Long overdue post. 5 weeks old on Tuesday!

Wow, what a whirlwind the past few weeks have been!! The adjustment has been not quite as easy as I had hoped, but definitely not terrible like it could be. There was one really bad night where Peyton cried for 6 hours straight....not even exaggerating! The next day, we discovered gas drops (thank you Facebook friends!) and they have saved our lives!! And P's poor tummy!!

We've been taking lots of videos of our little peanut. Here they are for you to watch!!

Peyton at midnight - video link

Trying to wake Peyton up - video link

Peyton and Frank on the floor - video link

Elianna and Peyton - video link

Peyton needing to burp - video link

Random blubberings that might interest you (or might bore you to tears, read at your own risk):

*A swing is AWESOME! We got one on Craigslist for half the price of a new one and P loves it!! Well, to be fair, I think Farns and I love it and P just sleeps in it! :) Oh well, it allows me to actually take care of things around the house! Hooray!

*We took P to Steven's work Christmas party. She was enjoying it so much, she slept through the whole thing! This was amazing considering there was a DJ 15 feet from her mixing it up. Child after my own heart!

*Steven's boss and his wife were so nice to babysit for us while we went to the Gulliver's Travels cast and crew screening. I just love going to screenings with Steven, especially when his name pops up on the credits! I'm usually the only one to stand up and clap, but oh well. At least he has a cheerleader, huh! :) On our way up to their apartment to pick P up, I totally face planted running up the stairs (in the rain). I read tonight that my ligaments are still loose from pregnancy and will be for a few more months. At least I can still blame it on that and not my own clumsiness!!

*Since I'm new to this whole parenthood thing, I have one question to ask all you veterans. Is it really a constant "I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to try this and hope it works!" type of situation?? I sort of feel like I'm muddling through a swamp trying to see what will keep her happy and calm. I also am constantly thinking things like "If we put her in the swing too much, will she not sleep in the crib?" or "Since I'm having a hard time breastfeeding, is formula feeding her going to cause a problem?" or "Am I loving on her enough...or too much??" Basically, I'm just full of questions and wondering if I'm doing what's best for her. Is that parenting because, WOW, it's so not easy and thank you Mom and Dad for being so amazing for me!! This is one crazy gig!!! Any other home runs like gas drops or the swing?? I'm open to anything!!

*P seems to want to eat like crazy at night. Usually she goes 3 or 4 hours, but from about 7pm until 3 am, she eats like every hour and a half. What gives?? Is that how all of us female late night snackers began?

*Steven's family is coming to visit for Christmas, so we are attempting to "clean" our apartment before they get here. I started organizing P's room and all of her clothes. I walked away for 5 minutes and Frank thought he would traipse through all the clean comfy clothes:



Good thing he's the cutest dog ever!

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!! Tell everyone you love them!!

Bringing Peyton home

We were so excited to have this baby and so hopeful to go home about 24 hours after delivery when we got word that Peyton had elevated white blood cell counts. This meant there could be an infection so she had to stay at the hospital on antibiotics for at least 48 hours to make sure a blood culture didn't have any bacteria. That meant I had to go home from the hospital without my new baby. Probably the most difficult thing ever and she was only gone from me for 24 hours. I can't imagine if it would have been any longer! This was really difficult to handle. All of this was happening in the midst of Peyton refusing to eat or go to the bathroom. They finally discovered that she still had quite a bit of amniotic fluid in her lungs and stomach so they had to suction it all out (not easy for this new mom to watch). Geez, I just wanted to bring home a healthy baby! :(





Peyton did enjoy her boxing glove from the IV. This was the only hit we got on video, but there were many more!


We got to bring her home on Friday, November 19th!!! Let the sleepless nights begin!

Welcoming Peyton Sophia Farnsworth to the world

Hooray!! We had our little girl!!!!
Here's the lowdown on labor/delivery (don't worry, it's not graphic but it might be boring for some!)

