A great weekend in the making...

If only this was all we were hauling in the truck today.... more pictures to come.

Christmas Day - A little late (forgive me!)

Christmas and the holidays in general have become doubly fun and doubly family packed.  This year, like last year, we spent Christmas Eve morning with the McGrath's (Erin included).  We had a wonderful brunch (or maybe its just breakfast since we left before 10:30 am).  We opened presents and had a wonderful morning of food, laughs and family.  Then, we headed home to Freeport to the traditional Christmas Eve party at my parents house.  We changed things up a bit since my parents were headed to Cabo on Christmas day.  We did dinner after the 5:30 service and our traditional lights viewing...of course, the Big Red Apple was included.

We had our normal meal of Pigs in a Blanket (NOT hot dogs and croissant rolls) and Dumplings....my most favorite meal of all time.  If I was on death row and had one last meal to pick, it would be this.  For me, this meal is heaven on earth and I just can't imagine Christmas without it. 

Christmas day was equally packed with fun and family.  We did Christmas presents with my family (and I got the amazing computer I'm typing on right now) and shared coffee, a few laughs and a second of my favorite meals, left over dumplings with eggs!! 

Around noon Ryan and I drove my parents to the Ohare for their awesome trip to Cabo.  The day didn't end there, we then went straight home to drop off the 3 dogs (we are watching Ruby for the week while my parents vacation) and then went over to David and Corda's for the McGrath's traditional Christmas Day festivities.  We at too much and did the gift exchanges. 

One of my favorite parts of Christmas day (a new tradition for me) is Bingo at the McGrath's family Christmas.  We play bingo with white elephant gifts of sort.  This year, we made our second great addition to Bingo....see picture below!!!

Erin won the annual Deer Foot.  Last year Chris and Brenna drew this gift from Bingo (it might have been slightly fixed) and they had TONS of adventures with it throughout the year.  They dressed it up in a cute vase and passed it on for next year.  Next Christmas a photo album will accompany this great find and we will make it a family tradition.  It makes me laugh to see how the Ritterbusch's have influenced this family.  Nick, won the newest addition to Bingo, a turkey leg covered in leather with a deer eye at the bottom.  I can't wait to see what this year's photo albums bring!!

As always, I made my Christmas Sugar Cookies.  There were tons of issues with this years batch including having to purchase new cutters.  But, all that being said, my cookie making life has been significantly improved by the following items:
1 new cookie dough recipe (thanks Ellyn)
1 new silicone baking mat (thanks Wedding returns)
1 cookies press/frosting squirter (thanks Beth Olson!!)

Here are some pics of the great cookies I made this year.

I'm really late with this post but Merry Christmas and Happy New Years.  More pictures and posts to come after the New Year's festivities.  This year should be a riot with 28 people at the lake house this year!!

Thankful for you, Mom

Today I’m dedicating a blog post to my Mom to help remind her how thankful I am for her everyday.  With this being our first holiday season with Ryan and I as husband and wife, we’ve dutifully split up the holidays between his family and mine and we are doing our best to be everywhere at the same time.  It’s hard as we grow up and traditions change.  I am going to miss the smell of turkey in the oven and the sounds of preparations staring way earlier than my mom would probably want me to admit.  So, since I won’t be seeing my mom on this special day I wanted to take a second to tell her (and you *smile*) how special she is to me and how thankful I am for her.

I'm FAMOUS...well...Kinda...

You might remember that Ryan and I stayed at this hotel while we were on our honeymoon...

http://www.pousadadosandi.com.br/

When Ryan and I were there there was a group of people working by the pool from sun up to sun down.  I thought it was wierd so we sat on our balcony one evening and over heard what they were talking about.  All we could tell was that it was going to be a major movie...we heard them talking budget, logisitics...it all.  $25K a day to rent a 1 engine helicopter...$50K for a two (they were saying that major stars won't travel in a 1 engine one in case it fails) We heard them mention someone named "stephanie".  I started doing some thinking trying to figure out what it could possibly be.  We knew the crew working downstairs was from New York.  The only Stephanie I could think of is Stepanie Meyer of course (the author of Twilight)...which got me thinking that MAYBE it was Twilight.  Anyways, then when we were explorying the hotel we found a movie poster for the movie.  It seemed strange because the hotel is decorate in a very quiant historic way.  Local art vendors, antiques etc.


