Day trip in the Big Apple

So luckily at the end of our trip to Brasil we had a nine hour layover in New York City, and since neither of us had ever been to the City That Never Sleeps, we decided to take a subway into Manhattan. It was a foggy, cold day and we didn't have time to get any closer than this to the Statue of Liberty. Even from this distance, the history and meaning of the statue was apparent. I have always wanted to see Lady Liberty.
This fire station is located across the street from the area that housed the World Trade Center buildings.
This is the site where the World Trade Center buildings were located. It is a massive block of land and hundreds of construction workers were clearing old debris and working on the construction of the Freedom Tower and memorials. This is a hallowed piece of land.
This is a wall decorated with notes and drawings by elementary school students to those who died on September 11. It makes the whole thing a little more real.
As I mentioned, it was a very foggy day. We couldn't even see the top of the Empire State Building. Because our time in the city was short, we decided to take a double decker bus around town. Candice took this gem of a shot while we were traveling along in the bus.
Here we are inside the very cool Toys 'R Us megastore at Times Square. The store is so big that it has a ferris wheel inside and millions of toys.
We had to have a dog in NYC. It was so cool to be in the city and see all of the people walking and the taxis passing - it looks like it does in the movies.
Here we are again at Times Square. This place is so big and so lively that I think it might be the best spot to experience New York. At the top of that tall building behind us is the New Year's Eve ball that drops on TV every year.
We will have to go back to New York to see a broadway show. We also need to ride in a taxi, visit Central Park, the Metropolitan, the Statue of Liberty and everything else. Who wants to come with?

More about Brasil

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!

Explanation of previous post

So if you click on the Picasa Web Albums link on the post below, you can look at 45 pictures of our trip to Brazil. You can click on the slideshow button to watch them in a slideshow. There were too many pictures to post in the usual way, so if you have questions about any of the pictures feel free to ask in a comment or email. Thanks.

Just to give a little help...

The first pictures were taken in Rio de Janeiro at Copacabana Beach and Corcovado Hill where the statue of Christ is located. The next set of pictures were taken in Candice's mission. After that, we visited Curitiba where my mission president and one of my favorite mission companions live. The next group of pictures are from my mission. The last set were taken at Iguacu Falls on the border of Brazil and Argentina. For more info on these beautiful waterfalls go to this link for the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iguacu_Falls

Picasa Web Albums - Brasil Trip 2009 - Brasil Trip 2009

Picasa Web Albums - Brasil Trip 2009

Graduation and Northern Michigan

So this picture was accidentally erased in the mackinac section, so we decided to take tandem bikes around the island. It was about an hour ride and we even convinced Brent and Susan to come along!! This was the view we had just about the whole time, it was beautiful.


This is another part of the dunes, you can hike to a beautiful view of Lake Michigan and we luckily got there right at sunset.
This is a picture at Sleeping Bear dunes, we had just finished a pretty long hike up the dunes and as you can see I was still out of breath.
This is the beautiful Mackinac island(you actually pronounce it Mackinaw). Anyway, we were able to sleep in a really nice hotel right on main street and do many of the fun things the island had to offer.

Although we were not able to get a great shot of the hotel, here is the best one. I was so excited to go in!! Somewhere in time used to be one of my favorite movies.
Here is a close up picture of us in the front entrance of the Grand Hotel.
So here we are in the biggest Christmas store in the U.S., Bronner's Christmas Wonderland. You could literally spend a week in that store and still not see everything. Susan was in heaven!
Here Ryan wants you to see his sleeves on his gown. They are quite interesting, his hands come out of the middle of the sleeves and then the very ends hang down, it is a special type of gown for those who get masters degree. Doesn't he look adorable?
Hooray Ryan graduated!! It was a rainy day as you can see behind us, but despite the rain, it was a good graduation.

Our four month blogging hiatus is finally over!