We had a doctor's appt one day before we hit 40 weeks. At that appt, I was not dilated and there were no signs of labor. :( I was very sad, to say the least. Then, nothing happened over the weekend so we went in to the doctor on Monday afternoon. The ultrasound tech said that my amniotic fluids were low so the doctor asked if we wanted to be induced the same day otherwise we would have to come into another appt the next day and do all the tests over again. I was like NO WAY, let's get this show on the road! :) So we ran home to get the hospital bag, had some dinner (our last meal as just a couple) and were officially admitted at 5:30pm on Monday.

Hospital or bust video link

They started some meds at 8pm for about 20 minutes before my body started contracting on my own and they stopped the meds. Then at 3am I was finally dilated to 3cm so they broke my water. After that I really started feeling the contractions and since I'm a major wussy girl I begged for (and got) an epidural!!! Thank you medicine!!!! At about 4am I started bleeding quite a bit and there were instantly about 5 nurses in my room trying to draw blood to see if I needed a transfusion and then they took me to a delivery room. I was a little bit scared at this point because I remember hearing another nurse tell my nurse that she would take my nurse's other patient while she took care of me because I was in more danger. I was so foggy at that point but I remember thinking that I would for sure have to have an emergency C-section at that point, but thankfully I did not have to do that!! I think Steven was pretty worried at that point too, but he handled it really well.

Delivery Room video link

Delivery room view


Shortly after that they re-upped my epidural because I started to feel contractions again and the bleeding had stopped and Peyton's heart rate had leveled off so we were kind of out of the woods. At about 10a I was dilated to 8cm and the nurse was to re-check at 1pm. My nurse went to lunch at noon and was supposed to be back by 12:45p. Steven left to go get some lunch really quickly at 12:30 but then I started feeling serious pain. I was convinced I could feel Peyton's head and that I needed to push right then!! I called the nurse covering for mine and sure enough I was ready to push, she couldn't believe it!! I called Steven but he was in the cafeteria and there was no signal on his cell. I was FREAKING out! He finally came in about 12:45p along with my nurse and my doctor. The doctor had to go into a surgery at 1p so she told me she wouldn't be long but I could start the little pushes without her and that I would be pushing for at least a few hours. WHAT???? There was NO WAY I was going to go that long! Fortunately, Peyton was having none of that either. At about 1:30p they came in to give me another dose of epidural for the delivery. At that point the midwife came to check on me and Peyton's heart rate had dropped really low, I started bleeding again and my blood pressure spiked (which is totally weird for me, mine was like 90/50 ish the whole time). Once she saw all these things she decided it was time to get the baby out. Once that was decided, there were at least 4 doctors (residents, not my doctor) and 5 or 6 nurses were in the room. I pushed 3 or 4 times and baby was out!! HOORAY!!! The midwife was talking to me while the pediatrician was taking care of Peyton and asking how I was doing and all I could do was grab her hand and beg her to take care of the cord blood. I told her several times to make sure they got the cord blood. I'm sure she was thinking I was crazy!!

I finally got to see Peyton after about 10 minutes of waiting and it was SO EXCITING!!! Steven was glowing and Peyton was so alert just looking around and checking everything out. She weighed in at 7 lbs, 4.5 oz and was 21 1/2 inches long. Not quite the 9 pounder they were predicting, whew!

Peyton in the baby warmer


Mom and baby


First family photo together



Around 9p that night once we finally had some alone time with our new baby we decided to name her Peyton Sophia Farnsworth.

Our new baby girl video link

More to come soon!!! :)

39 weeks and 3 days - that means only 4 DAYS TO GO!

Here are are, almost there. I'm so ready to have this baby, but she's not budging at all! :) Since I've been on Maternity leave, I have been quite productive:


1) Planned and/or purchased Christmas gifts for everyone.

