Gramado 2 - Fondue

While in Gramado, we enjoyed one of my Top 10 Favorite Meals Ever. One thing that Gramado is famous for is its delicious fondue restaurants. We had lots to celebrate, and had to celebrate by trying a fondue restaurant. We ate there for lunch because it did not even open up until 8:00 for supper. We were the only people in the restaurant at this time, which made it even better because we had all the waiter's attention.

The crew is getting started on bread, potatoes and vegetables dipped in smooth, glorious cheese.  Cheese makes everything yummy. 

Mom and Trace show off their smiles and their wine. 

Even Dad loved the fondue.  We had to remind and tease him about our last family fondue experience, which did not go as well.  Isaac is showing off his meat cooking skills.  The second course was meat that you cooked on a hot stone.  The waiters brought us 12 different kinds of sauces to dip the meat in.  YUMMY!

Course three was the chocolate fondue.  Wow!  We had all kinds of fruit and cookies to dip in the chocolate.  Our favorite was the strawberries (of course) and oranges.  We ate almost all of it and got seconds of some things.

Owen  got a little messy.  He ate the fondue really good and loved it, too.  He is our little meat eater.  He eats very well in Brazil.  He is so cute with a messy chocolate face.

Isaac totally had fun.  I love how he is so adventerous and likes to try new things.

Ethan is holding up all his skewers that he dropped on the floor.  We laughed so hard because the second Ethan's skewer hit the floor, the waiter would be over with a new one, and a few times is was minutes between droppings.  Gotta love Ethan!  He always provides lots of laughs.

Real Snow

 We had a fun surprise come up last week.  We all got to come home to Iowa for a visit.  Scott has not been feeling well for a long time, and we decided it was time to get him feeling healthy again.  He was able to get an appointment at the Mayo clinic and the whole family was able to come back,so I could go with him to his appointments.  We made the decision on Monday night and left Horizontina on Friday morning. 

As I mentioned in my last blog, the boys have been talking about snow often.  Isaac has decided that winter is his favorite season.  We thought we may have a little snow when we got back, but then once we landed, it appeared that there was not much snow left.  It was amazing, we pulled onto our street, and there was a ton of snow in our neighborhood.  Isaac immediately found his snow clothes and got them on.  His snow boots from last winter did not fit, so he came up with a plan to put on lots of socks and wear my snow boots.  He thought that by next winter his feet would be as big as mine.  He may be right.  Ethan also got all his stuff and went outside.  All the neighbor kids were home and they were all playing in the snow together.  Isaac and Ethan stayed outside for almost 8 hours straight.  We forced them to come in for some lunch and a warm-up for a little bit.  Mostly, Isacc and Ethan played with Scottie.  Scottie was very surprised to see them, and so happy.

All while the kids were playing with their friends, Scott and I got to hang out with our parents and Traci.  It was a super awesome day!  Then Melissa, Corbin and crew came over for supper and playing.  Isaac and Ethan were so happy to see and play with Cael, and I was so happy to see my favorite neice, Avery.  I could not have planned a better day.

Ethan figured out the snowboarding right away.  Scott was amazed at how fast and well he did it.  Especially since he and I spent a whole day trying to learn (with instruction) at Breckenridge, and we never really caught on.

Ethan and Katie heading back up the hill.

Scott and Owen ready to head down the hill.  One time when Owen was going down Ethan said, "Owen smiles the whole time.  Hee.  Hee."

Dad gave Owen and I a nice soft push.  Then Isaac came up and gave us a very strong push so we flew down the hill.  Thanks, Isaac.

Isaac taking off down the hill in a sled.  Isaac can also snowboard well, I just did not get any pictures for some reason.

Me and my little puffball.  Mom and Dad are in the background.  They watched and cheered on the boys the whole time.

Here is Puffball Owen.  He seriously looked like the kid in The Christmas Story and almost fell down when he first tried to walk in all his gear.  Hilarious!

Fake Snow

The boys have talked about snow every day since Thanksgiving.  At first, I told them that they were not missing anything because there was no snow in Bettendorf anyway.  Then about mid-January, Bettendorf got a nice snowfall.  We were lucky to see it because we skyped with our neighbors, Susan and her girls, and they showed us our house with the snow falling through the window.  It brought tears to my eyes, and got the boys all talking about snow even more. 

A few days later, a package showed up in our mailbox from Susan and girls!  It was awesome and full of fun goodies.  One of the boys' favorite goodies was a bag of fake snow.  It is powder of salt-like consistancy, and when water is added to it, it fluffs up to look and feel like real snow.  The boys had fun playing with it for several hours one afternoon.

This was early in the process, we ended up filling the table with "snow".

Ethan is making it snow. He got the idea from his big brother.

Isaac is making it snow.