Well, it has been entirely too long, so we have finally decided to update you on the last four months of our lives. Over spring break, we headed down to Nauvoo for a few days. Some friends of ours offered to let us stay in their summer home for the three days we were there. The house was located just three blocks from the temple and it was cool to feel like a local for a few days.
This is a relatively new sculpture of Joseph and Hyrum Smith in front of the temple overlooking the Mississippi River. This was actually right at the end of our trip when the sun finally came out. The rest of the trip was extremely cold and windy. Now we know what those early settlers went through and especially the pioneers who had to travel during the winter.
The temple is extremely beautiful and impressive. We were able to attend a session on Saturday night and the inside of the temple was very unique. What a huge sacrfice it must have been to build the original one and then to leave it right after it was finished.
As I said it was extremely cold while we were there. We went on a carriage ride around town while senior missionaries told us stories about some of the church members who lived in Nauvoo. It was a fun ride and we were thankful to have the blankets.
This is the spot at the end of the Trail of Hope where early Church members crossed the Mississippi River. The Trail of Hope is the path down Parley Street where all of the wagons traveled en route to the west. This is the trail which President Hinckley encouraged every church member to walk down if they have a chance.

Contrary to popular belief, most of the early saints traveled on barges across the river starting on February 4, 1845. It was only on one bitter cold day of -33 degrees that they were able to cross on the ice.
Joseph, Hyrum, and Emma are all buried next to each other. Other family members are also buried at this site, known as the Homestead, where Joseph and Emma first lived in Nauvoo. This area is owned by the Community of Christ church.
The old downtown section of Nauvoo is really cool. The Church has restored many of the original homes and has also restored many of the shops including the location where the wagons were constructed. The senior missionaries were always excited to see us and explained a lot about how the early saints built wagons, made shoes, and made guns.
This picture was taken in the John Taylor home. We were told a cool story about how John Taylor crossed the river back to Nauvoo to retrieve this toy horse for his son who had been crying for several days over it.
This picture was taken in front of the Wilford Woodruff home. No, I (Ryan) am not pregnant, I just have some gloves in my pockets. Below is a picture of Candice standing on Robinson Street. We are not entirely sure which Robinson it is named after, but we believe it is Ebenezer Robinson, Candice's great, great, great, great, great, great uncle who ran the first printing office in Nauvoo and helped in the printing of the third edition of the Book of Mormon.
Those of you who know me well will know of my great love for the movie, "Rudy." Candice was kind enough to let me stop at the University of Notre Dame on our way back from Nauvoo to pay homage at the mecca of inspirational sports movies. Josh, I hope you see this one.
On our way down to Nauvoo, we thought we'd stop at one of the beaches on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. It was spring break after all. It was windy and there were ice chunks floating in the lake, not exactly an escape from the cold Michigan winter.
Candice: Yay, this is my fun new hair cut. I decided to go short.
Ryan: She looks hot!
Speaking of the cold, bitter, miserable Michigan winter... here is the inside of our sliding glass door. It got so cold that we had ice all the way around the inside of the door.
Here's the whole crew with Chris on the day he entered the MTC. It was great to see how excited and ready he was and I think both of us had a great experience reminiscing about our own experiences in the Sao Paulo MTC. Speaking of which, we are going to Brasil in May!

May 10 through May 27 will be pure bliss in paradise.
We had a really great time hanging out with the family. We had the whole place to ourselves that night and we got to see Pam and Curtis dance and I even let out a pig squeal or two.


Ice skating with the family and Alan and Katie. Chase skated like a champ for his first time trying it.
It was great spending Christmas with family again this year.
Coronado Island is beautiful.
We went to Balboa Park. It was a beautiful day. Here we are with our friend Snouty the elephant.
Ryan surprised me with tickets to wicked for our anniversary....doesn't Ryan look so classy in his zip up ski jacket?
This was our spectacular anniversary dinner that I slaved over all day! Literally! I spent about 4 hours preparing chicken cordon blue, candied yams, rissoto rice, and corn on the cob. And to top it off, martinellis to drink:)
This picture is kinda old, but this was back on halloween. We took our class downtown and they went trick-or-treating from shop to shop. Isn't my class adorable?!

Happy Anniversary!

Wow, I can't believe it was just a year ago that this wonderful day came to pass! We are still happily married and can't wait for what the future holds. I am going to attempt to make chicken cordon bleu tonight....lets see what happens.