Was this a dream?

I'm a bit behind, so this post will be mainly pictures. But. These pictures hardly do the places or the people justice. Becca and I have been so blessed to meet so many wonderful people EVERYWHERE we go. People who take care of us, befriend us, watch out for us. And the last couple weeks I have a hard time believing were real because of how beautiful they were. I wish I was a better photographer, but I'm not sure anyone could capture the beauty. Ok, maybe I'm overdoing it a bit, but it was amazing!



Becs found this great hike online at Agua da Prata, this is the town close by where we spent the night. It was a fun, cute little town and...



The police were having a birthday party!! At least that's what they called it. It was free, and we got to sit in our own fancy little booth, AND a band played the Brazilian national anthem. Pretty neat.



Such a lovely hike, and it was great to get out in nature. Little did we know it was only the beginning :)



Tons of trees just covered in pink flowers.



And Ubatuba!! We drove there with Rhainer, Gustavo and Natalia - and wow, this place is incredible.





This beach was amazing, this picture captures it the best. Perfect beaches surrounded by the Atlantic forest, with islands off in the distance. After swimming in the morning we collected in the freshwater river that emptied into this little cove - biology is the best :)







Natalia's a bit covered up, but this is our group! Lucky to have such great friends!





Our second day there we spend walking through the river collecting damsel/dragonflies. (Looking for hetaerina, but we collected whatever we could). Breathtaking.











As we got close to the waterfall we had some fun boulders to climb over.



Isn't this waterfall amazing? I felt like I was at the Brazilian version of Elk River :)



Becca told me she'd buy me icecream if I went under the waterfall, couldn't turn that one down. You can't really see me, but I believe I'm behind all that water.





A big fish ate me.



After Ubatuba we headed to Serra da Canastra. Along the way we found this waterfall and had it all to ourselves all morning.



I caught this one with my bare hands!!!



We walked up the river a bit to collect. Yes papa, work and vacation :)





This is the Serra da Canastra national park - and that's a cow.



It's a great combination of the Palouse, Utah, and Switzerland. (Cows)



Another cow! They are known for their cheese and doce de leite here, and I can see why!





We spend a day touring the park with these great people - made some new friends :)













Lobo Guara!! Came so close to our truck!!





This is the spring Sao Francisco river starts at, apparently turns into one of the biggest rivers in Brazil!









Dinner with our friends :)



Had so much fun climbing around on these rocks!



Now we're back in Assis, and look at how lovely our PCR is!!!

So grateful to be here, life is good.

Pregnancy

This week I got pregnant! Well not really. :) (Zika effects pregnant women=get zika you get pregnant, zika symptoms are fever and acheyness=my cold symptoms were zika symptoms.... fever=pregnant!) If you didn't get that, sorry.

I've been rotten at updating, so here are a bunch of pictures from Friday last week, Monday this week and yesterday! We had a grand adventure planned for today to, but the car rental being closed yesterday sort of put the kabosh on all of that. So I'm updating the blog :)



Isn't this a cool picture?? It's the street right by where we live.



'Stream' on campus where we collect.



Diogo teaching the proper collecting method. And my leg.





Same stream, farther down.



This innocent looking branch actually contains a spider!! Very sneaky indeed. Blended right in.



Every now and then I stop and wonder how on Earth Heavenly Father came up with insects. I mean, there are SO man different kinds! With different muscle attachments, different wings, legs, mouthparts (or modifications of). It is mind boggling. What a neat world we live in. Filled with so many things to learn and explore right under our noses!

Monday we wandered through Sao Carlos and stopped at the observatory. Here we learned why the moon looks different from the Southern hemisphere.



Interesting how different cathedrals are here.







Cool science building.





We were so hot and tired after all of our walking (and I may have had a fever at this point... not sure when that started... ) so this acai was much needed!





Ok, yesterday the goal was to understand the busses here. And we succeeded!! Almost. Took one at the end of the day in the wrong direction... but you know, we tried.



Zoo!





I think there is a cute monkey in this picture.











These birds are native to the Cerrado here??? Isn't that crazy? What kind of place am I living in??

Also, there is a super cool wolf here that mostly eats fruit... but he was hidden so we didn't get any good pictures.

Life is good, my fever is gone and the sun is shining :)