I read in OK magazine today that they are filming scenes in Paraty and at the hotel...how cool!!  We were just a few weeks early!!

Here are a few links to some postings on it....I feel famous!  Or at least privleged that I got to stay where the famous people stay!!


http://www.twifans.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2644331%3ABlogPost%3A4776324&commentId=2644331%3AComment%3A4776398&xg_source=activity

http://www.breakingdawnmovie.org/isle-esme-update-a-fan-report/

Not sure how credible the sites above are...but its OK magazine people...its gotta be true :O)

Winning the fight...one pint at a time!

We were originally supposed to be camping this weekend, taking the opportunity to enjoy one last weekend outside before the snow starts flying and temperatures start dropping but a little research into the proposed campground and we found that they had closed down all the showers and bathrooms as of Oct 31st.  We quickly scrapped the idea of camping figuring we could deal with the cool temperatures but we certainly needed a place to wash our hands etc.

But, knowing us, you know we don't ever just sit still so we planned a relatively impromptu brewery tour with Chris and Brenna.  Two Brothers Brewery is located only a few miles from our house and we've been wanting to check it out so a randomly free Saturday seemed like the perfect opportunity.  For the beer connoisseurs out there you may know some of the beers they make.  Some of their most popular include Cane and Ebel, Eble's Weiss, or Domaine Dupage.  If you've never heard of these you should seek them out.  They are some of my favorites.  I personally don't love IPA's but if they are your thing try the Heavier Handed brew.  It's a special one-time brew and the boys loved it.

Here is their website for more information.
http://www.twobrosbrew.com/



Don't we all wish our garages looked like this??  I sure do!





Kinda blurry but I couldn't resist adding this one!!

 The tour was a lot of fun.  It's hard to imagine that it wouldn't be.  It's a free tour and you get free beer at the end.  Our afternoon was cut a little short when we found out the brewery and restaurant were closing early because a wedding had rented the entire brewery out for the afternoon.  The 4 of us having just gotten married this year were instantly jealous and wondering if either couple could have made the brewery work for their wedding as well.  It's funny...after getting married you secretly look at all other weddings using your own as a benchmark.  We all wished we had thought of such a great idea.  I have a feeling their pictures will be amazing!!

So, we headed back to our house at had some dinner (BBQ pulled Elk....delicious if I do say so myself).  With shotgun season in full swing we've got to clean out the freezer from last  years meat to make room for the new stuff.  Ry and dad are hunting together in two weeks so more on that later.

After dinner we went to a newish country bar by our house called Saddle Up.  The place is ALWAYS packed and we had a great time.  We met a few more of Ryan and Chris's cousins there and we really enjoyed the whole evening.  On Saturday nights from 7:30 to 10:30 they do line dancing lessons mixed in with open dancing.  We learned one, no idea the name, and I'm sure I couldn't replicated it now in an un-intoxicated state but it was fun none the less. 


Heee...Haw!!


Of course, one of the best parts of the whole night was the people watching.  It was great!!!  We will most defiantly be back.  Now, I'm off to find a line-dancing instruction DVD so that we can know all the dances :O)  Or...more importantly I'm headed to watch the Packers game.

Halloween 2010

Let me start by apologizing!  Ever since we returned from our honeymoon there has been a flurry of activity leaving me very little time to sit down, much less time to sit down a blog.  I am disappointingly late with  posting our shenanigans from Halloween but I've finally got pictures loaded and ready for the world to see. 

