Well, I decided to make a post just of flowers for those of you who don't really care... there were SO many beautiful flowers and plants... I just couldn't get enough pictures!

Cool Picture - Do you see the bee?

Really cool flower in the courtyard of the apartment we stayed in at the beach.

This flower is called Toucan's beak!

I love this picture of the water dripping off the pepper.

Ginger Root!

This is my all time favorite flower... so cool!!

Well, we had a WONDERFUL trip to Brasil! 2 weeks of warmth and sunshine (well, a few days anyways) in the middle of winter made me not want to come back! We have over 1500 pictures of our 2 week trip, so I'll get them all put up eventually!

Views from the plane...

A view of what we saw as we were landing in São Paulo... By far the biggest city I have ever been to.

All of these views are of completely different parts of the city. It truly goes on farther than you can see. Breathtaking to fly into! I have never seen so many tall buildings in one place before, well except of the other times that I have flown into this same airport... but it still amazes me every time!

Finally on the ground in São Paulo. Marcos was ready for us as we came through Customs.

As for life back here at home... I think that Lucas and I are finally back on a normal schedule - 24 hours of traveling with 12 hours on a plane is enough to make anyone pooped! It's good to be back, but in some ways I wish we could stay forever! But now, it is back to reality...

Well, over a month later, I finally got the Christmas pictures up.... Here ya go! Getting ready to eat... My first attempt at Christmas dinner. I must say it turned out well! Yum! Christmas Tree with all of the presents underneath! I love Christmas! 3 Generations! Lucas and I Grammy and Papa The whole fam (Lucas, Me, Grammy, Papa, Mom, Dad and of course, Hailey) Lucas opening presents. Grammy laughing hysterically because my parents bought her pack of LeSuer peas. She has complained numerous times about the high price for peas, so she got a Sam's pack! Grammy finally composed herself after getting a second pack of peas from Lucas and I. Apparently she complained about that MANY times! Now she has enough peas to last a lifetime... well at least a couple of weeks! And the Scavenger Hunt begins... We decided to cut back on presents this year, so we just got funny small things for my parents, so in order to make it memorable, we made them take a scavenger hunt to find all of their presents! I think we all had a good time! Hailey's scavenger presents to my parents :-)

Well, we ran out of places to hide things around the house... This picture really 'cracks' me up!

Mini-Moo's! For those of you who don't know, I call my mom Moo... hence all of the cow stuff. I don't really think she's fat, and I'm not really sure why I call her that... Cow beanie baby - Moooooooo!

All of the scavenger presents together.

Intently playing our new Wii game. Lucas made me put this picture on here...

Me, Mom and Dad waiting to open our presents.

Me and Mom

The aftermath

And Hailey has had enough...

Well, I haven't been having much time at home to update the blog lately... We have been pretty busy trying to get everything together for our trip to Brasil! But, for Christmas, which was several weeks ago now, my parents and Grammy and Papa came up the weekend before Christmas to celebrate a little early! They came in on Thursday night and then we just relaxed and chatted on Friday. Saturday we did "Christmas" and had Christmas dinner! (Yum!) Then Sunday we went to church and came back and played games and chatted. Seems like we didn't do much, but it was WAY too cold to do much of anything outside! It was fun to just get to sit in front of the fire and enjoy each other's company though! I am happy to say that I was successful at my first attempt to make my own Christmas dinner, including Turkey (which turned out wonderfully! Thank you Danielle for your wonderful recipe!), dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, rolls, pumpkin and pecan pie! We kept it pretty simple this year. I just asked everyone what one thing that they wanted for the dinner was! But I have to say that it turned out pretty good! Yay! I was sad to see them leave on Monday, but they had to get back for my cousin Kristin's wedding, which unfortunately Lucas and I didn't get to make it to! We were so hoping that we could go, but with Lucas' limited vacation and our scheduled trip to Brasil for two weeks, it just wasn't going to happen... Kristin and Aaron, know that we were thinking of you and we both wish you all the happiness in the world! Being married is a wonderful blessing! Enjoy it! Congratulations! :-) Well, I'll post some pictures from their visit and our Christmas scavenger hunt in the next post... It might not be until we get back though... But, hopefully I'll have time to get caught up some day!

Well we decided to start the new year off right! Annie convinced a group of us that we needed to go run a fun run on New Years day so we can truly be ringin' in, I mean "Runnin' in the New Year!" Annie and Rob made us shirts and everything! It was actually pretty fun, and a nice SUNNY day for once! It was a little windy and a tad chilly but not too bad, at least we got to see the sun! (It is now back to the rainy misery that has become Huntsville the last month!) Annie and I decided to run the 2 mile fun run, while the rest of the group ran the 1 mile fun run! Haha! Hey, at least we got out and did something on New Years day right? We won't even discuss how long it took me to run 2 miles! Who would ever know that I used to be able to run 2 miles in under 13 minutes.... Oh well, I'm older and wiser now right?! All in all we had a great time, and have already planned our next run! I guess I had better get training!

The girls (Ashley, Annie, Kim and me) getting ready to run...

The whole group! (Ashley, Kim, me, Lucas, Annie and Rob)

Me sprinting for the finish! Haha... ok not really sprinting...

Annie making her way to the finish!

Our attempt at a staged finish with all of us (staged since we didn't all run the same race!)

We finally just asked someone to take the picture for us, since we were not having very good luck with the timer...

Lucas ate a DOUGHNUT after he ran, to "refuel" after that strenuous 1 mile run... He's silly...