It hit 107 degrees this week!  It was crazy, and of course I decided to do a bus trip out to the suburbs past Barra that day.  I saw that arch and the favela Rocinha up-close (Becki caught it below).

We also spent a day in Ipanema it was nice but warm.  It's a good idea to take an A/C'ed bus up there, and then walk home where the view is nice of Copacabana.   Rolf and I also took a walk both ways (beach way up, calcadao back down) on Saturday to Arpoador.  It was beautiful, and since it was a holiday both beaches were PACKED, just like the postcards.  We hiked up the small outcropping of rocks at Arpoador together, and wow, the view was incredible, both of Sugarloaf and the Ipanema mountains.  On the way down, some 14 year-old touched my shoulder and said, "beautiful," and I was thinking, dude, I'm twice your age!  Are you nuts?   It was a fun day anyway.  Here's another shot Becki took of corcovado, love her talent:

Evie's new phrases this week are "1, 2, 3, it's my birthday!!!" and "I love love love a lever!!"  (Thanks to sesame street teaching her about levers and fulcrums).  She stepped on a cheerio the other day and said, "Sorry, cheerio."  She's a funny one.  Oh, and Rosie's standing up by herself now, for 10 seconds at least and getting up there on her own.  My babies are growing up!

Evie's favorite things in Rio so far:

1.  The buttons where the mist sprays at the beach
2.  carmel stuffed-churros and coconut popsicles
3.  monkeys
4.  going to the park
5.  the sand castles on the calcedau, especially if they involve dragons, whales, or Corcovado
6.  Jesus:  really, this morning her favorite thing was holding the amethist and silver corcovado statue, it reminds her of the real statue, and Rio.  We tried to take it away before we went out, but she was insistent:  "I want to hold the Jesus!"  She was very, very sad, crying a lot be we didn't want it to break. We'll buy her a wooden one tomorrow.

Yesterday we went to Colleens for brunch, and then to the Sheraton for the pools and little beach.  It was really fun, I like the Sheraton.  The water is so warm, it's so scenic, and Evie loves the kiddie pool with the little balls and rings.

It rained a few days in a row this week so I had a lot of time to write, and wrote a blog post that got 26,000 views and over 4,000 shares on facebook.  Kinda weird!

New Parks and Justin Beiber

We discovered two new parks this week, one just right behind our house that Rolf found online.  The park equipment is the same, but it's very quiet and it doesn't feel like you're in the big city like the other parks around us, it's very jungle-y and nice.   Two police officers drove up and went up the hiking trail, and I thought there was something going on, but Rolf asked them, and they said they were just going for a nature walk to relax.  Ah, Rio!  There were lots of monkeys, so of course Evie loved it.   We'll definitely be going back, I'm so happy our closest park is so quiet and right up against the rainforest.

We also went to a park in Largo do Machado with a square that's very beauitful/colonial with an old church in the center.  A short walk away was the park with an imperial-looking governor's house inside, waterfalls, and play equipment.  Evie definitely (thanks to Dora the Explorer) knows what waterfalls are and was very excited to point to each one and exclaim, "Waterfall!  I see it!  There!"

Saturday we went to the Copacabana Palace and a walk on the Calcadao because it was closed for the holiday (Day of the Dead).   We almost didn't go in because there was this HUGE crowd of people, mostly women, and figured a celebrity was there, but we went anyway because the idea of a pool sounded really nice.  Sure enough, it was, not to crowded inside, they fed us fruit cups, the pool was heated, there were other babies for Evie to play with, we liked it!   And at the pool we found out Justin Beiber was there.  So that's why.  As we exited the rotating door, there were hundreds of screams and applause, I'm guessing because we were holding 2 cute American girls and they were hungry for anyone to come out!

Today we showed around Rolf's old friend and spouse from BYU.  We would have gone to church earlier but we had to stay home to let in the gas company person as we haven't had hot water for 3 days and that was the only time he could come.  Luckily, we have hot water now, yea!!!!   Anyway, we took them on the Calcadao walk down to the edge of Leme, the Windsor hotel, and then back here.  I can't believe they'll only be in town 3 days, not enough time to see everything!  Sounds like they're going to try though.