Last week of October 2011

The weather here changes very quickly. One moment it is cloudy with drizzling rain and within the hour it is sunny and clear. We had a lot of beautiful sunny days this week with little to no wind. It was a very temperate weathered week.

Here is a view of the same road (the one to get on base) in less than an hour. On really sunny days the water is a bright blue and on these cloudier days the water is more of a pale blue. I love the way the ocean changes color with the weather. It's gorgeous. There are a few times I haven't been able to tell the water from the sky when it's really cloudy out.


I've seen these guys driving horse buggies before, but never had my camera with me. When I saw him pass me at the intersection I hurried to get my camera out and take a picture. I wanted to get a straight on shot, but wasn't fast enough. I think they're cool.


On Tuesday I asked Sterling if he wanted to go to playgroup or if he wanted to walk around Praia. He chose Praia so we loaded in the car. The weather was turning rainy so instead we drove to Angra (Terceira's capitol) to see some things. I got lost driving around that crazy city for 30 minutes. I almost went down a one way the wrong direction and I found myself going down the same roads wondering how I managed to do that with all my crazy turns. It's a crazy city to drive in. There are so many one ways and no street names and weird traffic signs that I'm still getting used to. Once we got back home for lunch, the weather had cleared and was sunny so we could walk around Praia, but it was nap time for Cole.

On Thursday I went to the dentist. I brought in these fun edible teeth I found on Pinterest for everyone.

My dentist in his office doing charts.
Thursday after work, the Dental clinic had a party at the bowling alley. The kids had a ball bowling. I'm not sure they had ever bowled, except for on the Wii. I am not much of a bowler and could go without. I think my score at the end was 51. Very bad. All the kids had a higher score than me, but they had bumpers. If there ever is a next time, I'm getting bumpers for me. :)



On Friday we hired a babysitter! Our first time going out without kids since we've been here. It was so nice to have time together without kids. We ended up spending the evening in Praia.
On the way to Praia.

We started by walking around the shops and doing a little Christmas shopping.

Then we met up with some friends and went to Restaurante O Pescador. It may not look like much on the outside, but the inside was fancy and pretty. It didn't smell like smoke either which was nice!
The silverware was long like this. I thought it was cool. I had never seen such slender, elongated silverware before.
They brought out bread to start, which was great and then the FOOD...

Wow, it was delicious. That's one thing about the island. The food is incredible! I love it.
They cook the meat in the pots (not sure the name of it even though our friends told us).
This was one item called Alcatra. It was our friends dish.
I got this ramo grande. The meat was so tender and very well flavored. I think it tasted so good because the cows here that they butcher are so happy :) because they have a beautiful, healthy place to live. Good air, good grass, easy going lifestyle :).
Denver and our other friend got the steak on a rock. The steak was on basalt, a common extrusive volcanic rock, and it was HOT! The basalt stayed hot throughout the whole meal and continued to cook the meat. The sauces at the top were phenomenal. I tried all 3 and liked each of them. My favorite, however, was the white one.
My meal came with a dessert. I hand the sand delight which pretty much just tasted like pudding with whipped cream on top sprinkled with graham cracker crumbs. Good, but nothing spectacular.Here is the group. The Binghams and us. He is the other LDS dentist on base and speaks Portuguese so he was able to talk to the waiter. Most of the servers speak English, but he seemed to have a little harder time with it so it was nice to have someone that could speak Portuguese.
After dinner we walked around some more. Praia Outono Vivo!
This is a huge book float used for the festival.
This was fun. Two seats cut out of the wall facing each other. They have these all along the boardwalk. Very convenient when you get tired.
We walked around town and on the beach. It was such a warm evening and very fun without kids. Here I was trying to get a picture inconspicuously of a pregnant lady with the sparkliest shirt I have ever seen! It was practically glowing in the dark. Our camera was acting up and finally took the picture right when she was behind Denver. bummer.
Saturday we met up with the Portuguese branch and had a Halloween party. It was such a good event and a great turnout.
Cole was a frog! We laughed and laughed at this. It is so funny.
Sterling- a monkey
Garrett- a dragon slayer
Maelie- a mermaid.


After the kids played games and got candy, they got to eat. The food the Portuguese branch prepared was amazing! They had so much of it and it was all very tasty. My favorite was the apple dip. It was cream cheese mixed with Heath or some other toffee like candybar. Soooooo good.
It was a fun week. Today our time changed. We are now an hour earlier than we used to be. I like getting the extra hour of sleep in the Fall.