Aguas Dulces

Aguas Dulces = "Sweet Waters" and, oh, it was sweet indeed... We took off Friday evening for the little seaside town of Aguas Dulces, about 2-1/2 hours to the east. Our friend manages some beach houses here and there, and let us use a nice little place for free, since it's not high season yet! Ileana is super nice.

Saturday morning, chowing down on blueberries. They grow some pretty sweet blueberries here, and actually export a lot. Every summer the embassy periodically orders cases of them at half price. We always buy a ton and enjoy them immensely! Z was asking Bran, "where's my little man?" and Bran was basically saying, "um...right here, Pops!"

Then he had fun looking at the pictures with Daddy. Man, how different to grow up in the digital age. Immediate results...

Chasing and catching las ranas (frogs, though I think these guys really were toads) was most likely the highlight of the trip for Bran and Nuala. When we go bike riding, we often ride past a canal where we can hear chorus after chorus of frogs. I've never heard frogs like them! The first time we came across them we frantically started looking for the kittens mewing piteously from the ravine, they sound so much like cats. Then we figured it out, but have yet to actually see these mysterious cat-frogs. So anyway, the twins were thrilled to experience the critters in real-life.

Nuala obviously didn't attend Girls' Camp the year we were reminded over and over that "you don't have to kiss every frog to find your prince." This one did not transform. But N didn't actually make lip contact. The frog was surprisingly pretty reluctant to participate...maybe he was a girl.

"Well, helloooo all y'all out there NOT at the awesome and beautiful and almost-deserted-because-it's-not-high-season beach!" I look kinda dorky, but Nuala's hair is rad. As is the beach.

This is Zachariah and Bran. Bran also thinks the beach is awesome. This is the little drive our beach house was on...it's actually to the right of Z and B, but you can't see it.

And then we caught a fish that was THIS big... No, not true. I don't know why I insisted on sticking my arms out. Well, I do. I was trying to illustrate that BRAZIL is on the right side of the picture, and URUGUAY on the left. Was that not obvious?

We drove the hour or so to the border, to Chuy/Chui. Chuy is the Spanish spelling for the city, and Chui the Portuguese. And now we can check Brazil off the list...ha, kidding! It wasn't quite Rio, or the Amazon, but it was still fun to go there. We got a little worried because Z's buddy Mike (hi, Mike!) sent us some delicious beef jerky, and we convinced ourselves we were going to get stopped and searched at customs and have to give it up. Then we decided we would just eat it all if that happened, and THEN we decided we should just hide it. And then we didn't ever get stopped. I know, very cool story.

This is Tiago, wearing Nuala's sunhat. We ate at a churrascaria place (you know, where they go around with the different meats on the skewers and slice chunks off for you), on the Brazilian side, and this little guy just wouldn't leave us alone. His mom worked at the restaurant. He was five, and really took to the twins. Can't blame him there! They took to him, too.

On the beach when we got back from Chuy. That morning before we went to Brazil, we walked on the beach, and the day promised to be perfect for frolicking in the waves. And if it weren't for the darn wind that decided to spring up, it would've been. I just froze when the wind blew. I spent a good bit of time wrapped up in a towel, while my un-stoppable daughter ran around like a chica loca. But even she couldn't stand the water/wind combo for long, so we spent a lot of time playing on the sand.

Jumping into Daddy's trademark child-swallowing holes. Why doesn't it hurt little kids to jump up and just land on their bums? Because they're closer to the ground? They certainly aren't as padded as other bums I know. Weird.

This is just the main room in our beach house. Isn't it cute? Very simple. I think that's key to a good beach house. Simplicity. And proximity to the beach. There were two beds in the main room, and then a big bed in the room down the hall on the right of the pic, and then Bran is standing by the door to their room, with two more little beds. They slept, I mean, "slept", in their little travel tents. This wasn't the most successful trip sleep-wise, but eh. Wasn't the worst either!

Sunday morning as we were packing up, Bran and Nuala were running around (shocker!) and down went our boy. Right on the corner of the suitcase. Which was just perfect, since the evening before Nuala fell hard in the road and totally scraped up her knee. She barely cried, and it was pretty ugly. We call these "cheap souvenirs." Unfortunately (or fortunately, I guess), they don't last long. I don't know about those lips...maybe he's practicing for the next frog?

Nuala wondering what mischief she should get into next. And her favorite always-naked baby doll. She's not very snuggly, being hard plastic and all, but she's the must-have!

She's wearing a dress because we planned to go to church. Of course. We had found the address for church out in this area, but then couldn't find our map, and then left late, and then the twins were miraculously asleep, so we decided to wait till we got back to Montevideo (abt 12:30) and find a ward or branch that meets in the afternoon. Shouldn't have been too difficult, since there are 2 stakes here, but the meetinghouse locater on lds.org is totally different than all the other times we've used it! Now they have a map thing, and only 3 different wards/branches came up (none of which was ours or any in our stake) when before there were well over 20 showing up for Montevideo...anyway, it was pretty frustrating. So we drove to our stake center, hoping to just catch one, but nope. We totally could've worked something out better, next time we'll be better prepared. We like to still go to church while we're traveling. Probably not info you necessarily needed, but I just got to typing about it and couldn't quit. I think that happens with me a lot.

Awwww...just plain cute. Though I didn't throw in any of the five other pictures of her glaring. That's cute, too, but in a less angelic way.

We really love driving around Uruguay. It is such a beautiful country. We loved seeing fields full of sheep and cows, but still dotted with palm trees. Different.

We had fun! And now we're back. Which is good (ahem...the sleep thing), but also we wish we could've stayed longer. It was so nice just being in a little beach town. Guess we'll just hafta go back sometime...