Zoo Outing

Grandma and Henrique joined us for a fun morning at the zoo a couple of weeks ago. Being that we went earlier in the morning due to the heat, a lot of the animals were still sleeping. 

Amazingly enough, we finally got to see the gorillas (they're usually off hidden somewhere). There are two females and each of them had a baby which we also saw. That was a rare treat!

Late Christmas Post

We had ourselves a merry Christmas! I'm thankful I was blessed to spend another Christmas with my monkeys and family. We had a rough year with the separation and all, but we're pulling through and we've got each other ... and health, and family, and friends. And that's all that matters! :D

Someone wanted to strike a pose:

Love you girls forever!!

With Grandma:

Cousin Arthur's first Christmas:

Auntie Marina and her boyfriend:

 Auntie Ana, cousin Arthur and great grandma Maria Ines:

A family shot:

Christmas morning selfies with the loves of my life!

Opening presents:

Time for our traditional Christmas brunch:

A lazy, sunny, Christmas afternoon ... bliss!

Rio Weekend

About a week before Christmas the kids, my sister Marina, and I spent a weekend in Rio. We had a greally great time! The girls contributed one of their piggy banks towards the trip and my grandparents were kind enough to lend us their apartment in Ipanema, which is a couple of blocks from the beach. We were going to go to the Cristo or the Sugar Loaf one of the days, but the kids preferred to play at the beach all day for as long as we stayed there, come rain or come shine. So that's what we did! :)

 

Seeing the Christmas tree at the Rodrigo de Freitas lake:

December Stuff and Fluff

The school's year-end celebration was held in the first week of December and as usual each grade performed a dance. This year's theme was movies so Laurie's class did a song from Rio and Alina's from High School Musical. My camera's battery died right as I finished filming Laurie's performance. Thankfully, my sister Marina was there and lent her phone thus enabling me to film Alina's dance. :)

My little dancer:

Laura took this picture before we left:

The end!

Naturally, we baked Christmas cookies ...

... and helped Grandma bake cakes and sweet breads and other good things!

Seeing the Christmas lights at Praça da Liberdade:

Vacations = coloring ...

Playing with the cat ...

Swimming ...

And watching lots and lots of movies and TV shows, heh.