south america trip

-We leave the U.S.A. and fly from Phoenix to LA. We then get on a plane and fly from LA to Lima. Plane stops in Lima, we wait on plane, then we fly to Santiago, Chile, which is way too far south of our ultimate destination Rio de Janeiro. We land in Santiago, Chile. We change planes, we wait, then we fly to Sau Paulo, Brazil. We land in Sau Paulo, Brazil, we wait on the plane then eventually take off to Rio de Janeiro. We land in Rio. Assigned taxi driver waiting for us refuses to take us because we have 6 bags. We wait on the curb at the airport for an hour while she argues on the phone in Portuguese. She finally takes us to our hotel. 27 hours later, we arrive at our hotel in Rio. Poor little Oscar did amazing, barely even cried.

-Rio was super cool, we were alone just us 3. Oscar spent his 1st birthday in Rio being sung to by complete strangers in Portuguese on the tram down from the Cristo. We saw Christo Redentor, Pao de Azucar, and Ipanema beach. We were there for 3 nights.









-We fly from Rio to Porto Alegre, Nate's Mission. Only a 3 hour flight. We arrive and his friends (a family that took great care of him) Gu and Elisandra pick us up and we spend lots of time with them. They don't have kids yet so they were IN HEAVEN with Oscar. I don't think I held him once while we were with them. They held the little 27 pounder in their arms at all times, saying "que lindo!!!"

-We rented a car and drove around visiting people from 3 of Nate's areas. We stayed the night in each area and I LOVED everyone I met. All his loved ones I met, I now consider my friends and loved ones. Everyone that was special to him is now so special to me. Every area's landscape was super different too, Brazil is so cool. We were in Porto Alegre for 6 days. Nate turned 24 in Porto Alegre and we had a cake for him and spent the day (Sunday) with friends at Gu and Elisandra's house. We're so sad because we don't have any pictures of Michaelangelo and Lillian. Nate got to teach Lillian and she was baptized by him too. Her and her husband have since been married in the temple and had a little girl. The pictures of them were on our camera that was stolen so all we have are pictures of their daughter Julia and Oscar playing together so happily.




Gu and Elisandra. They are like family to me now.




That's Lilian holding Oscar. She's the coolest convert. She's a biker chick with a tattoo and she loves hard metal and progressive rock. She seriously used to work at a motorcycle shop. Now she loves teaching Julia about Jesus and she loves church, but don't worry she still loves her heavy metal.




-We leave Porto Alegre, sadly, and fly back to Rio in order to catch a plane to Iguazu falls. Only a 2 hr flight, at this point anything under 27 hrs is cake to us.

- We spent 2 days and 3 nights at Iguazu falls. We saw both the Brazilian side and the Argentine side. It was INCREDIBLE.











-We fly from Iguazu falls to Buenos Aires, maybe like a 2 hr flight. We stay in Buenos Aires for 4 days doing the tourist thing and getting our camera stolen by a professional pick pocketing woman. I still get emotional thinking about it. It's the most frustrating experience to be intentionally confused by someone so that they can distract you and take your bag from you without you even realizing. So basically we don't have any good pictures of Argentina. I mean we have some, but they're from my cell phone and I was just sulking too much about the stolen camera to get motivated to take a picture with my cell phone.

-Day 4 in Argentina we rent a car to drive up to my mission, Rosario. There was a huge rental car fiasco, but long story short, the fiasco put us behind schedule by 6 hours. So we had so much less time to do visits then we had thought. We went to 3 of my areas and 2 of my companions from Argentina came with us. I LOVED seeing everyone and getting to spend more than 20 min with them. I wish I could have visited more people, but I guess there's always skype. It was such a cool experience to see everyone's progress, whether they were friends, companions, or converts, everyone was such an inspiration.







-Drive back to Buenos Aires and spend time with my companion and her family before leaving. Here's Oscar being taught to be "despacito" with their super old and blind dog that he had just man handled and lifted 2 ft. into the air.




-Fly back to U.S., only a 14 hour flight thank goodness.


We had an amazing time. Wish I could tell everything but no one has the patience for that. But it was so worth everything and we're so happy we did it. Oscar was such a good boy and we couldn't have asked for a better little trooper. I truly only remember him actually crying twice on the whole trip from being tired. Other than that he was as happy as can be, dancing as much as he possibly could. I'll blog about Oscar soon, he's changing so much. We're glad to be home.

