Spring break in DC

Almost 1 year after our last DC trip, I was back but this time with my parents and Henry for spring break. The weather wasn't as nice and I missed the cherry blossoms again but we still had a great time! We stayed in Foggy Bottom (The Fairmont DC) which was a short metro ride/long, but manageable, walk from the National Mall and DC's most famous attractions...and close to Founding Farmers, yep I took my parents there...such great food! Our hotel room was spacious, which was necessary for all of the baby paraphernalia (pack n play, stroller, boppy) and very nice.

I was a little nervous being away from home with Henry, which I'm sure is completely normal, but he was a champ. Of course, it helped that there were four extra willing hands to take care of him. We stopped a couple of times each way for Henry to eat and stretch and while in the city, he either rode in his stroller (The BOB with a car seat adapter) or his carrier. I carried him for our Capitol tour, over an hour was a bit much but he slept the whole time.

We were able to meet up with Alicia twice, which was so, so nice!

Here are a few photos of our trip via Instagram (I had my hands full enough without a camera too!):

2011 In Review

We've had a very blessed and busy 2011!  Here were the highlights:

In January we flew to Colorado to meet up with our NC friends and to ski at Vail.

In February we added a new family member, Lila.

In March Chris ventured to Brazil for spring break.

In April we ran a 10 miler with Brittany.

In June we spent a week in the OBX with family and friends.  Shortly after, Chris started making the weekly drive to Cleveland for his internship.

In July we participated in our first adventure race..which ended in a broken hand.  And had our first guest blogger, Brittany!

In September brought Chris home again and the start of school at OSU and the start of football season.  But not before I made a trip to Cleveland for a visit.  We also hosted a baby shower for Danielle and Tim's pending arrivals.

In October we welcomed our first nephews Luke and Logan.  Chris ran is first (and only) marathon and I was so proud of him.

In December we finished out the year by spending the holidays with family and a few sunny days in Sanibel Island, Florida.

What were your favorite parts of 2011?  What are you looking forward to in 2012?  We've got some adventures pending so keep in touch!

My spring break trip to Brazil - Chris

Over spring break I was lucky enough to visit Brazil as part of my Emerging Market Field Studies Class. We had spent the quarter learning about Brazil and Brazilian culture, as well as working on a project with a company located in Sao Paulo, but now came the fun part. We were going to fly down and experiencing it for ourselves.


Thanks to the good people at U.S. Airways I was lucky enough to spend a night in Charlotte before actually making it to Brazil. I made the best of it and headed downtown to check out the city. The local St. Patrick’s Day parade/festival was going on so I was able to watch some Irish dancing.

Luckily for me, my friend Grant was heading to the western part of NC to do some hiking and decided to stop by for a drink and to hang out. A good Irish pub with good Guinness and rugby on the tv… I guess Rio could wait for a day.


After finally arriving in Rio we took a bus to our hotel in the Ipanema district. This is the place where the song “girl from Ipanema” was written. Our hotel was only a block from the ocean, but because of loosing a day of our trip I only got to spend a little time there. We also went to two touristy places in Rio: Sugarloaf mountain, and the Christ the Redeemer statue.

Here is the obligatory O-H-I-O from our trip.

This is the view from the statue, I think it is of the Ipanema district.

For our first dinner we went to a typical Brazilian BBQ restaurant. I don’t know if anyone has been to one in the states, but I highly recommend it. There are side dishes of food on a regular buffet table, but the best part is the servers walking around with skewers full of roasted meat. Beef, pork, chicken, sausage, turkey, steak, you name it and they were walking around the restaurant ready to give you a slice. We also got the first taste of the traditional Brazilian drink the Caipirinha, which is made with limes, sugar and sugarcane alcohol. These things will knock you down quick.





For one of the educational parts of our trip we met the CEO of Brazilian clothing company Osklen, and were able to take a short tour of their headquarters. This company basically has a bunch of different ideas and is acting on all of them at once. Three of the groups in class had worked with employees from Osklen on a few different projects: launching a new t-shirt business, market research for a brand new gaurana based energy drink, and starting a sustainability consulting arm. Here is a link to a shoe they make using a very sustainable “fish leather”

http://store.osklen.com/loja/produto-15492-47-tenis-arpoador-peixe.aspx

We figured out pretty soon in Brazil that most everyone is really focused on sustainability and recycling.

Visiting Sao Paulo was a little different, the place is huge, and much more modern looking than Rio. It felt just like a normal big city… well, one where I didn’t speak the language.
While in Sao Paulo my team gave our presentation to Ashland chemical on the project we had been working on. I thought the presentation went well. We had an audience of 8-10 of Ashland’s Brazilian employees who work with the issues that we had worked on, such as import tariffs, transportation costs, and changing taxes, that affect their supply chain. We got peppered with a lot of good questions about our recommendation and it was a really good experience to be able to talk to people that deal with these issues every day. I think they appreciated hearing our analysis from another point of view.

After our time in Sao Paulo we had to head back to the land of the buckeyes, but not before some more pain inflicted by U.S. Airways. I had to run to my connecting flight in Charlotte, but I ended up making it. A few of my classmates weren’t so lucky and had to wait a few hours for another plane.

But wait there’s more!! I thought I made it to Columbus safe and sound until I was the last guy at the baggage claim without any bags, U.S. Airways strikes again! Oh well, Sonya and I headed home to see the puppies and my bag made it back later on, luckily with my bottle of Cachaca sugarcane alcohol intact. So stop by and we’ll have a Caipirinha or two next time you’re in Columbus.