a mission in another area of Brazil. Both of the sisters are engaged and we know at least one of them is getting married in the temple. Barbara is in the district Relief Society presidency and Ana Paula is in the ward Primary presidency. They took us up to a new chapel that was built about 3 years ago. It was beautiful and looked a lot like a chapel in the States. When Matt was there they met in someone's house, so this was quite the upgrade.
As we sat in this family's living room talking to them, I kept thinking of this scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants, 18:15, "And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one ^asoul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!"
Like many returned missionaries, Matt had been feeling a little depressed that a lot of the people he baptized were now inactive. It was so amazing to go and see how the gospel has changed these people's lives. It started with just 2 young women who were baptized and stayed active, and now look where they are. I can't even describe how great the experience was.