Merry Christmas!

Not being home for Christmas is really odd, but spending the happiest day of the year in the J.W. Marriott of Rio de Janiero is nothing to complain about. For the past month we have sort of ignored the fact that it is the Christmas season. This is no difficult task as we couldn't even find Christmas carols to listen to when we tried and the only decorated trees we have seen are in malls or hotels. Last night we had a great dinner (about 6 hours long) in which we consumed enormous amounts of wine and Caprioskas (Brazil's signature cocktail) and ate massive amounts of sushi and steak.

Since Jimmy Steaks is in town we have been on the move quite a bit. After a couple days lounging around in Rio we headed to Ilha Grande, an island about 4 hours south of here. It was here that we had a reunion with our favorite English non-couple from Floripa, Alasdair and Claire, and made new friends with another fun English non-couple, Sarah and Mark. It seems as though we attract the English. One of the days on the island we took a boat ride to a beach called Lopez Mendes and another we took a 2 hour hike with Sarah and Mark. It was doubtful that Mr. Hayden would survive the grueling trek, but somehow he pulled through. The hike led to virtually no where so when we got to wherever that was, we pretty much turned around and headed straight back. All was not lost as we had tons of fun with our new friends and laughed pretty much non-stop. We finished up our time on Ilha Grande to return to Rio for Christmas and celebrate in style.

We miss all of you back home and wish we were there for you to spoil us with gifts. Remember we get twice as many next year since you all got off easy this Christmas.

Merry Christmas and a special Happy Birthday to Mr. Chris Gordon!