2) Finished a painting for her (that I can't show you until we have her since it'll give away her name) :)

3) Unfortunately I've gotten hooked on a few TV shows that I never would have even thought would interest me. Guilty pleasure shows like "Say Yes to the Dress", "Ellen", and sadly "A Baby Story" (for research of course).

4) Sent out all of my thank you cards for all the wonderful gifts we've received for Baby Farns (which is a way better track record than for my wedding, I don't actually remember what got sent out and what didn't for that! OOPS).

5) Not to mention, my house has been kind of clean for two weeks straight (very strange for our house).

6) I've cooked dinner almost every night since I've been on leave - and no one has died of food poisoning!!

7) I make the bed every single day. Who does that??

8) I've re-purposed a dresser for Baby Farns. I had to use Goo Gone to get all the stickers off of the dresser. Did you know that Goo Gone is like the MOST amazing product ever??? Then we sanded it down, painted the top and sides with chalkboard paint and modge-podged some tissue paper and maps on the drawers. We also had to get all new knobs and after 4 trips to Home Depot along with 3 returns and 1 trip to Target, we got the right sizes and were good to go! See the before and after pictures below.




So now, I'm just trying to keep myself busy. Steven is working from home all week this week so today has been weird with him around. I have to turn off my music or the TV when he has to make a call or video conference so it's kind of weird that I can't make noise during certain times, but it's been fun having him around. We'll see how that goes by Friday, huh! :)

Please keep praying that Baby Farns would like to make an early or on time arrival, we are so ready to meet her and show you all pictures!!!

First day of maternity leave

So here I am on my first day of maternity leave feeling a little bit lost as to what exactly to fill the next three weeks with. I have a friend coming over today so that will help fill some time, but I'm not totally sure what to do starting next week. I have a couple of projects that I've got to finish before Baby Farns gets here....

Here's a dresser I bought for $10 on craigslist!



It's the perfect height for a changing table as well. I'm going to strip all the stickers off, then paint the dresser. I'll post pictures when I'm done.

I also have to arrange the baby's room/office/den to work for many purposes so that should take up some time. It's so weird to not be stressing about work full time, school full time and taking care of the house. I just might get bored! :(

Anyway, here we are today at 37 weeks, that means I could go into labor at any time!! I keep praying that it will happen soon!! I want a Halloween baby! :) The doctor says the baby is still huge and that they won't make me go past my due date if I haven't gone into labor by then. So the latest I'll have this child is Friday, November 12th. But let's hope it's before then!

Here's a picture from last week (36 weeks) so you can get an idea of how huge this kid is!!



PS: Today marks that I'm officially Full Term!! And, that baby is the size of a watermelon, did you read that? A W.A.T.E.R.M.E.L.O.N. Oh dear.....

35 weeks

Ok, so I'm a bit behind on our little blog, so sorry about that! Here we are at 35 weeks. A few weeks ago, we moved in to our new apartment that has a den that will become the baby's room/office/storage/junk drawer of the apartment! :) We are so excited to have a space for Baby Farns that is not in our bedroom! Hooray!! My mom also sent us the crib that my uncle built for me when I was born so Baby Farns can stay in that.




We also had a baby shower last week and got TONS of great stuff for her. We have SO MANY CLOTHES! This kid is going to be better dressed than Steven and I combined! We have also had lots of questions regarding other gifts and we have registered to have her cord blood banked. Here is some information regarding cord blood banking:

At the time of birth, part of the umbilical cord is collected and sent to a warehouse where it is cryogenically frozen (at least for the lifetime of the baby). We are saving the cord blood and some of the cord tissue. The great thing about saving the tissue is that is regenerative and can give a virtually unlimited supply of cells if needed. The cord blood and the cord tissue can be used for treatments or cures in diseases like leukemia, lymphoma, spinal disorders, brain disorders and even brain or spinal damage. The great thing about the cord blood is that it can also be used in most instances for any of baby Farns' biological siblings or for myself. Preserving her cord blood is an expensive one time cost but if you are interested in getting her a gift, this would be the best possible gift. Every dollar can help us get closer to such a great "life insurance policy" on our little girl. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions, but please click reply so only and you and I are on that correspondence.

