Some Brazil Pics for you

View of Joinville from Ana's room

Praia Grande
View from Grandma's beach house
Mais Praia Grande

Mais Praia Grande

Balneario Camboriu - view from our hotel room
David's own parking spot - soon to be "ours"
David getting knocked over by the waves
View from unnamed beach- looking for Praia Vermelha
Ana and the rapids before the waterfall

Ana on the way to Campo Alegre
Sunrise from our hotel room - Balneario Camboriu
There are still pirates in Brasil!!
Ana's rapids at Camp Alegre - Grandma's farm

Getting Engaged to/with the family - Festa de Noivado pictures

Ana, me and her cousins

Ana and I

Just getting comfortable... Still more pictures?

Ana's Sis, Dad, Ana, Me and Mom
1st Pic of squeezing me into the family

2nd Pic of me being squeezed into the family

Can't forget "Chubby" hanging with some more family.

MORE BLOGS TO COME!!! WE SWEAR!

Ana and I wrote in a journal each night so there will be a daily blog posted soon we swear!
We posted the first day and the second and third will come tonight. Then probably one every other day so that you can read our happenings. Its also for us to have something to read and remember as well. =))
The culmination of the blogs will be our Festa de Noivado (engagement party) where I proposed to Ana officially with our rings in front of her whole family...... in Portuguese too.... whew!!
See ya..

Dave

Dia um no Brasil (Day one in Brazil)

March 11th, 2007 – Day 1 – Domingo (Sunday)



Dave:
I am exhausted as I leave the plane and a little bit disoriented. Mostly because everyone around me is speaking Portuguese and, even though I understand a little, I am way too tired to attempt to say anything on my own right now. As I leave the plane and start to walk towards customs/immigration, I know that I will soon be with Ana. =)
Customs is very easy and I get through in about ten minutes. I walk through this strange tunnel that is supposed to be like a race track. There are skid marks all over the ground and I can see blurry people on the sides of the tunnel walls as I supposedly race by. All of this to the sounds of engines roaring by. Yep, definitely the strangest air plane tunnel I have ever been in.
Once I get to baggage claim I only had to wait about ten minutes before my luggage came down the belt. After a 28 hour journey and only having slept for 2 ½ hours for the last 32 hours, walking down the aisle towards the automatic doors where people can greet the passengers is exhausting me but my heart is beating faster for a different reason. Never before have I felt such anticipation! The doors finally open as I walk through and, even though there must be about 100 visitors, my eyes are immediately drawn to the most beautiful girl in the room. Ana smiles at me as the recognition is mutual and we start to walk through the crowd towards each other. I put my luggage down and wrap my arms around her sensing her shyness melt away as I lift her off the ground and squeeze her really hard. We embrace for a few moments in the middle of the crowd. As I put her down we pause just long enough to kiss each other. Every bit of chemistry that I felt sure was going to be there immediately came to the surface and our kiss was the best I have ever had.
We walked out of the crowd and sat down on some chairs because I had very little energy left to walk around at the moment. As I sat down next to her, I pulled her close to me and we kissed again and again. =)
Her cousin, Karina and her cousin’s husband Kris had driven her to the airport in Curitiba because she was not familiar with the city. Believe me, I do not blame her! I have never been so confused walking around the city but that is a different story that we will have to talk about later.
Ana called her cousin and they came to get us and then drove us to the hotel. As we were driving, both Ana and I could not get over how comfortable we were with each other. It was like we had always been together.

Kris and Karina said goodbye to us and told us that we would have dinner with them the next night which was very cool of them. I would have to put my Portuguese to work because Kris did not speak English. We checked in and went up to our room. The room was very cool but weird at the same time. Ana told me that people can rent these rooms as more permanent apartments too. We had a living room, kitchen, bedroom and a balcony. After settling in, I don’t think we got any sleep until about 3am and then Ana woke me up again at 5am. ;) Now I am up to about 47 hours with only 4 hours sleep in-between but I am as happy as I have ever been. I want to savor every minute with Ana because I know that soon I will go back to the US and then have to wait 6 whole weeks until Ana and I can be together for good in the same city…… to be continued..

A Year of Firsts - The Brazil Trip

1st Trip together - Brazil (Curitiba, Joinville, Balneário Camboriú, Piçarras, Campo Alegre) - March 10th - March 29th

Hello all, this is Dave writing this part of the blog. This will probably be the last time I post on my own as this blog is for both Ana and I to show our upcoming travels together. Buuuut, I thought I would at least open up the blog with a post so that it is not left empty.
Of course, as soon as we have something to post once I am physically with Ana in Brazil, this entry may be deleted to make room for more interesting things. =)

Anyway, the last 4 months and the 3 months to follow are going to shape both of our lives in a very huge way and I know that Ana is as excited about it as I am! Aside from our amazing relationship which could have a blog of its own, we also will be doing loooots of traveling both in Brazil and in the US when Ana arrives, not to leave out our travels every year where we will marry in as many countries as we can! As we plan our travels we will be inviting our close friends and we would love it if some of you could join us on at least a road trip. If you can't, you can always read about it here and pretend you are on vacation. =)


While I am in Brazil we will try to update this as many times as possible and put as many pictures as possible as well but I imagine we will not be too worried about computers too much when we are together because I really think we are both terribly sick of them! That being said, we will still try very hard because i know we will have some down time in the next 3 weeks.
Anyway, I hope you come back here often to read about our going ons!!

Dave

PS. Do not be surprised if there are Portuguese translations here for our friends and family that do not speak English. =))