At the Copa...Copacabana

I headed south to Brazil to visit good friends I met in Copenhagen, Cecilia and Gustavo.  

We met in Rio de Janiero for a long weekend.  I was able to use my Marriott points at the JW Marriott on Copacabana Beach and we had a great view.

 First things first...a delicious lunch of shrimp stew and grilled fish.

We took afternoon naps at the rooftop pool which also had great views of the beach.

Impanema Beach is around the point.

We headed up the Pao de Azucar (Sugar Loaf) for some great views of the city at sunset.

 Corcovado (Christ Redeemer) rising out of the clouds.

 Saturday we went to a couple art museums, one that we had to take a ferry to.  Gustavo was the paparazzi and he took most of his photos in raw (i.e. not jpeg) so I'll have to post those later.

Nothing like thirst quenching coconut water right out of the coconut - yum!

We spent the afternoon on the beach...the Atlantic was a little cold, but refreshing on such a hot day.  Saturday night we went out to the Lapa district (lots of bars and restaurants) with Gustavo's childhood friend and his wife.

Sunday we headed up to Cocovado (Christ the Redeemer).

 Then to the botanical gardens.

Then we relaxed at the pool before heading to Curitiba.

Celebration of Hope

I look forward to Willow Creek's Celebration of Hope every year.  It is a 3 week period where the church comes together and volunteers time and resources to support of global church partners.  One big part of COH is seed packing where the goal is 1 million packs of vegetable seeds for families in Central America and Africa.

The events are 2 hours of assembly line style packing.  Our station this year was filling up seed packs with cilantro.  Sean and I had a great system.

Shannon and Kevin had a great time at their first seed packing.

Busy working or busy socializing??

 Happy packers!