Click here to link to our cord blood registry.

Some of you may know that we found out that she's quite the large baby, so we hope that means I'll go into labor early but until then I'm still working, going on Maternity Leave in a couple of weeks and praying she comes really soon!!!

I hope everyone is enjoying the fall weather, because it sure isn't happening in California. Evidently the summer that I thought we had gotten away without is here with a vengeance. It's been over a hundred at times in the past few weeks which has made for a very cranky pregnant Sara, you should probably say a little prayer for Steven until this stupid weather gets down to the 70's!

Once we go into labor I'll try and update on Facebook as much as possible and we'll send pics of Baby Farns soon!!!! We can't wait to meet her! Here's a belly pic for you all to see how huge this baby is!! I haven't gained any weight since I got pregnant so she's just taken over my body! :)

29 weeks!

Here we are at 29 weeks!! Nearly 7 1/2 months already!! I can't believe it, that's only 74 days!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!

I'm feeling pretty good pregnancy wise, but it seems that the wonderful effect of the hormones are now causing me crazy nightmares which is making it pretty difficult to get much sleep. Thankfully, we decided to get a new bed for our anniversary so that's definitely helping in the comfort arena! Speaking of our anniversary, it's this Sunday, Sept. 5th. That's 5 years for us! I cannot believe it's been that long, it's flown by so quickly!! I'm so grateful to have a husband like Steven through all this crazy pregnancy business. He's mr. patient when my moods go crazy and he's super understanding when I wake him up at 3 in the morning because I've tripped on something coming back from the bathroom or throw-up in the middle of a restaurant or wake him up all night long because of nightmares, etc. You can imagine what fun I've been to be around! He's going to be the best dad ever because he's such a trooper through all things crazy!

I am stressing about things a little bit more now than I was even last week. I keep getting asked by lots of people A) If I'm nervous about having the baby (uh, yeah, who wouldn't be??) B) what I'm going to do about my job (I don't know yet, government funding isn't something you can predict!) C) If I can actually believe I'll be a mother in just a couple of months (nope, can't believe it yet, but I'm sure I will believe it the minute she arrives!) and D) what we are going to do about living in a one-bedroom apartment (we'll stay here until we know our financial situation, she's not that big anyways, right?). I understand why people ask all these questions, but it really isn't helpful to new mothers to be questioned so much about things that are mostly beyond her control! I know everyone means well, but it doesn't keep the stress levels down at all. All my pregnant first time moms hear me out there?? :)

On to the less emotional side of things......
Baby is the size of a squash now and getting bigger and bigger by the second!



She's still moving and kicking although I think she's getting a little bit more cramped in there because her kicks don't pack quite the punch they used to. Sometimes she just jams her foot (or knee, elbow, hand, etc) straight up and it makes my stomach look very odd shaped until she relaxes again. It's quite the strange sensation!


Life is pretty much the same for us. We've been slowly preparing for her arrival by organizing every square inch of our apartment. I've gone a little off the deep end as far as cleaning goes, here's a picture of Steven helping me scrub the entire kitchen floor on our hands and knees:



I finish this quarter of school on Sept. 13th and am really excited to be done and start focusing on preparing more for her arrival!

26 weeks along

We've made it to 6 1/2 months now and are getting close to the third trimester! Baby is still an eggplant like last week but she's definitely kicking and wiggling like crazy! She spent almost 20 minutes today doing kung fu in my stomach!

We've had quite the weekend so far. We went to celebrate a friend's birthday at this vegetarian restaurant called Fatty's (love the irony, huh!). They had vegan chocolate fondue and cotton candy made from maple syrup. It was DELICIOUS! Since Farns didn't get any meat for that meal, we had to make up for it by going to the Korean BBQ Cook-Off in Koreatown!! We got to meet up with a friend of mine who was adopted from Korea. We had such a good time, the food was delicious and Sandra Oh was a judge for the cook-off! Gotta love LA!




