Carter received a model rocket kit for Christmas and has slowly been working on assembling it. Today, the winds were calm enough to launch the rocket. We walked to the elementary school soccer field to make sure that we had plenty of room. Although, the second launch landed clear over on the middle school field, where a lacrosse game was taking place! The parachute opened fully that time so the breeze carried it a lot further away as it slowly came back down to the ground.

That bucket of eggs in the middle had a note from the Easter Bunny on top saying that the eggs were for Mom and Dad to hide. It was great because then the Easter Bunny didn’t have to hide them 10:30 at night, plus there wasn’t time for an egg hunt before church started at 8:30 anyway. (Raine pointed out that the Easter Bunny had the same handwriting as the tooth fairy. I suggested that maybe they outsource their note writing to the same calligrapher.)

Maui’s hook (from the Moana movie) for Carter, Legos for Raine, plus a book, oreos, goldfish crackers, and Reese’s eggs for each of them.

The eggs were full of dog and cat figurines and magnetic letters. These kids don’t really eat candy, so I figured that we might as well put something in the eggs that they would actually use.

April 14 was the Primary Easter egg hunt at City Park.

Raine invited her friend Mackenzie to the activity.

Mackenzie, Raine, and Catherine

Checking out their haul.

Friday, March 24, was our last full day in Brazil. First thing in the morning we took the bus up to a little feira (farmer’s market).

Daddy bought us some sugar cane juice. They just feed the sugar cane through that grinder a couple times and strain the juice that comes out before handing it to you to drink. It’s pretty good.

Raine didn’t like it though.

Raine and Carter played at the park in the courtyard of Grandma and Grandpa’s apartment complex for a little while before lunch.

That afternoon we took Uber downtown to Parque Ibirapuera (which is similar to Central Park).

We rented bikes and rode around the park.

There were more playgrounds than you could count in that park.

After dinner, we walked to a shopping mall to buy Carter a Futebol jersey. On the way back, we stopped by the temple grounds. The security guard let us in because Grandma and Grandpa were missionaries so we were able to see it up close.

The next morning we packed our bags and Grandma and Grandpa drove us to the airport for our long flight home. After a layover in Madrid, Spain…

…we finally made our way home and found the key that our cleaners graciously hid for us after we realized that we lost the one and only house key that we took to Brazil!

It was an AWESOME vacation! (But don’t try to get Carter on a plane anytime soon, he’s reached his travel limit!)

Thursday, March 23, before our flight back to Sao Paulo we took a shuttle over to the Parque das Aves (bird park). It was home to every kind of flying creature imaginable — from huge harpy eagles and vultures, to tiny parakeets and butterflies. These photos are just a small sample of the things we saw.

This bird escaped his enclosure and we watched as the handlers tried to coral him back over the fence.

The bird park was full of tropical flowers and plants.

The toucan enclosure was awesome. The birds came right up to you.

Carter learned to not make any sudden moves near the birds.

(Love DJ’s mental lapse in this video — Carter almost gets his fingers snapped off and DJ tries to send Raine over to stand by the bird!)

Crocodiles

Raine sat right next to a python!

The butterfly habitat was really cool. There were butterflies of every color and size.

After checking out of our hotel, we headed to the airport to board our plane.

We had a great view of the falls as we flew off.

Then it was back to the incredible mass of humanity in Sao Paulo.

Wednesday, March 22 we headed out early to Iguaçu falls.

Grandma wanted to take a boat tour on the river below the falls so we stopped there first.

The tour included an informational ride through the jungle.

As well as a hike which took us past a small waterfall. The water in the river was full of manganese, giving it a milky appearance.

Once we arrived at the river we took a tram down to the water.

The employees kept telling us to enjoy our shower and that should have tipped us off that we should ask to ride in the dry boat, instead we just laughed and told them that we wanted the wet boat.

We headed up the river to a beautiful little alcove on the Argentina side, where we took photos.

Here is a view of the alcove from up above. You can see the little boat, like the one we rode.

After that, we headed a little further up the river where they proceeded to dunk us, repeatedly, under this waterfall.

Here is a photo from above of the waterfall where we were dunked. It looks so small compared to the rest of the falls, but it felt like we were going under a massive wall of water. At least we headed their advice and left our shoes at the boat launch. Apparently most other people on the tour knew what they were getting into because they wore swimsuits and had a change of clothes. We spent the rest of the day drying out.

After squeezing as much water out of our clothes as possible, we hopped back on the shuttle and headed to the main hiking trail head.

There were coatis everywhere that people gathered, looking for a handout.

As we hiked along the trail, toward the main part of the falls, there were a bunch of lookouts where we stopped to take photos.

