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A Girl Should Be Two Things: Classy & Fabulous. - Coco Chanel

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Thursday, December 31, 2015

Confessions of a Brunette on the Internet 304

Happy New Years Eve! I have been back from my trip for a few days now. I hate that I went from one horrible temperature extreme to another. Stacey and I were shivering the entire way back to Utah. What can you do? I think I will just have to plan more trips out of Utah during the Winter to help me survive it. For now... despite the cold, it is good to be back. When I travel, I always want to stay longer. I could easily travel for a month and be totally fine. However, once I am on my journey back home, I just want to be home so bad. I'm always so excited to sleep in my own bed and go back to my own bathroom that is nice and clean. Nice to go back to driving my own car again too instead of getting around by bus. Also nice not to live out of a backpack anymore. That is all.

The funny thing is, we went to the airport Sunday night around 10pm, did an over night flight to Miami, then flew to Dallas and then were in Salt Lake by 4:30. Our last flight was delayed because they couldn't find a 3rd flight attendant. I had never had that happen before. Anyway... I sat by this cute single dad on the flight from Dallas to SLC and we chatted most of the flight where I learned that he was dropping off his son to his ex-wife. Anyway.. he was cute and he visits Utah a lot and there was for sure flirting going on and I was hoping he would ask for me number and want to hang sometime when he was in town, but that didn't happen. Probably because after all of the traveling I looked and smelled like a homeless person. Oh well. The flight was fun anyway. Stacey's friend picked us up from the airport and drove us to Ali's house (because Ali was gone) to pick up Stacey's car that we had left there. We were on our way back to Provo by 5pm. After all of that traveling... you would think that we would have gone home to clean up and unpack and all of that. Nope. We first went to Sodalicious to get Soda's and treats and then went straight to the movie theater to get dinner and watch the new Stars Wars movie. Since it came out while we were gone and everyone had seen it, we figured, we had time and we didn't want anyone to spoil it for us, so we did that before going home. I'm surprised that I was awake enough to get through the entire movie. It was good though and we both enjoyed it. After the movie we finally went home.


I was back at work the next day. Would be so nice to have a day break before I go back to work, but I never have that... because all of my time off goes to travel... so I don't have any extra free days. It kind of stinks at the time, but it's worth it. My co-workers were happy to see me which is always nice.  I still didn't have any money because my cars were stolen, so my co-workers treated me to lunch which was SUPER nice of them. I actually didn't eat that much, so I gave everything I didn't eat to the guy that paid for my lunch. Meanwhile, my boss paid for a homeless guy's lunch. We were all just eating when a homeless guy came in for warmth and to smell the food and told us he loves us and then left. My boss has a heart of gold, so she went outside and chased after him and told him to join us for lunch and paid for his lunch. His brain was pretty fried from drugs... so it made for an interesting lunch, but what a nice thing for my boss to do. He told me that I made him want to take the sacrament again and read the Book of Mormon again. I told him that was good. I wasn't sure what else to say. Homeless guy is in the last pic, the one in front of the curtain.




Another thing about work. Even though I was gone for my birthday, they still decided to celebrate when I got back, which was super sweet. They warned me they would do it, but I totally forgot. I told them not to bother, I will be gone, it's fine, but they don't take no for an answer. When I came in to work on Tuesday, this is what my desk looked like and people brought in food to snack all day long as is tradition for birthday's in my new department. They are so sweet. Seriously. It totally made my day and made coming back to work after being gone for 2 weeks a lot more pleasant.




We just got done with month end today at work. This is what was at my desk this morning when I came in. My co-workers know me so well. They even know my drink. Ha!


It is so weird not being with Stacey everyday. He told me he would feel better if he came and brushed his teeth and got ready for bed at my house. Ha ha. It's true, once you are with someone for 24/7 for 2 weeks... and then all of the sudden you are not with them anymore.... you do miss them. Stacey and I text each other a lot more now talking about inside jokes or continuing conversation we started on the trip or whatever... I'm sure that will die down, but right now... we are very attached to each other. Trips do that to you. And no, nothing happened romantically on the trip between us. We are not dating. Just friends.

We already put out our video of our trip. It's a dance video and it is awesome. It already has hundreds of views and it's only been a couple of days. I LOVE it. I will post it on here. It has been a big hit though, and I'm glad because we had a blast making it. Most fun and creative trip video so far.