We've spent today busy working. I have a 10 page paper due tomorrow (which I just finished) and Farns is working on a quick video for Mosaic. We took a little break to go to the North Hollywood Farmer's Market to see our friends at their booth for Cavewoman Bars! Click here to check out their website.

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post, if anyone else wants to add a story, I would absolutely love to read it! I'll try to post another question later this week! :)

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer, I know it's been nice and cool here in LA while it's like a million degrees back in Oklahoma, sorry guys, guess you should just come visit me here! :)

Question for all.....

As most of you know, I am currently in grad school to get my MA in Psych. In one of my classes today our professor handed out a piece of blank paper and crayons and asked us all to draw the first time in our lives we felt we were different from others. After we drew them, we hung them on the wall and took turns describing each experience. It was incredible to learn all the different experiences others had at very young ages that have played a major part in forging who they are today. I'm telling you all of this because I wonder what people will describe online, especially because you have the opportunity to be anonymous in your comments. I would love it if you would comment on this blog with the first time in your life that you felt you were different from others (this can mean different in any sense you might interpret, it doesn't have to be limited to race, gender, ethnicity, abilities, etc).

To give you an idea, here's mine:

I drew 7 little kids holding hands all with the same t-shirts on with the Korean flag printed on the shirts. 6 of these kids were Korean adoptees and the 7th was me - white as can be with brown curly hair and big green eyes. This drawing was the first time I went to Korean Heritage camp after Macy and Jordie were adopted. I remember complaining to my mom one day after camp how uncomfortable I felt to be the only white kid there at the camp. She wisely responded "Now you know what the adoptees feel like every day when they go to school, church or even at home in a primarily white environment." That was one of the best lessons I've ever learned and I am grateful for it.

That was mine, what's yours??

25 weeks along!

Wow! I can't believe we are so far along already! We've been SUPER behind on the blog as you can see it took nearly two months to update you on our trip to Brazil, so sorry!

Now for baby news. We are 25 weeks along, officially 6 months pregnant and rapidly approaching the third trimester. And since we haven't stated this in the blog yet, it's a GIRL! Well, that's what the doc said. I'm not totally sure about that since the ultrasound tech spent an hour trying to figure that out and baby wouldn't spread her legs (which makes Steven a proud dad!), when the doc came in for a quick consultation and within 5 minutes knew it was a girl....so.....we're just keeping everything gender neutral just in case.

I was having some serious fears and reservations about the logistics of taking care of a baby, working full time and going to grad school. I thought I might have been losing my mind, but when I went to read about the 6th month of pregnancy in my "What to Expect...." book, it stated that now is the time when almost all women start to "freak out" (as Steven would say). It does make me feel better to know that other women go through this as well and to know that I have a husband like Steven who is not an emotional basket case like me and reminds me that God has always taken care of us and while we can't predict the future we have the big guy to trust. Whew!

So, the baby is now supposed to be about the size of an eggplant weighs about 1.5-2.2 lbs and is about 13.6-14.8 inches long.



She is a feisty little thing. When I'm studying for class and have a book on my stomach, she gets a little frustrated and kicks like crazy on the book. She kicks so hard now that you can actually see my stomach move, that's a little unnerving! It is much more exciting though to know you are pregnant by getting kicked a little than by throwing up all day, so that's been quite the nice change! I have my glucose test next Monday, so pray that all is well and I don't have to go on to the 3 hour test, that could be quite brutal!

We don't have a name yet, I think that's going to be a game-time decision for us once she's born. So many things are starting to happen, we scheduled our Maternity Tour at the hospital, my friends are throwing me a baby shower and we've been talking with our parents about who is coming to visit when. It's so weird to be scheduling all of this around a baby who may or may not show up on her due date. The fact that I have absolutely no control over that is way weird! Welcome to parenthood, huh??!??