We had a great party this year, mostly because we had a great crowd.  Probably one of the coolest things about getting married (and having both of our friends and family in one room) is that everyone finally got a chance to meet each other.  It can be intimating to find out that you are going to be the only one at a party or event that won't know the rest of the crowd.  Now that everyone has met (and seems to love each other) our get togethers really truly are a mixture of my friends and Ryan's.  In the days preceding the party I got more than one text asking if so and so would be coming, usually bridging the gap between what I would consider "my friends" and "Ryan's" or the other way around.  I'm excited because this means future parties will be even more fun.

We had some great costumes this year but I have to give the "best costume" award to Betsy.  Literally the night before the party she was going to be coming as Princess Peach, less than 12 hours later (and only about 6 hours before the party), I talked to her and she was at Joanne Fabrics trying to create a Sushi costume.  I had my doubts, I will admit, but it turned out great and I give her huge points for originality!  Next year I think we are going to institute an official costume contest...with prizes.  We are stepping up our game, so its time to step up yours!


Betsy and Lauren....best costume of the night.

 Skittles was another favorite of mine.  Lindsay is going to kill me for posting this picture but I've just got to show off the great find from the Sample Store at Sears...it was less than $15 and worked perfect.  She gets points for the best accessory.  Skittles came armed with jello shots, topped with Skittles!!  They were good, but even funnier is the story behind them.  A few days before Halloween Lindsay asked me what I thought about putting Skittles inside the jello shots, to match her outfit.  My mind immediately flashed to a slow motion film of someone slamming back a jello shot only to find that there are small little Skittles inside ie. small little choking hazards inside.  We decided on putting the skittles on top so people would know what they were getting themselves into.  The shots ended up being a mouthful of really cold (so really hard to chew) skittles followed about 10 minutes later (after finally chewing through the "surprise") by the jello shots.  Great effort though!!


The "Skittles Special"



Dress Up Barbie, Skittles and a 80's ski bunny (from Hot Tub Time Machine)

  I've got to give a quick shout out to Dress-up Barbie.  She came dressed with a blond wig and armed with a make-up case.  You could do her makeup, hair etc.  Another really creative costume that gets props from me....and since I'm the blogger, my opinion is the only one that really counts!

Joey and Andy even made the long journey from Iowa to come!  It was great to see them both and Andy was the talk of party when he quick changed into a scary wolf face mask and walked around the party like a creeper, not talking to anyone, not telling anyone who he was, and just overall acting suspicious.  The first time he changed I was 99% sure it was him and just played along.  He did the quick change a few more times and kept creeping people out.  Then, he convinced Nick (another party-goer) to change into the outfit.  Andy was standing right next to me when "wolfman" came in.  I questioned him and wolfman, asking if it was Nick.  I was still sure that I was in on the joke until Nick came to me....acting really freaked out about wolf man.  I asked him straight up if it was him and Andy and they both denied it.  Moments later I was talking to Ryan about the creepy man that kept coming in and out of the house acting weird.  At the same time Banana (ie. Brenna) was chasing Wolfman around the house trying to catch him.  Ryan came out of the house ready for a fight...or at least looking like he was ready for one....when Andy finally removed the mask and nearly fell on the ground laughing at us.  JERK!  But, I've got to say, you got us pretty good man.  Next year, Andy, next year!

Ghostbuster....I'm calling you out for next years party.  Don't book any trips anywhere!  You are a required attendee. 

Skittle Jello shots, 2 Kegs of beer (thank god the guy at the liquor store re-opened to let Ryan get the second keg), 5 gallons of margarita, and 3 bottles of Brazilian liquor later we had quite the party.  Here are some more random pics for you all to enjoy!


Costume #1 for Ryan - Oscar



Ron Jermey?  Oh wait....my bad...the Uni-bomber!





Costume #2 for Ryan:  Pirate (Oscar was too HOT!!) with Banana and blow up Cowboy!



Good times: 40's, turtles, and a giant sting ray

Holy crap, Sadie and I found the best beach yet. It's a tiny little beach off the beaten path, about 20min walk from the hotel and wowzers it was a gold mine.

