One of the other places that we have been going to for family vacations ever since I was little is up to the mountains to a little town called Campos do Jordao. It is this quaint little town nestled in the mountains where we fill our days with reading, drinking hot chocolate, eating rich food and buying sweaters.....it's simply lovely!
So out of town we headed again! This time with Aunt Mary & Uncle Bill, cousin Walter and of course, Sawyer's buddies, Ethan & Micah :) We always try and leave at the crack of dawn to avoid the traffic and stop to have breakfast at a truck stop. (Now that sounds a bit ghetto, but it's not. There's a breakfast buffet or cases and cases of items for you to choose from. The variety is vast and the coffee is D-lish!)
One of the days we headed out to a national park to hike around and just enjoy the nature....
Everything was just so green and gorgeous!
Off to find the waterfall!
Sawyer's leap of faith to Uncle Nathanael....
I know Sawyer looks like he is a tortured soul in this picture, but I promise you, he was having a really good time! :) It was a nice walk up to the waterfalls (they were a lot smaller than I had remembered....) and we got stuck in the rain on the way back to the car...oh well!
Campos do Jordao has a lot of Swiss influence with tons of Swiss chocolate shops and fondue places! So we spent a good deal of the afternoon gorging ourselves on three courses of fondue: cheese, meat and chocolate! We were seated at a table with a spectacular view of the mountains with the fog rolling in and out-it was quite the atmosphere!
It was nice they brought us out the cheese and meat courses together so there was tons of french bread and veggies to dip in the cheese, tons of different meats and sausages to cook in the oil with an assortment of dipping sauces to try!
I think everyone's favorite was the chocolate course.....tons of different fruits to dunk in rich chocolate.....oh good heavens.....it was ridiculous.....and then when the fruit ran out, why not pour the chocolate into our glasses and drink it? Let us not be wasteful!!! :)
Sawyer and Micah 'helping' Uncle Nathanael build a fire.....
While we were in the mountains, Uncle Bill introduced Sawyer to a board game that would become Sawyer's love......'Sorry' is now THE game to play! He bought his own Sorry game as soon as we got back to Omaha and has been playing ever since!
The hotel that we stay in is owned by some friends of ours and is planted right on the side of a mountain! It is so gorgeous out there and the views are just breathtaking! It is a few miles out of town so whenever we wanted to go into town, we had to pack everyone up and drive in. Like I said before, there were tons of chocolate shops and this was one of Sawyer's favorite-with the chocolate just dripping down this fountain....
Sawyer and Micah conned Nana Jane into paying for them to be pushed around the town square in this little red car......only Grandmas.......
Aunt Mary and I sit and have hot chocolate at this certain coffee shop every trip ever since I can remember.
It is always so nice just strolling up and down the quaint little streets window shopping. We end up finding something unique and different to bring home every time we go!
Nathanael and Julie took us for our first trip to this little place called Baronesa (The Baroness) for the first time. It was this place that grows all of their own fruit (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries ect.) and has a beautiful tea room that you can hike up to and enjoy the scenery.
After winding up through beautifully manicured gardens that were plum full of bright blue hydrangea flowers, we got to this tea room that was an all glass enclosure. The pictures just didn't do the view justice.....we were on the peak of a mountain,overlooking a huge valley......
It was a little bit more of a pricey place so we all opted to do drinks and appetizers :) Bill and I shared this assortment of crostinis and oh man were they good!!!!
We also got tall glasses of their fresh blueberry juice that was just to die for!!!!
Part of the hike up to the tea room.
Bill totally fell in love with all of the eucalyptus trees and is now convinced he wants to plant them all over our backyard here in Omaha....not quite sure how they would grow in our climate....but a man can dream!
Down at the bottom of the Baronesa they also had a little store that you could sample quite a few of the different jellies and jams that they made (Bill and Sawyer taking full advantage of that!)
Sawyer and Mommy
Sawyer is always asking to use our camera to take pictures of us but we are always afraid he's going to drop it but since we were sitting in the car, we let him have a go of it...and this is what we normally get: really close up shots taken at unflattering angles.....hehe
One of the places that we went for lunch had a large coy pond where you could buy a bag of little food and feed the fish.....we didn't buy a bag of food, but this little old man thought Sawyer and Micah we super cute and kept giving them handfuls of food from his bag :)
One of the foods that I grew up on and that Bill has since fallen in love with too, is called a pastel. It's a light savory pastry crust that is filled with any sort of yumminess that you can pick out, then sealed up and flash fried for a few seconds.....I'm sure we will be eating them in heaven....you can find them being sold on just about every street corner at home and that's what we are eating in the picture bellow! And another ice cream stop :)
Our trip up to Campos do Jordao was once again a huge hit! We enjoyed the sights, indulged on excellent food and mostly enjoyed each other's company!
Yeah, so I wanted a nice family photo here at this gorgeous look out spot.......but the sun was super bright....and out of eight shots, can you believe this was the best we got?!? Good grief......