That's about it for us. Steven is still working at the same production house, he's supposed to be gone for a week in the beginning of October so pray baby Farns doesn't make an early appearance! :) My classes end September 13th and then I get a 3 month leave of absence so that will definitely be a welcome break until baby arrives. Life is good and we are blessed!!

Brazil Trip - Day 9

Day 9
Heading home


We had to head home after such a wonderful trip! :(

Once we arrived in the airport at Rio, we had a 6 hour layover so we thought we'd check in and check our bags really quick and then run to a restaurant to watch the Brazil soccer game. Little did we know that the whole place would literally shut down. Our airline was shut down until after the game was over. So, we ended up finding a little food court with a little 32" TV for everyone to see the game. We discovered some of our flight attendants watching the game on an overturned luggage cart because it was so packed at the restaurant! :)




Here's a great picture of the first goal scored by Brazil!



And, here's a great video of the second goal scored by Brazil!!

Video link of Brazil fans at the airport

What a great way to end a great trip!! Sorry it took so very long to post all of these, we'll get back to baby news and everyday life now for the blog! :)

Brazil Trip - Day 8

Day 8
Wedding Day!!!!!!


While us girls went to the salon to get our hair and make-up done the boys....well....I'm not actually sure what they did. I think they just hung out and watched soccer. They did walk around downtown Campinas during the afternoon and Steven took a couple of "crowd" photos for my mom since she loves those!






So we all were busy getting ready for the wedding and then it was SHOW TIME!



After the reception was over we talked Donlan into getting into Jake and Mimi's getaway car and hiding until they got in the car. He had to hide in the floorboard of the passenger seat and he was scared that the driver would freak out when he got into the car. We told him we'd watch out for him and then went home for the night to our getaway van and left him to fend for himself! He was in the car by himself for a little bit until the driver came up to the car and Donlan was able to say "brother" in Portuguese and the driver understood immediately what he was doing and got very excited! Shortly after that, Mimi came up and saw Donlan's head and thought there was a dead person in their car. While she freaked out, Donlan explained and then she kept very quiet while her, Jake and the driver got in the car. Jake was chatting away about how wonderful the wedding was and after about 15 minutes Donlan pops out and asks Jake "So, where are we going?" Jake freaked out and Mimi and the driver laughed and laughed!! Here is a little video of us leaving him alone in the car without knowing if he actually made it home!


Video link of Wedding practical joke

Brazil Trip - Day 7

Day 7 – Friday
Lazy Day

In case you missed yesterday's post of Steven's new favorite bedding, here you go!



This is the awesome breakfast spread our hosts had for us every single morning! Wow!! They were so kind!



Since the dress I had was a no-go for the wedding, Mimi offered to take me downtown to buy a new one. I got to spend most of the day meeting my new cousin!! So much fun, who doesn't love girl time?!? We got my dress, went to lunch and went to pick up her dress. Lots of girl talk and fun times were had! No pictures from that since Steven had the camera.

While I was out with Mimi, the boys (and poor Lynnette) were watching the USA soccer game. I heard it was lots of fun. Here are some pictures of the park where they had big screens set up to watch soccer games (Brazil does not mess around about their soccer):






That night we went to the best restaurant ever. You paid about $12 to get UNLIMITED pizza. And this was not your typical CiCi’s (only you Oklahoman’s will get that one). The waiters brought the pizza to you and there were so many new kinds to try: Coconut Pizza, BBQ pizza, Cream cheese and corn pizza, etc. After stuffing yourself with all kinds of new and different kinds of pizza, they brought dessert pizza! Chocolate pizza, Banana w/cinnamon pizza, Dulce de leche pizza, etc. YUMMY!! Best $12 I ever spent on a meal. It was a perfect way to try all kinds of new things without having to guess what you’re ordering and hope you’ll want to eat all of it!



After eating, we played pool with some of Mimi’s friends then headed home to get ready for the wedding the next day!