These falls are unbelievably impressive. Every photo you take looks like a postcard.

We made our way up to the boardwalk and walked out into the mist in order to get a better view of the Devil’s Throat — where the highest volume of water plunges over the falls. We were pretty wet again by the time we got back to the bank; the mist was thick.

Daddy took this panorama from the end of the boardwalk, looking up into the Devil’s Throat. You can barely see the water falling in the Devil’s Throat because there is so much mist.

Daddy took this second panorama from the top of the on-shore lookout. It starts to give you an idea of the massive area these falls cover, although, many of the falls can’t even be seen in this photo. The Devil’s Throat is back behind those falls on the left and the falls where we took the boat tour are just past the right edge of this photo.

These family photos were all taken from the on-shore lookout platforms.

Raine found this colorful grasshopper and somehow convinced it to climb up her arm.

There were countless colorful butterflies as well.

We ate lunch looking over the river above the falls. Then we did a little souvenir shopping before hopping back on the double-decker bus to take us to the park entrance.

Back at the hotel, the kids couldn’t wait to get into the pool.

After a dinner of room-service pizza, Daddy took the kids to the game room at the hotel.

Tuesday, March 21 we left Gramado, through the other Pórtico Gramado, and drove back to Porto Alegre.

Here is the arrival side of the portico.

Every town we drove through, no matter how small, had at least one nice soccer field in it.

I love seeing the countryside, but I have this terrible habit of trying to take photos while we are driving. They never turn out and they never do justice to the scene I’m trying to capture, yet I keep snapping them! Here are a couple that capture at least some small feature of the towns we drove through.

We couldn’t leave southern Brazil without eating at a churrascaria, since this is where they were born. We found one close to the airport so that Grandma and Grandpa could meet us there (their rental car was due earlier than ours was, so they took Uber).

We had a fantastic meal! Raine — our super-duper picky eater who we were afraid might starve to death while in Brazil because she refuses to try almost all new foods — discovered a new favorite… chicken hearts! Yup, the gaucho brought them around and we all hastily told him “no thank you” except Raine who said she wanted some. We all looked at her with one eyebrow raised and asked, “really? Chicken hearts?” She assured us that she wanted some so we weren’t going to stand in her way. Next thing I knew she had eaten all three of them and was saying that she wanted more. None of us could believe it; although I was pretty sure that she didn’t realize they were actual chicken hearts, not like chicken fingers where it just describes the shape of the meat, but I sure wasn’t going to tell her!

We still had a little bit of time before our flight so we drove off to find the Porto Alegre temple. Daddy wanted to attend a temple session while we were in Brazil but the universe conspired against us — the temple in Sao Paulo was closed for maintenance the two weeks we were there and the Porto Alegre temple didn’t open until late afternoon on Tuesday so we couldn’t get a session in before our flight (not to mention they don’t rent clothes). We had to settle for looking at the outside.

On the way back to the airport we were stuck in traffic when this guy trotted past us!

Finally we made it to the airport and boarded our plane.

We flew off into the sunset, arriving in Iguaçu after dark.

First thing Monday morning the kids made sure we headed back to Lago Negro. It was a lot less busy so it was the perfect time to ride a paddle boat.

Daddy and I stuck the kids in the 4-person boat with Grandma and Grandpa while we enjoyed a leisurely float around the lake by ourselves!

We saw some wildlife at the lake.

After paddling, we strolled around the lake again.

This little shrine was built next to a natural spring of water coming up through the rocks.

Raine took this photo of Daddy and me at the “I + You ♥ Gramado” sign.

Raine in front of the ribbon wall.

After lunch we drove to Canela to see Catedral de Pedra (Stone Cathedral). It was pretty amazing, with very colorful stained glass windows.

We wandered around Canela for a bit and stopped for some churros in the park. Raine ate one this time, although without any filling.

That night we were going to eat at a churrascaria, but after waiting until 8:00 for it to open we realized that it wasn’t open on Mondays. (All of the restaurants open really late in Brazil, no earlier than about 7:30 pm. People don’t start going out to eat until about 10:00 pm. It was a problem for us early birds with small children who want to be eating by 6:00!) Raine and Carter wanted to eat at the pasteleria that they had seen earlier so we sent them with Grandma and Grandpa while Daddy and I went out for sushi at a little neighborhood restaurant that we found on Google maps.

Sunday March 19, Grandma and Grandpa had a training to conduct down in Porto Alegre so they left early in the morning. We got ourselves ready and then walked to church in Gramado. Daddy was the only one who understood what was being said, although it was easy to follow along in Sunday School with the lesson pulled up on my tablet. All I had to do was listen for scripture references and recognize enough of the numbers in order to find it in the lesson manual, then I could follow along in English!

