Poncho Verde Churrascaria

Last week my Grandma Emma, my mom, and my two sisters, Katie and Jacqueline, came to visit us here in Sao Paulo. One (of the many) things we did while they were here was go to dinner at the Poncho Verde Churrascaria.

A churrascaria, for those poor souls who've never experienced this first hand, is a Brazilian steakhouse. They usually have a large salad bar/buffet with plenty of unusual and tasty foods like hearts of palm, or bird eggs, or fried bananas to accompany the main dish: meat. See, as soon as you sit down at your table and get yourself situation, waiters (in this case dressed in traditional Gaucho outfits) will start coming around with big skewers of luscious, perfectly seasoned meat. (see pictures below)

The key to these churrascarias is to pace yourself. I always make the mistake of filling up too much on the salad bar so I can't fully appreciate all of the great meat. Another mistake is to feel bad saying "No" to the waiters. You can't feel bad turning down some lovely Pork Loin to save room for the melt-in-your-mouth, meat-isn't-supposed-to-taste-like-candy Picanha that is on its way over to your table.

Stan has definitely mastered the art of saving room for the Picanha and I'm doing my best to learn!

On the left side of the table (from front to back) is Grandma Emma, my mom, and Katie...Emily is hidden behind Katie. Right side is me, Stan, KK, and Jacqueline. Rob is taking the picture (of course!)
After dinner we got a behind-the-scenes tour of the restaurant. This is where the magic happens. By the way, Jacqueline had a crush on the waiter on the right...he was a man who can cook, is not afraid to wear gaucho pants and a neck kerchief, and he even knew all of the english words for the meat on his skewers! She fell--hook, line and sinker. Apparently they keep most of the meat cold after they've already skewered it. That way it's easier to adjust the amount of meat they cook on a given night to the amount of people at the restaurant. I guess you can't tell just by looking at us (we're all wearing sweatshirts), but by the end of the night we felt like our stomachs were pretty much at full capacity. I couldn't quite convince Rob to carry me to the car so I mustered the strength somehow and got there myself. Sigh...

Brazil: Weekend #1

Our Brazilian adventure began very auspiciously: Rob's law firm flew us down to Brazil EXECUTIVE CLASS. Booyah.

There were a lot of expected perks we were looking forward to: bypassing the security lines for the masses, fully reclining seats, and those hot towels they give you after dinner on the plane.
One unexpected perk that was awesome was getting to wait for our flight in the Virgin Atlantic/TAM lounge. It was pretty sheekey sheekey...decorated in a posh seventies style, with beaucoup amounts of free, gourmet food to feast on before we flew. Rob and I both had sushi as an appetizer, a starter salad, then we shared rack of lamb (so good) and a wild mushroom ravioli plate. As I was basking in the first class treatment Rob pointed out that this is one of the perks of selling your soul to a big law firm. At that moment it almost seemed worth it! (I said ALMOST...My husband's soul may cost a little more than sushi and rack of lamb!)
The first Saturday in Brazil was Spencer's graduation. We all went early to Graded, the American Internation school in Sao Paulo, to make sure we got prime seats. Of course, being Ellis', we brought the travel Settlers of Catan game to play in line while we waited. :) It looks like Spencer is following right in Rob's footsteps. Rob graduated from Graded, left to sell books for the summer (a few hours after the ceremony), then served his mission in the Lisbon, Portugal mission. Spencer is on track to do all of those things! If you ask me, it looks like Spencer has a bright future ahead of him.
The proud parents with graduate #8. They've only got one more child left to go!

After Spencer's graduation we had a great dinner at Outback, then hurried to the airport. Spencer was on his way to Nashville, TN for sale's school and the rest of us were on our way to Curitiba for an LDS Temple Dedication the next morning.

After a few adventures at the airport, we made it to Curitiba and woke up bright and early Sunday morning to get to the 9am dedication. One highlight of the morning was getting to meet President Monson and Elder Nelson at breakfast at the hotel!

The dedication was absolutely wonderful and a very powerful spiritual experience. Rob and I both felt so blessed that the timing of our trip worked out so perfectly to let us be there.

After the dedication Emily, Rob and I headed back to the airport so that we could be home in time to get Emily to school and Rob to work on Monday morning.

The Ellis' really know how to live life to the fullest! We are having a great time living with them and are so grateful for this awesome Brazilian adventure we are having! I'll try not to get too behind documenting them all...

Living the Good Life: Memorial Day

After Rob finished his brutal marathon week of the Law Review competition (multiply above picture by an average of 16 hours/day for 6 straight days), we packed up and drove down to Connecticut for some well deserved R&R before our trip to Brazil.

We helped celebrate my mom's birthday with a barbeque and one of Costco's to-die-for huge chocolate cakes. We played in the park, went for a pleasure drive around New Canaan, then went on a Memorial Day afternoon boat cruise. (Life can be rough sometimes!)

Here we are waiting for the little boat/shuttle to take us out to the real boat. From left to right is Matt Sparks (my sister's friend), Katie, my mom, my dad, and me! Rob did a wonderful job being Mr. Photographer and got some great pictures of the trip.

