A few years back when we were in Maryland we were lucky to have G&G spend the week with us

This year we got them again!

Grandma's adorable paper creations

I now know where my kids get their awesome paper making skills from

Meat prep boys hard at work

We enjoyed pork roast, beef roast a turkey prepared by my girlfriend

Nothing more sad than dropping the giant pan of homemade stuffing

This stuffing is one of my crown jewel recipes, passed down by one of my sister in laws

I had purchased and broken artisian bread that had been drying for three days

Chopped celery, carrots, onions, parsley, mushrooms

Assembled it all with the help of Madison and put it on top of the fridge until it was ready to cook

In a hurry I had a phone in one hand and grabbed the pan to take a picture

It slipped out of my hands and scattered all over the entire kitchen

Such a super sad moment :( I lost my homemade stuffing and my super nice glass pan

Thankfully I had ordered two boxes of Stovetop stuffing from Amazon partially as a joke

It came through for the dinner

What a lovely spread

There was so many delicious things to choose from

So thankful for this time of year and the chance it gives us to remember the things we should be most grateful for!

Pizza Stone

One of the very best parts of the house we live in is the pizza oven in our backyard

It's really, really fun to have pizza parties in our backyard

One of Grandpa's famous creations, "Everything but the kitchen sink"

Grandma busy at work making a favorite

Biking Family

Our family had been eagerly awaiting this day

Counting down the time until our first family visitors arrived to Brasilia

Grandpa & Grandma Holman earned this award

Their first  we let them acclimate and adjust and sleep and veg

Day #2 Rob and the girls had off from school so we took them for a tour of the town

On holidays and weekends a large road in Brasilia is closed down to traffic

People roller blade, run, walk their dogs and bike

A few weeks ago our family had noticed these tandem bikes that you could rent

We had a great idea that it would be a blast to take G&G on these

It was great fun to experience with these great Grandparents

Cooling off with fresh fruit popsicles after our hard work of riding

Real life...

This is real life in Brasil...

Shopping at the hardware store and getting distracted by the entire row of electric shower heads

When Rob was serving his mission in Brasil 20+ years ago he called these suicide showers

Dishes still exist

As does laundry

Getting projects completed still takes forever

Watching Backyardians, in Portuguese

Still excited for trips to see family

This time we will all be meeting in Florida!

The countdown chain is shrinking

Weekly grocery trips and my little loving to see the truck of oranges getting dumped

Conquered

A few weeks ago I took my bike out and conquered a large hill that I had been avoiding since our move to Brasil

It scared me

It is long and has a decent incline

One morning I just decided enough, let's tackle it

And I did

It was hard but I put my head down and just pedaled along

I think there are so many ways to apply this to life

Life can be hard and I can avoid doing things because they are scary and big

Sometimes I just need to remind myself to put my head down and pedal along and eventually I will make it to the top