The people at church were all very friendly. I don’t know what most of them said, but they all gave Raine and me hugs and cheek kisses! During Relief Society, a sister who spoke some English periodically updated me on the general topic they were discussing. The kids didn’t want to go to Primary so they stayed with us the second and third hours.

After church, we walked across the street to Lago Joaquina Rita Bier.

This statue was outside an event venue on our route home.

The street our apartment was on was full of flowering trees and hydrangeas.

After lunch we drove around to see some of the sites. This was the outbound side of the Pórtico Gramado.

Next, we stopped at Lago Negro. It was full of people enjoying the beautiful weather. The popular thing to do, we noticed, was to sip mata as you strolled around the lake. The kids really wanted to ride in a swan paddle boat so we promised to come back the next day so that they could do it.

Raine found a stump chair to take a rest.

Carter found a palm tree to chillax.

Raine took this photo for us.

After Lago Negro we drove down Rua Torta — it’s not exactly Lombard Street!

Then, we drove down into the valley.

Looking back up at Gramado

Igreja São Valentim

Eventually we made our way back to the apartment where we cooked ourselves some hamburgers and waited for Grandma and Grandpa to get home.

Saturday, March 18 we drove back toward Canela and up a little canyon to the Parque do Caracol where we hiked around the waterfall and river above it.

Raine and Carter wanted to take photos too, so I gave them the point-n-shoot. This one was one that they took.

We saw butterflies of every size and color as we hiked.

This giant blue one finally landed so that I could get a photo of him.

The hydrangeas were at the end of their blooming season, but they were still really pretty. I can’t image how incredible everything looked at peak bloom.

Raine and Carter tried out the playground in the park.

Next, we drove down a VERY rocky dirt road to Valle da Ferradura (Horseshoe Valley).

It was too late in the day for us to hike all the way down to the waterfall, so we had to look at it from above.

These bizarre-looking pinheiro trees were all over the place.

Here is Carter next to one of its pine cones.

Speaking of bizarre plants, these cacti were growing all over the cliff face.

The rocky overlook was full of couples with picnic baskets, waiting for the sunset. Raine found a spot to meditate. (Actually, Carter was getting tired of hiking so we told him to go calm down. Raine was demonstrating how Carter likes to do that.)

Fortunately, this park had a playground too. It was the coolest playground ever because it had a zip line. Raine and Carter made friends with the other little kids there (at least as well as you can when you don’t speak the same language) and took turns zipping down.

There were little saint huts all along the road, like the one in front of this church that we passed on the way down from the park.

The road between Gramado and Canela is lined with chocolate shops. Most of them are fairy-tale looking like this one. We stopped at a couple on the way back to Gramado. The last time were were in Brazil, I learned that Brazilian chocolate is really nasty, but I hoped that since this town was settled by Germans, maybe it would have German chocolate. No such luck, it was nasty.

Easter is obviously a big deal for these chocolate shops because they were all decked out for it already.

We didn’t want fondue again for dinner but it took some searching to find a place that had something on the menu besides fondue. Ratatouille’s had some great steaks and pastas on the menu so that’s where we ate.

On our walk back, we stopped at a churro stand in the Rua Coberta. This was Carter’s first taste of a churro filled with dulce de leche — he was hooked!

Friday, March 17 we packed up the car and drove up into the mountains toward Gramado.

The scenery along the coast was beautiful.

There were banana plantations all along the foothills.

As we headed up the mountainside, the trees were full of purple blossoms.

Near Canela, the roadsides were lined with hydrangeas (terrible driving photo through the windshield but it reminds me what it looked like).

Before reaching Gramado, we stopped in Canela and visited Alpen Park.

First, we took a 4-wheel eco tour of the area. It was awesome. We saw a waterfall, jungle, and forest.

Then, we rode the zip-lines. Raine wants to ride a zip line every place we visit. This was Carter’s first time on a zip-line.

Grandma and Grandpa met us at the apartment in Gramado and we wandered around the town a bit before dinner. Here is Carter trying out the “big ear.”

We climbed the hill to the Igreja do Relógio, Templo Apóstolo Paulo.

Gramado was settled by Germans and it feels a lot more like Europe than Brazil.

Igreja Matriz São Pedro Apóstolo had some beautiful stained glass windows.

Eventually, we made our way to Maison Des Saveurs for a 3-course fondue dinner (because that is apparently what you eat in Gramado since that is what EVERY restaurant serves).

Our apartment in Gramado was awesome. It had two levels with three bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a huge living/dining room. Plus, all the water faucets had hot water!