A rainy morning inside

In a effort to stay better in touch with family and friends, Eli has suggested that I take on some of the blogging in our lives.  And although writing has not been my strong points in the past, here it goes.  

Here is a quick sense of what is going in my life right now.  I work one 7p-7a or 3-11pm shift a week. It is perfect for two reasons.  I totally miss Zara while I am gone and I appreciate my more full time job as a mom so much more.  And secondly, it has been so great for Zara and Eli's relationship (since he is the one to watch her).  I think they really enjoy that alone time.  Our summer has included lots of swimming (on the pool on our roof), park, splash park and other adventures in the DC area.

This week have been a little slow.  Because of the federal government shutdown, most of the museums near us are closed.  And I am pretty sure Zara is teething again. (I call her teething-whine-zilla.  Just kidding.  But really she just isn't quite herself with these first two teeth).  And in the last two days, there has been nonstop rain.  I used to like the occasional rainy day to curl up with a robe and a good book.  However, that gets old pretty fast when you have a Zara who is 10x happier when outside.  However, we are making the best of it and forging out of the house no matter what.  Especially since it looks like constant rain for the next two days.  And who am I kidding, might as well get used to it since winter is coming on.  Since summer was fairly nice this year, I am hoping the trend continues and fall lasts until December... :)

Here are a few things I am loving about being this girl's mom right now. 

I love waking up to this tiny bit of bed head each morning.  

She is constantly on her knees and I can't get enough of this view.
Baby feet can make one so happy.

Even if she is in the other room, I can open the dishwasher and Zara is there in a second.

The reflection of light in those blue eyes.

She is pulling herself up and walking along, but sometimes she gets stuck
and can't figure out how to get down.  She will put her hand out and make
noise until someone comes to help her. 

And this is just one of the many faces I think is to die for.


Happy Saturday!

Well. Four months later, I am finishing this last post on our trip to Brazil. Pretty quick turnaround...

On our last day in Rio, which also happened to be a perfect day weather-wise, we headed up to Corcovado. This is one of those spots I have always wanted to see in person. We had seen the Christ the Redeemer statue from below over the past few days, but suddenly we were right there underneath it on top of the mountain. 

The vans drive you up a crazy steep hill and drop you off in a parking lot...then you traverse up a few stairs and suddenly you see the back of the statue. 

At this point, you are literally on top of Rio. There isn't much higher than this. You can see for miles and miles. That's Copacabana behind Julie and her parents. 

Can you find Julie? That is Ipanema beach there on the left 

It was one of those days where they sky is so blue that it almost hurts your eyes. I love the way that Christ is portrayed. There were those who wanted Him to be on a cross, but I am so glad they decided to portray Him in His resurrected glory.

There were a few other people up there with us enjoying the view. Ok, there were a TON of people. I don't blame them though, amazing spot. 

These photos give you an idea of the amazing topography and the expanse of Rio. Wow, just wow. I can't believe we were up there. 

Lil travel trooper Zara. Again, she was just awesome. Love that girl. 

Experiencing all of these places with Julie's parents just made it that much for amazing. When you experience a place like this, it is so much fun to be there with people you love to enjoy it together. 

Zara was pretty amazed. this is one of my favorite photos to date of her and her mama. 

After enjoying the mountain top for an hour or so, we made the trek down the mountain. On the way down we were really glad we went up early as there were crazy amounts of people heading up. 

Took one last look at Copacabana and the cool sand structures.

There are a lot of confident people on these beaches. I will leave it at that. 

I should say that on one of the days Julie's parents stayed at the apartment with Zara while Julie and I headed to Ipanema beach to enjoy the ocean. It's no wonder that this is such a popular beach. The sand is like powdered sugar soft, and the water is quite the perfect temperature. There were some fun waves to be body surfed as well. 

How amazing is this little girl? If you are wondering if you can travel internationally with a 6 month old, the answer is yes you can. Just do it! It will be tough at times, but oh so worth it. Imagine how much fun it will be for Zara to look at these photos one day. 

So...from there we went back and packed up and headed to the airport. I think our driver that our awesome tour guide Rafa set up for us was trying to set a world record for the fastest drive to the Rio airport. We all just kind of sat there white knuckled, grabbing whatever we could in the car as we swerved through traffic. Luckily we made it one piece. We flew back to Sao Paulo and said our goodbyes to Julie's parents at the airport as they headed back to Registro and we headed into the city to our hotel as we weren't flying back to DC until the next day

Just a few quick photos of Sao Paulo. We stayed at a really cool hotel thanks to some credit card points. This was the view out of our room. Sao Paulo is HUGE. Buildings for as far as the eye can see. The only place I can compare it to is Tokyo. 

It was pretty rainy so we enjoyed the hotel and a bit of relaxing after non stop action over the previous 9 days or so. 

We ventured into the center of the city. It was eerily like a ghost town. Combo of the fact that it was Sunday, and the world's largest gay pride parade was going on in another part of the city. 

We went to Little Japan and had some Japanese Curry (Sao Paulo has a huge Japanese population). Then we tried to follow the map the concierge at the hotel gave us...bad idea. We got totally lost and well, ended up in not the greatest part of town and suddenly there were no taxis. Luckily, a really nice concierge at a hotel used google translate on his computer to communicate with us and helped us find a taxi to get back to our hotel. It was a pretty weird experience. Not sure we will be going back there any time soon. 

