Let's Get Tan

A few days after arriving in Brazil, we headed off to the beach with some close family friends. Nathanael and Julie have two sons, Ethan & Micah who are just around Sawyer's age. The boys get along great and I knew the three amigos would have such a blast at the beach together!

...and what better way to get a family road trip off to blazing start than a good ole' flat tire?.....

We finally made it down to the coast all still in one piece! We headed off for lunch at this little place that was owned by the same people that owned the hotel we were staying at. We ended up coming to this little joint quite a bit over the next couple of days because the food was great and it was right on the beach.

I walked out of our room one afternoon and spotted this:

Why wouldn't Bill be up in a coconut tree?

After shimmying his way up the tree and pulling a coconut down, the hotel owner was kind enough to whack it open so we could all have a taste......fresh coconut water!!!!!

Yummy Yummy!

Out for dinner at a local pizza place. Brazilian pizza is a lot like Italian pizza-not much sauce and baked in a brick oven......soooo good! And thank goodness they brought out a basket of little pizza wedges to feed the hungry little animals, I mean children, before the real pizza came!

Bill enjoying his kiwi caipirinha.....

We sat and enjoyed this beautiful sunset while eating ice cream.....

Sawyer and Micah scouting......

One morning we headed out on a dirt road that was mostly potholes to a waterfall that you could hike to. We parked the cars under the trees, messed with a dog that I'm sure was covered in fleas, lathered in the sun screen, doused ourselves with OFF Deep Woods and started the hike to the waterfall....

The hike started out like this:

Which was fine for the little kids and my mom.....

But then after we crossed a few rivers, it started to look like this:

It was at this point that my dear mom headed back to sit in the car and play the ipad and the rest of us trekked onward and upward!

We finally made it to the water falls and the boys got to splash around in the chilly water while the more adventuresome part of the group climbed up to the big waterfalls.

Of course Bill and his friend Mercer couldn't resist not climbing up to an edge and jumping off.....

Later that afternoon we rented a little boat that took us out to an island .

It was soooo pretty!!!!

The boat guy took Bill, Mercer and Nathanael up the side of the island and they all spent the afternoon jumping off.....the rest of us stayed behind and the kids went snorkeling in a little cove and hunted for shells.

The guys found some coconuts and bashed them against the rocks to get them open...

It was such a fun afternoon but boy was everyone pooped!

This was the view from our hotel, which was right across the street from the beach. The sunsets were always so beautiful! This little joint was a place that we had dinner at one night-it was just a super cute outdoor place!

After a few days of soaking up the sun, it was time to head back to the city......but not without a stop at McDonalds :)

This was the 3.5 Liter pop that Mary found at a little grocery store next to McDonalds! It was huge! It is called Guarana and is like the national drink of Brazil (besides coffee of course!) Bill and I always drink as much of it as we can while we are there and stuff our suitcases with it on our way home :)