Brazil Trip - Day 6

Day 6 – Thursday
Travel to Campinas/Rehearsal for the United States weirdo's

Once we arrived at the airport that morning and were checking in we found out that Jeremy and Lynnette were upgraded to First Class! Way to go guys!! And since Jeremy is the nicest cousin EVER, he gave me his seat so he could go sit in coach with the boys and be manly and watch Troy. I think the boys were more excited about this than they let on. Lynnette and I were living the good life in luxury seats. It was the best 58 minute flight ever! We arrived in Campinas and met Mimi and her family and just relaxed for part of the afternoon. Then we hopped in the van and went to eat a Brazilian snack of Acai fruit with granola, honey and bananas. It was SO delicious. I’m so very very sad I didn’t take a picture of it!! After our snack it was off to the church for a rehearsal for us Americans. Evidently in Brazil, there are no rehearsals necessary, they all just kind of know the drill…..hmm….smart cookies, eh!

Once rehearsal was over, we headed out to have Brazilian hot dogs. I’m pretty sure every man in the United States would fall in love with these things; the jury is still out for me. It was weird….so the hot dog is layered from bottom to top like this:

Bun
Hot Dog
Mustard
Mayonnaise
Ketchup
Chicken, Pork or special cheese sauce
Peas (what they call green beans)
Corn
Crunchy fried things
Mashed Potatoes (yes, you read that right, mashed potatoes on a hot dog)
(I’m pretty sure I’ve missed a few of the ingredients, but you get the idea)

Here’s some pictures in case you don’t believe me:





Steven enjoyed it (of course); I ate 1/3 of it but am still not sure if it was good. It was just so many things mixed together and if you know me at all, you know that was somewhat stressful to try and eat. What a fun experience though!

After dinner, we headed home. Steven and I got to stay with the nicest couple that attend Mimi's dad's church so it was fun to get to experience culture at someone else's house as well. Here's a great pic of Steven all snuggled in his twin bed for the night (he must have known at that point that we were having a little girl)!

Brazil Trip - Day 5

Day 5 – Wednesday
“Marshmallow mountain”
We started off the morning by hopping on the subway to go to Maracana Stadium. This stadium was built for the sole purpose of the World Cup game held there in the 1950’s. It was really cool, but we couldn’t get in ☹. Steven wanted to jump the fence but I told him that I was not going to bail him out of Brazilian jail and since this was his first international trip he decided he’d like to come home not in handcuffs. Here are some pictures:







After we went to the stadium we headed to downtown Rio to get some lunch. The restaurant we ended up at didn't have any waiters that spoke English and they handed us a menu in Portuguese. After the 5 of us fumbling through the selections, the waiter brought some delicious looking meat out to the table next to ours and Steven yelled "I want that! What is it?" Evidently, his tone was universal and the waiter figured out we didn't speak Portuguese and brought us an English menu and we were able to order the best BBQ we've ever had. Now, for all you Texans and Oklahomans out there, this is not BBQ like we think of it. This is grilled over a flame with very little flavoring (except lots of salt), not meat swimming in BBQ sauce. I know, it was the biggest culture shock Steven experienced the whole time! :)

Here is a picture of a beautiful theater we saw downtown after we ate lunch before heading to Sugarloaf Mountain....



After we visited downtown Rio, we headed back to the subway to go to Sugar Loaf Mountain, or as Donlan calls it “Marshmallow Mountain.” Sugar Loaf is basically two mountains in different heights that have cable cars to take you to each mountain. The highest mountain is about 2500 feet tall so the views were incredible! We actually stayed for a few hours to we could watch the sunset. It was quite the sight, see our beautiful pictures below:

Video link of Sugar Loaf cable car

Video link of Little Monkeys at Sugar Loaf

Video link of Helicopter take off

























This was our last day in Rio so we had our last dinner there, went to bed and got ready to head to Campinas, Sao Paulo for the wedding!

