To Rio Quente and Back

Early last Sunday morning (early as in 4am!) we packed our little family of four into our car and headed out on our fun five day adventure to Goias, Brazil!  After much research and discussion and prayer we finally decided on our vacation destination this year: Rio Quente Resorts in the state of Goias.  The month of July is a notoriously expensive time to travel in Brazil, being as it is the winter break for all students, both school and college.

Everson and I have always avoided traveling during the months of July, December and January but this year it was unavoidable...if we wanted to get away from crowded and COLD Sao Paulo.  My man was able to get his work vacation in July and as he and the children are on school vacation and mommy too (the joys of being a teacher!), we just decided to "bite the bullet" and have a real good time away.

Our travel agent worked and worked and got us a great deal on our five day package, for which we are very, very grateful.  Thank you, Tamires, from Rio Quente Resorts in Shopping ABC!

After 12 long hours driving and enjoying the three different states we drove through...we finally arrived in Rio Quente, Goias.  What a wonderfully hot, dry, beautiful state.  The heat alone made the LONG drive worth it!

Here is a bit of our delightful time in pictures:

Sunrise as we traveled early Sunday morning

Can we say RANDOM???  In the middle of Minas Gerais State we passed two of these statutes!!!  There is a department store that calls attention to themselves by these rather random displays next to their building.  I thought it was hilarious and got a bad case of the giggles just seeing this!

Finally....we are here!!!

This child lived in the water for three glorious days!

This one loves the water, but the naturally hot water from the natural springs above the park just made him TIRED.  He sucks his tongue when he is tired and he sucked his tongue all day long for three days so I know he was just weary!  He wanted to sit in the water and hold his blankie.  Poor little guy.  In order to enjoy our time at the water park each day we did not let him have his full nap and combined with the relaxing affect of the water, he was quite fussy and clingy to me during our trip.  But we still had a wonderful time and we were glad to have him with us.  I could have put in a type of daycare place for four hours a day but even grumpy, I kind of like to have him with us!  So, mommy will enjoy the rides at the hot park next time! 

Noah did this slide over and over and over...

Taking a rest and eating cookies

Chloe, waiting for her turn on the zip cables

She flew down the cable and I did not even have time to get a good picture.  She loved it!  The child has few fears.  I would not do it and she could not understand at.all!

This is my tanned and tired little boy!

Two different days the room maids made Chloe something special.  She named her dog Lulu.

A section of the water park especially for children!  Oh, the fun we had!

Noah made friends everywhere we went.

As evening fell each day, the temps also dropped.  He was starting to get cold this evening. As long as you stayed in the water, all was marvelous.

Feeding the fish that came right up and nibbled from your hand!

My boys...

One "tuckered puppy" as her papa Rod would say.  By evening my children were so incredibly worn out!

When I saw this scene, my thought was, "Peace."

Diving and Snorkling cabin across the lake

Everson, putting his life at risk...I mean, getting ready to fall 13 meters in an intertube!!!

Unbelieveably as it seems, we ran into old friends of my husbands!  In a park with thousands of people, 800 km away from home, this dear family was at the resort the very same four days we were and we found them at the water park each day without even trying.  Way too fun.  We enjoyed spending some hours with them on Monday and again on Wednesday.  

Chloe named her doll Sarah

The Silas and Everson Families

The mommies!

Our last night.  We had hamburgers that tasted the most like American hamburgers that you will find in Brazil and of course, the glorious french fries and soda that accompany them.   Very American, don't you think?!!

I must admit, taking our children to a restaurant is a test in patience.

The Water Park as seen from our hotel enterance.

This is how close we were to the park.  At 9:30 prompt each morning, all we had to do was walk outside our hotel enterance and walk through this gate and pronto, we were inside the water park.  Talk about the life!

Our marvelous hotel

Goodbye Rio Quente!  It's been good...it's been real.  Time to go home.  Chloe wept was we pulled away.  Needless to say, we would LOVE to go back soon.

What is a trip without a selfie, eh?

Goias and Minas Gerais was splattered with these blooming purple trees.  So, so pretty.  The drive was really beautiful.  Everson and I enjoyed the scenery so much.  My husband had never taken a road trip like this before in his country.  It was a first for us both.

Coffee plantations!  We enhaled the marvelous odor of coffee as we passed a couple little towns along the way.  Honestly, can you think of anything more delicious than living under the smell of coffee??

As we arrived late Thursday evening, all we could do was thank our heavenly Father for His blessing and protection over our little family.  We traveled almost 2000 kilometers and spent three days at the water park with our accident prone children.  No one was injured, our car made it to Goias and back with absolutely NO Problems (our car is getting tired and we would like to get a new one soon so this was most likely our last trip with our silver Siena!) and we had a perfectly.perfect.time.  Thank you Jesus!!!!

And yesterday at HOME.  My love did not even rest one day before he wholeheartedly dug into my "honey do" list!  

Daddy's little helper still very tired!  Everyone took long naps yesterday.

Coloring with the children

Last night reinforcements arrived!  My FIL came to help finish up the couch repairs while my electrical engineer BIL helped fixed my kitchen light (I have been cooking in the dark for weeks now!).  I made my A. Gina's sandwich loaf...two of them actually which were finished off in good time! :)  Very fun to have the guys here and wonderful to have some things fixed that just simply had to wait until Husband was done with his tough college semester!

Noah loves all things that are tools and loves even more to "ajuda." "I ajuda, mommy!  I ajuda vovo!" he told me.

And today I continue to do battle against the mounds of laundry and never ending putting away!

Our next big project here at home is to attack the termite issue in our two bedroom doors.  Can we say yuck?!  But that will mean leaving home for about 24 hours and we, well, just got home and don't feel like leaving quite yet.

Our list is long for the next three remaining vacation weeks.  Will keep you posted on how we do checking the items off! :)

Tonight we are invited to dine with our precious friends L & L.  Super excited about that.  They lived in the USA for two years but I swear, we saw them more then than we do now that they moved home to Brazil.  Honestly, how do our lives get so busy we don't have time to see friends who live less than 20 Km away?  So, we will eat well, I am sure, but the fellowship will be even more sweet.

                                                                Have a blessed day,
                                                                                 Jama