Since some of you may have had difficulty looking at the slideshow or may have wanted more information about the pictures, I decided to add this post with a little more explanation. The picture above is the Hentges family with whom we spent our last days in my (Ryan's) mission. They took exceptional care of us and even fed us brazilian barbecue (churrasco) with filet mignon and other choice meat. I love this family.
This is a family that we visited with in Candice's first area called Campo Grande. We had a great time visiting with people we love and being immersed in Brazilian culture again. I haven't included any more pictures of families since none of you (besides Dave) know any of them.
Because this blogspot thing is kind of lame about the order of adding pictures, we will start from the end of the trip and move backward. This is Iguacu Falls on the border of Brasil and Argentina. This picture was taken on the Argentine side at the Devil's Throat (Garganta del Diablo), which is the spot with most water flowing and some of the highest falls.
This picture was taken from the Brazilian side and gives you an idea of the size of Iguacu Falls. There are something like 274 waterfalls and an incredible amount of water that comes through here. We went during a supposed "drought" and it still looked like this.
Candice did a great job on this beautiful shot of the falls. It is difficult to describe how beautiful and powerful these falls are. I recommend this spot to everyone.
This is Praia dos Naufragados, or Shipwreck Beach, in my mission. We hiked for 45 minutes through the jungle to get to this beautiful beach. There were about ten surfers taking advantage of the huge waves. About 5 or 6 dolphins were also enjoying themselves in the waves.
This has to be about the most beautiful beach I have been to. If you can get past the incredibly pasty white figure in the middle, you can't deny how beautiful this place is.
We visited a city called Curitiba which is in between our missions. My mission president and one of my favorite mission companions live in this beautiful city. Above is my mission president, Presidente Peixoto, and his wife. He had just had surgery to remove gall stones a couple days before and was still recovering.
Curitiba is famous for these trees called Araucarias. This city is much like Portland in that it is filled with parks and trees. The temple design had to be changed to accomodate a few araucarias because it is illegal to cut them down. We visited the temple, several parks, and a museum while in this city.
This guy is really cool. His name is Mario and he is a member of the Church in Candice's mission. He is about 5 feet tall and was kind enough to give me a ride into town on his motorcycle to buy bus tickets. We also love this family.
Here I am drinking terere at a member's house in Campo Grande. This drink is basically grass and cold water with some flavoring. It tastes about what it sounds like. In my mission they drink a similar drink with hot water called chimarrao which incredibly tastes even worse.
Here we are in Rio de Janeiro where we started our trip. This is the statue called Christ the Redeemer (Cristo Redentor). It is probably the most famous landmark in Rio and one that I'm assuming most of you have seen. The statue looks small in this picture, but is actually about 100 feet tall. It is located on top of the tallest mountain in the area and provides an incredible view of the city. Cool fact: Christ the Redeemer was recently voted as one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World.
Here's Candice on Copacabana Beach. Our hotel was about 100 meters from here. We loved the spot and were sad that our flight delays made us miss one of our two measly days in Rio. We loved Brasil and the people are as loving and open as we remembered. Que saudade!
Happy Father's Day Ryan!! So I made him take this picture with the goodies I got for him. On the left is the Iron Gym.....he has been wanting it for quite some time now. He'll probably look like Rocky next time you see him;) On the right is my medal of honor I made him with my kids at school, it says World's Greatest Husband in the middle (and it is very true!!).
So our ward has a tradition of making mini pies for all of the men on father's day. Here is Ryan licking the remains of his chocolate raspberry pie, it was that good!
This week we got the experience of a lifetime. Our neighbor went into labor 3 weeks early and we were her back up plan just in case. So we picked up little Andrew from the babysitter last Wednesday and got to keep him until the next day. Ryan got to be the daddy while I went to school and got to practice changing poopy diapers too! Ask him about it later;) Other than staying up with him all night, I would say we are ready for the challenge!