We got up late this morning and decide that we would try out the local beaches today. We followed the advice of the hotel and walked to one of the beaches. It was semi-secluded(this is a bit of an exaggeration) it was small, pretty dirty, and getting crowded. We decided to try the next one down, and holy chit, it was the most crowded beach I have ever been on. We returned to the hotel and asked the staff for their best recommendation. The told us about the "holy Grail" of beaches.

After a 20min walk through semi-sketchy neighborhoods we stumble on a small rocky beach with 5 other people on it. It's about a 1/2 mile off the open ocean and is about a 1/4 mile wide with rocks on all sides. (pics to follow). The beach is maintained and supported by the one guy and his family that live behind it. 40's for $6. Glorious!!!!!!

Nature awesomeness:
So on this little beach, there are at least 6 sea turtles that pop up from time to time. That's pretty cool, and we sit drinking and enjoying the surf. Then Sadie yells at me while I'm climbing some rocks, "holy shit ry look.". Of course I miss the huge 5ft wide stingray jumping out of the water. After several Bigfoot jokes, I finally see it myself. It was freaking amazing.

Long story short we are headed back tomorrow to enjoy our last full day in Buzios.

(this post was composed while under the influence of cheap local beer)



The view of "our beach".  We instantly fell in love with this place and spent a full two days here.



The 40 coolers were pretty awesome as well.



A panoramic of  the beach.



There was more....

There were about 5 more things I had written into my last post but somehow they got deleted. I'm aggravated with it now so I will update that later when we get home and I'm on a really computer with a key board that works....for now I'm heading to the beach!!

Miss you all....we will be home soon!!

Wednesday.....Buzios

Wednesday the weather was beautiful again, after a few cloudy, rainy days, which worked out perfect for us since we had scheduled another boat trip. The boat/city tour included a stop at two beaches and an island, along with lunch, Caprihans, and a tour of a small city called Cabo Frio. The trip was fun and very very beautiful but it's kind of useless with out pictures so I'll keep it short and sweet for today until I can upload some pics. The tour was nice and had a few interesting moments. At our second stop the had snowboards available to rent for roughly $3 for an hour. You then climbed a sand dune and snow (or really sand boarded) down the hill. It was fun and I was surprisingly better than Ryan at it....hahaha. On our way back to the big boat (you can be ferried by a small dingy) when the driver went to pull start the motor he broke the handle off. Hahaha. We drifted for about 5 mins before we could get another boat to come pull us into our big boat. It was pretty funny to hear the guide and driver yelling at each other. We don't understand 99% of what happens here but we understood that part.


A quick pic of our boat for the day.





The Monkey Face...can you see it?  Hint: It's a side view of the monkeys face.  The brow forms the dark triangle shadow towards the top left of the picture.





Ryan before he tried sand-boarding,  I wish I had some great action shots of him actually boarding but sadly, they all came out blurry.


Since our dingy was now broken, we had to skip the island part of our tour and went straight to lunch. Essentially the equivalent of Old Country Buffet. P.S. Don't pick out sushi at OCB. .....you will be very very disappointed. Then, they made you pay for whatever you didn't eat so I ended up wrapping my sushi pieces in a napkin and tossing them in the bathroom. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have know better!!


A live Blowfish.  He was really really cool.  One of our guides found him to show everyone.



Cabo Frio was very uninteresting!! It was a huge shopping area which might sound fun but here is a basic rundown of the stores: bikini, bikini, sandals, crappy t-shirt, bikini, bikini, bikini. It was seriously 100's of stores selling bikinis and more bikinis. Even I was bored after about 10 minutes so ryan and I shared a nice little beer outside while the rest of the group shopped and bought....you guessed it.....bikinis!

I'll post pics later and a movie or two of the snowboarding. Oh....and we found a blow fish too....that was cool....pics later.