We're enjoying sunshine, the warmest breeze of the season thus far, and some really good cheese and crackers.

The Schneiber Girls having some fun in the sun...unfortunately, Jacqueline couldn't be with us because she was driving home from Youth Conference in Kirtland, Ohio.

Our hosts told us that you can get great pictures from the bow of the boat...so, of course, we all had to go and pose.

Life is good!

Oo la la! The Lilac Festival

To celebrate the long awaited end of New England winter, our friends Becca and Brandon accompanied Rob and me to the Arnold Arboretum in Boston to experience the annual Lilac Festival.

The Arnold Arboretum is pretty cool. We went on a quick tour of the park and learned that it is totally maintained by Harvard University as a research institution to preserve, study, and teach about trees. Although the Arboretum is maintained by Harvard, it's still a public park. Our guide told us that back in the late 1880's Harvard University approached the city of Boston and proposed a creative lease agreement: The lease would allow the Arboretum lands to become part of the Boston park system, so the city would maintain the perimeter and general infrastructure, while Harvard would continue to be responsible for the grounds and would agree to keep the grounds open to the public. Harvard leased the land from Boston for 1000 years at a rate of $1 per year. And congratulations, there's your little piece of useless information for the day!

I should also mention the early birthday present I got for Rob: a brand new Canon Rebel XTi camera! Rob loves to take pictures and we're going on some cool trips this summer so I thought he should have his birthday present in time to use it. This trip to the Lilac Festival marks Rob's inaugral camera-toting experience.

Rob is quite the budding photographer! (bad pun, sorry.) Here are some of samples his photography and of the beautiful blooming trees from all over the world:

So, for all you potential Boston visitors out there, you can see that mid May is a great time to come!

A Cambridge Favorite: LA Burdick

One of our favorite things to do in Cambridge is to walk into Harvard Square and enjoy the most decadent hot chocolate in existence.

LA Burdick is a little, european-style chocolate/pastry cafe. They specialize in chocolates of all shapes and sizes. The shelves are full of delectable chocolate-covered fruit and nuts, chocolate mice and penguins, and hundreds of gourmet novelty chocolates. Someday when Rob and I want to take out another loan we might actually buy a box...until then we'll stick with the hot chocolate.

I managed to lure my bearded husband away from studying for finals with the promise of a mug of hot chocolate that tastes like they just melted down a bar of pure chocolate, then mixed in a shot of cream. It was a sacrifice, but I'll do my duty in order to keep my husband's brain from exploding. I guess he didn't hate it too much. :)

Seeing Some Sites

I apologize, but I'm still playing ketchup with my blogging. (ok ok, I know it's supposed to be "catch-up," but isn't "ketchup" a little bit more fun?)

Anyway, here are a few pictures from March when my best friend, Alia, came to visit:

Alia's actual reason for coming to Boston was to see our good friend, Catherine, get married. Isn't she beautiful?

This is Alia and me outside of the Boston temple. It was pretty chilly!

The day after the wedding and wedding dinner Rob, Alia and I went to go see Fenway Park, home of the 2007 World Series Champs, the Red Sox, and the oldest currently operating MLB stadium.

Alia and I had a good friend growing up who was a die hard Red Sox fan. He would faithfully watch them lose year after year after year after year. Also, we happened to grow up in middle of Yankee territory and there seemed to be a never-ending supply of Yankee fans who would obnoxiously rub salt in our poor friend's wounds. So, our freshmen year of college when the Red Sox were playing the Yankees in the American League Championship (kind of like the World Series semifinals), Alia and I found ourselves glued to the TV screen night after night after night after night (the series went into 7 games-including multiple overtimes- after the Sox started the series down 3-0 ). To make a long story shorter, the Red Sox won that series and then went on to shut out the St. Louis Cardinals for the World Series Championship.

Anyway, after investing so many hours and so much emotion in the Red Sox, we were pretty excited to take a tour of Fenway.

We managed to get through our tour with just some light, misting rain. The real deluge waited to start until after the tour when we were safely inside UNO's warming up with some fantastic deep dish pizza.

After having so much fun in just a few days, I'm really wishing that Tucson and Boston were a lot closer together! Come back soon, Alia!

Hurray for Kate!

This post is to celebrate our good friend, ex-next door neighbor Kate Weaver who ran in her second Boston Marathon this morning! She finished in 3 hours, 32 minutes and 2 seconds...that is a blistering 8:06 minute/mile pace for 26.2 miles! Yowsas! (She has always been my running hero!)

Kate and her husband, Bill, lived in the other half of our duplex in Provo last year. We got to know each other very well as we played games, went to church, and shared a common vent in between our bathrooms (they got to hear Rob recapping and strategizing after each game-session!) . Anyway, they got into Boston on Friday night and we got to enjoy some really good, really authentic italian pizza with them at Pizzeria Regina's on Saturday. Then, on Sunday evening we all helped Kate carbo-load at our house for dinner. We played games--Bang, for old-times sake, and then Ticket to Ride. Bill showed no mercy as he dominated Europe. It's been a blast getting to see them again!