Owen loved the snow.  He thought it was cool, and just
kept looking at it in his hands.  He also ate a little bit of it.
Guess, we need a new rule, don't eat yellow or fake
snow.  It even felt a little cool.

The boys are making it snow on Owen. 

Gramado 1 - Santa's Village (Aldeia do Papai Noel)

We did a fun trip with Dad, Mom and Traci when they visited us.  We went to Gramado.  It is a little city in the mountains in the same State that we live in, Rio Grande do Sul.  The city is cute and has lots of fun shops and chocolate factories.  They specialize in Christmas, so December is the best time to visit.  The entire town is decorated in Christmas, and there are parades and light shows.  It was a really fun place.

Before I talk about all the fun we had in Gramado, I have one quick funny story about us getting there.  First of all, we wake up in the morning and Scott and Traci have the flu.  Staying home was not an option because we had already paid for the hotel rooms and we had to get everyone back to the airport by Sunday, so we headed out.  An hour into the trip Isaac puked all over the back of the car, and we were totally unprepared for such an event.  Luckily we pulled over at a little bar and got some help from a nice man while Traci puked on the side of the road.  It was slow going to Gramado because the GPS kept taking us on what we felt was the very longest route possible.  Plus all the roads are 2-lane, mountainous, and the Brazilian "semi" trucks cannot make it up the hills faster than 20km/hr.  The highlight of the long trek was when we stopped for gas and Scott comes over and says, "I'm sorry, I am not sure what I said, but now they are washing the van."  Apparently, Scott had asked them to wash the van in the middle of our 10 1/2 hour (230 mile) drive.  Exactly what we needed at the time.  You gotta love learning a new language.

Okay, back to the fun part.  Our first stop in Gramado was Aldei do Papai Noel.  It was a little park dedicated to everything Christmas and Santa.  We had fun there, although it was a little dated.

Isaac and Ethan are waiting for it to open.  Aren't they cute!?

Here is a family shot in the teddy bear cottage.

Ethan is standing at the entrance of the Garden of the Elves. Traci and I decided it was the garden of the scarry elves.

Traci and Ethan checking out the little houses.

Fun with fake snow.  Mom and Dad did not want to get too close.

Scott and the boys playing with the bubbles, I mean, snow.  They had a blast in it.

Ethan has bubbles all over his shows and is holding a huge "snowball".  He loved it!

Group shot in a sleigh.  It was a good end to a fun morning.



Decorating the Tree and Presents with Grandma, Grandpa and Traci

Mom, Dad and Traci got to help us decorate our tree. It did not take long, since we have a very small tree here and no decorations. We had to get creative.

Here we are making a paperchain for some garland.  We had to write things on the loops that we were thankful for.  We all came up with some good things like Jesus, food to eat, family, etc.  Dad and Scott got funny with things like the European Trade Commission or something like that etc.  We also put fun things like cookies and computers.  We had a fun time and made a really long chain.

Isaac put on the lights with some help from Mom.

Ethan is putting on a bow.  Isaac was cheezing for the camera.

Group shot of all of us in front of the tree before the boys opened all of their presents from Mom, Dad and Traci.  Ethan and Isaac were super excited for the presents, especially Ethan.

Isaac and Ethan getting presents from under the tree.

Owen is playing with his new bus.

We had fun watching the kids open their new stuff, and then playing with them.



First Words

Owen is 18 months and 2 weeks old, and he has 3 words now.  They are Dada, car and gum.  He can always make me laugh.  Of course, Dada and car are normal first words, but gum has got to be a new one.  Maybe it is not so unusual for a 3rd child who's older siblings ask for gum constantly.  He is not very consistent with Mama, and I only get to hear it when he is experiencing strong emotions (usually of the sad type).  He does really like to chew gum and, when we give him a tiny piece, he is pretty good at not swallowing it.  He can also stack up a bunch of blocks, catch and throw a ball, and jump off the side of the pool to someone.  Sometimes he likes to jump to you when you are not watching or ready.  We always catch him, though. 

Cascata de Burica

When my family was here for a visit, some friends took us to a cool waterfall that is not far from Horizontina.  We had a fun time walking on the rocks, feeling the water and Dad even started a game where we were throwing rocks trying to splash eachother.  The boys always get excited about a chance to tease or "get" Grandpa, so they were totally loving it.

 We were all so happy to be together!  Here we are at the top of the waterfall.

Dad took special care of Owen and made sure he had a really fun time.  Dad was helping Owen walk between rocks and step in the water.  They are buddies.

Here are the boys doing some of their favorite things, playing with rocks and water.  They had fun jumping between rocks.

This is us throwing rocks at Dad and Mom across part of the river.  Like I said, the boys had fun trying to splash them, they especially like to get Grandpa.

This was taken right after Dad splashed me good with a big rock.  Don't worry, we got him back.

Owen got into the action, too.

The waterfall that we went to see, Cascata de Burica.  It is only a 30 minute drive from our house.