P.S. sorry about the confusing mixed present and past tenses. i'm too lazy to go back and fix them now.

coupon nut

I've been out of the country and out of the coupon scene for almost a month, and on my first shopping outing I still did so good that I had to take a picture of my loot to share and be proud of. Blow up the picture below? Sure! Don't mind if you do. And yes, I am going to list what is in the picture because it's the pricey stuff I hate to buy and there's no fun to be had with any of it.



1 re-style (target) leaf pattern cotton shower curtain


2 12 pks bounty paper towels (you people know how stupidly over priced paper towels are)
168 ct cottonelle wipes
1 purex laundry detergent for HE
2 john freida root booster blow drying lotion
2 old spice men's body wash
2 old spice deoderants
1 box tylenol precise heating pads
1 giant bottle of spic and span cleaner concentrate
1 bottle dish soap
1 bottle soft scrub with bleach
2 scotch brite sponges
2 ocello sponges
2 colgate toothbrushes
2 boxes of excedrin migraine
1 renu multi purpose contact solution
1 dove bar of soap (please let me donate it to you, what do you even do with a bar of soap?)
2 packages carefree pantiliners
2 lbs bananas
1 6 pk danimals yogurt drinks
2 packages of bologna
1 package cascade HE dishwaher detergent capsules
1 yoplait yogurt
1 4 pk of noxema triple blade razors
3 4 pks of yobaby organic yogurt
1 herbal essences shampoo
1 herbal essences conditioner
2 gallons of milk
1 box brillo soap scour pads

Grand total $41 dolla holla
If that sounds like a lot to you i challenge you to a duel.

oscar's 1st birthday

We just got back from our trip on Thursday so I'm gonna start catching up on blogging. For you non-facebookers, not even 48 hours before we left for our trip, Oscar celebrated his 1st birthday a little early with a Super Mario Kart party. All his favorite cousins and friends were there, not to mention lots of family.

I'd been planning and preparing for months. Things would have been a lot easier if I would just take some graphic design classes, but instead I made these invitations and envelope liners by hand. The invites were originally cereal and pizza boxes, then I covered them with felt and cardstock. Just so you know, the green mushroom in the Mario game is called the 1 up mushroom. Don't worry, I didn't come up with this 1 up mushroom invite idea myself, I saw it somewhere and modified it. They had printed out an image, I went 3-D with the felt, cardstock and sharpie.







Instead of goodie bags, I made goodie cans out of the millions of Oscar's formula cans I couldn't throw away. Then I spray painted them green and covered the top with green cardstock. This was my own creation and original idea. Then I stocked them with wheel yo yo's, mario pencils, mario stickers, candy, and mario blowouts I made myself.


I found some trophies at D.I. for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishers of the race that just so happened to be go-kart trophies.


These are the party blowouts I modified. This was not my original idea, I copied it from someone. But it was great to find these ugly party blowouts at the thrift store for $0.50 and just make them into what I needed with a sheet of paper, a pair of scissors, and a sharpie.





The race was my own idea. I decorated, so I thought, the backdrop of the race just like the background of the game. I made all the "bricks" and question mark boxes out of cardboard boxes, contact paper, and spray paint. The kids cars were cardboard boxes that I spray painted. In order to give the race some difficulty, I made over a hundred "gold coins" the kids had to pick up along the way. I think I spent the most hours of preparation on those gold coins, which were also originally cereal boxes. Then I made little coin bags for the kids to collect their coins in, but never took a picture of them.


The best part of all this party preparation was when I, trying to stay authentic and true to the game's design, kept asking Nate if I was doing one of the decorations correctly according to how the game portrays it. He says, "You do realize none of this stuff is actually from the Mario Kart game, and that you have already really mixed up Mario Kart and Super Mario Brothers right?" While trying so hard to simulate the Mario Kart game exactly, I had no idea I had royally mixed up and combined elements from different games. This is probably because I never really even played either game that much. So why did I choose this theme for Oscar's birthday then? Solely for the fact that I wanted to dress him up as toad, in nothing but a diaper and a vest.


There was a path for the race, marked by orange rubber cones, that started in our backyard and winded through our front yard and then back again to the backyard.


Nate and I dressed up like Mario and Luigi but never got a picture of us together.







The winners




We tried to dress Oscar up as Toad, and I made his little vest,(ha I cut out some felt real crazy like) and hat,(spray painted shower cap that crusted off every time he pulled it off.)


I made his cake from one of those giant cupcake cake pans, then did red frosting and mentos. I saw the mentos idea smoewhere and copied it.