Rio De Janeiro

These photos are from the first few days after Buzios, in Rio. With Joe working most of the day, Catie and I explored the beaches and the town. I was loving the grainy sand, the crashing waves, and the fresh coconuts. On Joe's street, we started just about every day with a coffee from Cafeina and then leisurely went about our day from there, in true vacation style. It wasn't too hard to get around knowing only a few words in Portuguese. It was a beautiful language and would like to learn more of it one day! The last few photos, are from our dinner at "Garota de Ipanem" ((translation The Girl from Ipanema)). A famous little spot, where the song was written by Vinicius de Moraes. It was by far one of my favorite authentic Brazilian meals! The steak cooked on a hot plate that sat at your table and was accompanied with rice, beans, and a flour-like crispy dish that you coated your steak with.

Beautiful Búzios

Our very first day in Brazil, we landed in Rio de Janeiro around 9:30 am. We were picked up at the airport shortly after, and arrived at Joe's apartment to meet his friend Brad. Brad decided the best thing for us to do on our first day is check out a local Cafe (it soon became Catie and mine's favorite breakfast spot) and take us up to see an amazing view of the city from Pão de Açúcar, in English it's known as Sugarloaf Mountain. 

Some photos from our view:

Our first weekend in Brazil, was spent at a beautiful house in Búzios with some of Joe's co-workers and friends! Words cannot explain how wonderful the beaches were and how charming the house was we rented... some photos from the weekend:

embalagem para Brasil

Woot woot! This time tomorrow, I will be on my flight to Brazil :)

((hopefully sleeping for most of it, fingers crossed))

The past few days have been a whirl-wind of packing and prepping, but mostly packing and re-packing. Sunday evening, I attempted to start and this is how I left it...

 Last night around 8 my room looked more like this...

and finally by midnight I am almost there... 

Welp - time to get back to packing! Can't wait to share the photos and stories in a few weeks!

Bring on the sunshine, the beaches, adventures, and whatever else may come our way!

Dawes Installation

This installation by Gabriel Dawes is so amazing! It reminds me of grade-school and learning about the spectrum of colors and how to see little rainbows when you cut a crystal and hold it to the light! {source HonestlyWTF}