In the mean time, here are some random cultural things we've found interesting along the way:
1. there are no pepper shakers. A salt shaker just doesn't look right on the table without it's ore half. It's like peas without the pod, ice-cream without chocolate sauce, or peanut butter without jelly.....you've got to have the pepper too.

2. We haven't seen one cemetery while we are here. We've been in Rio which is a huge city and through plenty of small cities in our travels but we've yet to see a cemetery. I wonder if they are above or below ground....maybe cremated???

3. Driving here is crazy. There are speed bumps everywhere, even on the highway. Cars literally double pass over double yellows. On our way back to Rio from Paraty, we were in a bus and passed a slow moving truck over double yellow, we were simultaneously passed by a car, passing us both.

4. Toilet paper in most public places isn't on a roll like we are used to. It's like little tissue paper hung in dispensers on the wall.

5. Bedays everywhere. Everyplace we've been they've had them. Maybe as Americans we are missing out on something???

In buzios.....sorry...it's Sadie again

Hello all....you're stuck with me again:o). I tried to convince Ry to post again today for you all but no dice. We've missed a few days of blogging but you haven't really missed much at all. We spent all day yesterday traveling back from Paraty to Rio and about half of the day today traveling from Rio to Buzios. Yesterday the weather was crap...rainy and cold but it was a great day to travel. The bus ride from Paraty to Rio is about 4 hours not including stops for other passengers, traffic etc. On the bus ride we met an amazing family from Australia. They were 4 kids in their late teens/20's and their parents. One of the daughter was going to study in Argentina for 6 months and the parents were traveling to Patagonia next....awesome....so jealous!

When we arrived in Rio it was still rainy and crappy but our hotel was seriously awesome. We stayed in a hotel called Porto Bay. Check it out online....Ry and I felt like we were high rollers staying there. It was so nice in fact that we considered ordering room service a luxury that neither of us has ever used in our whole lives. We ventured out into the city tip find a grocery store for some cheese and crackers. We are still trying to master the correct time to eat dinner and are still failing miserably but we've found that a snack in the evening (around normal dinner time) helps a little. On our way we found a cool little open pit BBQ place. It had a big charcoal burning fire in the middle with whole chickens, steak, shrimp etc roasting on a skewers over the fire. We vowed to come back for dinner but I had a hard time convincing Ryan to leave the movie we were watching at the hotel to come eat. I think that's the first time ever that I've had to convince him to go out...it's usually the other way around.


Our great room in Rio.  This hotel was very very nice. 



The view from our room.  We stayed on the 19th floor.



In any case, the BBQ place was really cool. We met two couples that were traveling the world together. The first was an Aussie couple who were on their 12 week vacation for the year. I'm so serious, 12 weeks each year, that's their allotted vacation time. Ry and I will be moving there in short order. Joke....well kinda. *smile*. The second coulee was from Oregon and was about to be married in January. They both quit their jobs in 2008 and had been traveling since then. Both very cool couples and they bought our drinks for the night so that was cool too.

Tuesday morning we woke up and checked out our hotel. The bus picked us up at 8:30 for Buzios. We rode with a huge group of German people which was pretty neat for me. I don't speak it well anymore but I can understand in context so it was fun to eavesdrop their conversations to try and figure out what they were saying. The weather was pretty crappy out again. Cold and cloudy but no rain so it was a good day to make the 3.5 or so hour drive here to Buzios.

In Buzios we are staying at a beautiful place called Villa D'este. Please please look it up online. Ryan and I spent the afternoon in the blue pool overlooking the ocean (see pics on the website) and drinking Caprihans (the local Brazilian drink.....don't worry, we know how to make it to share with you all) and getting our bearings here in the city.


Our little bungalow in Buzios.  It was great, we had this living room area and our bedroom area. 



The view from our bedroom window.  Everything was open air at this hotel.  It was so beautiful



Still inside our hotel Vila de' este looking back towards our little house.



The "warm tub" and the view.  It would be misleading to call it a hot tub but it was the perfect temperature for Brazil.





The second pool area. 



Ok enough for now....we are off to our next adventure.