Brazil Trip - Day 4

Day 4 – Tuesday
Donlan arrived, let the party begin!
This was our first day of official “tourism” of Rio. We started the morning off by greeting Donlan and heading off to the Christ Redeemer Statue. Since this was also World Cup day for Brazil, it was like a national holiday so there weren’t very many people on the shuttle ride up the mountain or at the Statue which was quite nice. It’s a good thing we went in the morning though, the tour guide told us that even though the mountain would be open, there wouldn’t be anyone around to serve us or help us get to the statue! They take their soccer seriously! Here are some beautiful pictures from the mountain and of the statue itself, we stole some pictures from Jeremy and Lynnette since their camera is way more awesome in quality:


Here we are going up the escalator to the statue after the crazy twisty ride up the mountain:



Beautiful views from the mountain:



Donlan and the statue:




Jeremy, Lynnette, Baby Page and the statue:



Steven, Sara, Baby Girl Farns and the statue:



Just the statue:



All of us waiting on the bus to come get us so we can go see that game!



This video needs a little bit of an explanation. When you travel with Donlan, something silly is always done by him that gets a good laugh (even by those around). Donlan decided he wanted a picture hugging Jesus so as Lynnette and Jeremy were trying to get the angle just right, Steven and I were watching with joy at how silly Donlan looked and how weird we all looked and were making all people from the US look. Oh well, it made for a pretty funny picture too. See the video and the final picture below:

Video link of Funny tourist at the Christ Redeemer Statue

The finished product:



Here we are laughing it up at how silly Donlan looks!



After Christ Redeemer, we realized that the subway might be shut down and we may not be able to get back to our apartment until after the game was over. We stopped for lunch and this crazy restaurant where you have to order your food first and then shove your way through the crowd to hand the cooks your order. Since none of us spoke Portuguese, this was quite a feat for all 5 of us to accomplish. The fact that we were all able to eat the food we chose and enjoy it was quite the added bonus!! During this meal we found out Donlan's philosophy on life. If you know Donlan at all, none of what he says is really shocking.

Video link of Donlan's Philosophy on Life

After we ate, we decided to just hop back on the subway and head home. Little did we know, we weren’t the only ones with that plan! See some photos and video of that adventure below:

You can kind of see a tiny bit of Jeremy's head in the window. Lynnette is in that sea of people somewhere too, but she was too squished to see in this picture.



Steven likes to video everything, I mean EVERYTHING. So we were those wacky tourists videoing our attempt to get on the subway. I mean, really, you'd think we'd never even seen a subway before! :)

Video link of Boarding a busy train in Brazil

Once home, we realized there was a HUGE party going on at Copacabana Beach to celebrate and watch the game. We all decided to go down and check it out. Donlan left right away to go down there and the rest of us waiting until a few minutes into the game. As we headed out, I had to pee (AGAIN) so I ran down underground to the beach bathroom (yes, it’s a real bathroom, not what you’re thinking) and we lost track of Jeremy and Lynnette.

The bathroom is the stairs going under the ground on the left. It cost about $1 just to go potty!



Steven and I decided to walk along the water line and enjoy the beach as we made our way to the party. Evidently we missed Donlan running back to tell us that we couldn’t get in because you had to have a ticket, so the three of them went back to the apartment while Steven and I walked and walked and walked and walked. We made it to the big tents and found out we couldn’t get in but were there right when Brazil scored a goal. That was such a FUN experience!! See video:

Video link of Brazil fans on the beach

After that first goal, we headed back home and stopped at a restaurant and got to see the second goal. No video of that one though, ☹ so sorry.



The environment was so exciting and fun!! When we realized we still had nearly a mile to go to get home, we hailed a cab and made our way back to the apartment. Steven was very excited about his first cab ride that was made all the more interesting by the fact that the guy spoke no English and didn’t really know where our cross streets were located (remember the picture from Day 2). It was quite hilarious trying to tell the cabbie where to go. But we made it home!