And thus, the four month blogocation comes to an end. Brazil was awesome. We are so glad that we went. It is a memory that we will forever cherish with Julie's parents. How cool are they? They were great travel companions. Julie is a pretty amazing traveler too...as a new mom she totally just dominated and we had so much fun together. The crazy thing is that we covered about .5% of Brazil in the course of the trip. It is a huge country. We'll have to go back again some day. 

Rio: Part 2

Ready for some more Rio? We rented a really great apartment two bedroom apartment in Ipanema. It was just a couple blocks from the beach. Rio is crazy expensive as far as hotels go, but this apartment was really nice and reasonably priced. After having a great day with Rafa and getting the lay of the land, we ventured out on our own over the next few days. 

We started out walking down to Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. It was so cool to suddenly be standing there on some of the most famous beaches in the world. We got there early in enough in the morning that they were not very crowded (they were packed later in the day). I never realized this, but Copacabana and Ipanema beaches are right next to each other, just separated by an old military fort. You could go out on to the rock peninsula and get a view of both beaches.

^^Ipanema Beach - lots of people out surfing.

Perhaps the best part of being in Rio, was the fact that we were there with Julie's parents. Julie's dad had served part of him mission in Rio in the mid 1960s. He hadn't been back since, so it was fun to see what he remembered and hear about his experiences there. 

Zara is after her mother's heart. She loves the beach. Isn't it just beautiful. The sand was like powdered sugar soft.

Another example of the interesting nature of Rio. Here we are on Ipanema beach, and right there is a huge favela next to some of the most expensive real estate in the city. Those guys have a sweet view. 

More favelas above Copacabana beach. 

We had lunch at a really cool restaurant overlooking the beach out on the peninsula that separates Copacabana and Rio.

Zara was such a good little traveler. She'd just hang out in the ergo carrier, she quite enjoyed some relaxing on my lap and wearing my sunglasses while we ate lunch. 

From there we decided it was a good day to head over to wear we could take the tram up to the top of Sugaloaf mountain. Something we were very excited about. A place that provided another amazing vista of the city. 

Here is where Zara came in very handy. There was a quite a line to ride the tram, but someone immediately noticed that we had a baby and they whisked us up to the front of the line. Brazilians are so nice to people with babies. Americans on the other hand, often just look at you like, "why didn't you just get a dog?" Brazilians are awesome. There were two separate trams, one about half way up, and then another up to the top. ^^At the first stop about half way up. 

Then boom. We were there, on top of the world. We got there while it was light, then had the pleasure of watching the night take over. Above you can see Copacabana beach on the left, then around the point at the end of the beach is Ipanema. On the right is another part of the city, then the main downtown part of the city is off to my right (you can't see it in this photo). Rio is really big. 

Julie's dad had been looking forward to taking her mom up there for many, many years. It was so fun to feel his excitement to finally be there with his sweetheart. 

It was a bit overcast, but it provided for some beauty photos. ^^Corcovado (Christ the Redeemer Statue off in the distance). 

Zara and her mama loved it. 

The next few photos were taken as night fell. It was amazing up there. Lucky for me I had Julie and Zara there, otherwise I might still be up there taking pictures. Julie is so patient with me when I get a little overexcited about taking pictures.

See that little white dot in the middle of the photos? That is Corcovado. We spent a long time up there that night just taking in the beauty and looking out on what seemed to be never-ending city lights. We headed back and got some dinner and then fell asleep very quickly.

The next day we headed to Centro district. The oldest part of Rio that was full of awesome architecture.

This crazy cathedral takes a modern spin on a church. Looks like a huge pyramid on the outside, and this was the inside. I would guess these stained glass were like 125 feet tall.

Went to a "kilo" restaurant for lunch where you get whatever you want and pay by weight. This is the Brazilian way of life. Julie's parents have these places down to a science. They knew exactly how much to get and how much it would be. I, on the other hand got a little carried away - but it was really tasty.   

The Opera House. Modeled after the one in Paris. 

There are no paved sidewalks or streets in the part of Rio. They were all cobblestone or cool mosaic stone patterns. 

There are juice bars on every corner. Somehow, all of them are busy too. Just about every fresh fruit imaginable and they'll blend it up for you right there. 

Again, Zara just had fun people watching as we wandered around the city.

This was one of my favorite spots we visited. Real Gabinete Potugues de Leitura - this library houses over 250,000 volumes of Portuguese literature. I thought the books were cool, but the room was amazing. I think if I spent time in there every day I would become more smart. It was gorgeous. 

From there, we wandered the streets a bit, and walked through some markets. ^^I always love rip-off sports merchandise in other countries ie this awesome Yankees hat sporting Mets colors. Don't wear that sucker in NYC. 

Cool old buildings everywhere. It was fun walking a few steps behind Julie and her parents and taking it all in. See the sidewalks?

Julie's mom is the best. It was so fun to spend so much time with her and realize that so many of Julie's best traits are a direct result of her mother. 

We finished off the day, and our time in Centro by going to visit a really cool old church. As luck would have it, it closed 3 minutes before we got there. So, we admired the cool doors and took a taxi back to our apartment. 

That night we went to an amazing restaurant. I think that the food is one of the best things about Rio. It was a bit pricey in general, but these places served up some amazing food. If you're ever in Rio, go to Zaza Bistro Tropical (conveniently named after Zara) and Gula Gula. That's it for now. Next and final post from Rio coming soon (Corcovado). Check out Rio Part 1 below if you haven't seen it yet.