Our Trip to Rio de Janeiro

We've been home for about 2 days, and it feels so good to be home. It's always fun to get away, but it's always so nice to get back to "normal" life again. I wanted to show you some pics and tell you a bit about our trip.

Our driving took about 8 hours. It actually went really fast until we hit Rio, then traffic just stopped. It took us almost 2 hours just to get through Rio. We arrived to very hot and humid temperatures. And Renato's uncles house doesn't have any air conditioning....we were all miserable, not just me, the very pregnant girl. Since it was New Year's Eve, everyone else left by 6pm to go to the beach to watch the fireworks. (They needed to leave that early because of the traffic, even though normally it would only take 15 minutes.) We stayed at the house and enjoyed a nice evening with Renato's aunt who prepared a huge meal. And just a little info, there were 20 people staying in the house. Renato's other uncle from Americana drove to Rio too for the weekend (5 people).....so we had a VERY full house!

The next day was New Year's Day. We went to the beach close to the house in the morning for a few hours. The beach was nice, but the water was pretty dirty, but I didn't complain. Camden became our little beach bum! He LOVED playing in the sand and jumping in the water. When we left the beach, he'd always ask (about every 10 minutes) to go to the "pool". :) He would say ocean, and beach, but he called it all the "pool". Here's a pic of Camden playing in the sand with his second cousin Matteus.



Friday we drove a couple of hours away (in a 4 car caravan) to a really nice and famous beach that Renato's uncle wanted to show us, called Cabo Frio. All I can say is, WOW! Was that beach nice! The water was so blue and clear and beautiful. Of course because it was a Friday and the day after New Years, it was SUPER busy. I've never seen so many people packed onto a beach before, but it was worth it. We had a great time!



Here Camden is waiting for the wave to hit. He got brave later on, and would jump into them.



Here is a good picture to show you the water and all the people.




On Saturday Renato's uncle showed us around Rio and all the famous sights and beaches. It was so fun to see all of the famous beaches and drive around the city. Rio is such a beautiful city. It was also a perfect day for it. It was the only clear day we had there....the other days it was foggy and really cloudy. We even made the trek up to the "Christ the Redeemer" statue. It's like the statue of Liberty for NYC. It's super famous and it was hard to get up there with all the people and we had a long ways to walk, but it was worth it. The view of the city up there was AMAZING!!!





This is one view of the beaches from the top of the statue.



So it was a good trip, but just a little difficult for a very pregnant girl. I had no idea my feet and ankles could swell up to the size of balloons!! Camden and I even got tans! Camden is so cute with his little tan....only his little butt is white now. I pray you all had a safe and wonderful New Years!!