Well, I guess that is all. I'm home before midnight on New Years Eve. I'm not even that sad about it. Sure I would love to go to a good party for New Years Eve, but I didn't know of anything going on. I don't mind the down time after just getting back from my trip either. Instead, I was really excited to see my Grandma. I got out of work early today, so I called my Grandma up and told her I was coming over. So I spent 5 hours over there tonight. We chatted about my trip, FaceTimed with my cousin Lisa, my dad came over for a little bit, I showed her my video of Brazil. We had a great time. I love my Grandma. I love hanging out with my Grandma, so it was a night well spent.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Photo of the Week 302

Another picture from the beautiful Santa Catarina beach. Oh how I wish I could beam myself back there now.



Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Iguazu Falls - Brazil & Argentina


As soon as Stacey and I decided to go to Brazil, this was at the top of our list of things we wanted to see while we were there. I am so glad that we did because it is quite amazing. Stacey paid for my trip there for my birthday present... which was WAY too generous but he had already made up his mind that was what his gift to me was going to be. It was $300!! Best birthday gift. One that I will remember forever (which is what he had in mind... a birthday gift with meaning, every time I look at pics of us there I will remember).

So first off, lets talk about why the water is brown. I wasn't expecting that because I had seen pictures and the pictures I saw were not brown. Well... apparently, they had SO much rain this last season, this is as full and powerful that the waterfall has ever been. Therefore, it stirs up the dirt and mud and we have a brown waterfall. I didn't love that it was brown, but I did love that there was that much more water and how powerful it was. It was quite a site to be seen. Every time we walked somewhere to get a different view of the falls all I could say is wow... that's amazing.

Let's talk about how this is also on the list of the new 7 wonders of the Natural World. Not part of the original 7, but the new 7. So was the underground river in the Philippines, so now I have seen 2 from that list. I don't know who decides and makes these lists, but I get why this made the list. Pretty amazing.

There is so much wild life there! Here are the animals of Iguazu that we saw just as we were walking around.








So Iguazu Falls is so big that it is partly in Brazil and the other part is in Argentina. We didn't plan on going to the Argentina side, but once we got there, everyone told us it is so different and worth it, so we decided to fork over the money to cross the boarder and see the other side. I'm glad that we did. It IS different.  This picture you have Brazil to the right, Argentina on the left and Paraguay down the river (middle) Pretty cool!


Since we visited both sides, I will separate my pictures by country. First, Brazil. This side took us about 3 hours to walk and see everything there was to see.






Argentina side took us about 7 hours to walk everywhere and see everything here was to see. A lot of walking. Long day. Awesome though because so much of the walking was on walkways over the rivers and waterfalls. Very cool.





This was such an amazing part of our trip! So glad that we went. Thank you Stacey for taking me for my birthday!!!!!


Monday, December 28, 2015

Santa Catarina - Rio Grande do Sul - Brazil


On our road trip around Southern Brazil, we stopped at this beach in Santa Catarina. I think this was my favorite beach the entire trip. It was so beautiful and you had to take a boat to get to the beach. I'm so glad we stopped here. I wish I were feeling better that day... but such a great beach. Loved it.





Sunday, December 27, 2015

Hostels in Brazil

We were pretty happy with all of our hostels in Brazil for the most part. They were pretty clean, pretty quiet for the most part and everyone was pretty friendly. Can't ask for more.  Here are the hostels that we stayed at.











Saturday, December 26, 2015

A little Taste of Brazil

I always love trying new food in the countries that I visit. We didn't branch out too much... we ate at one place that is what our Tuccano's is modeled after where they bring out out all different kinds of meat until you are about to burst. Other than that... here is a little of what we ate.



This is a pizza. Not just any pizza. It was half beef stroganoff and half 4 cheeses and all topped with fries. It sounds so weird, but it was SO GOOD!


In Rio, this is what we lived off of. Meat and cheese filled pastries and mango smoothies. Never got sick of it.




Friday, December 25, 2015

Christ Redeemer Statue




Stacey and I thought it would be appropriate to visit the Christ Redeemer Statue on Christmas Day. This is now my 4th wonder I have seen of the 7 wonders of the world. I thought it would be bigger... but it was awesome. The view is incredible as well. It was super crowded, probably not as crowded as it would have been had it not been Christmas day. My favorite part about going on Christmas morning was that there was a choir singing "Oh Happy Day" and other praise Jesus songs at Jesus feet. It was pretty awesome. I loved every minutes of it. What a cool Christmas. It was different... didn't really feel like Christmas, but I will never forget it, that's for sure. Another check off of the wonders of the world list!



Something that has happened a lot on this trip is Stacey taking ugly pictures of me and then making memes for them. Then when we exchange pictures at the end of the night.... they show up in the bunch whether I want them or not. ha ha.



Merry Christmas from me, Stacey and the Christ Redeemer Statue.