It's beginning to 'feel' alot like Christmas

I say 'feel' rather than 'look' because the grass and plants are green and some are even growing flowers, winter flowers. Thanksgiving is not celebrated by the Portuguese (obviously), but Christmas is so there are decorations and trees up in others home around the island, not just the Americans. We are getting excited. This coming week is full of base-wide Christmas parties with Santa and all the works. Should be fun.

More and more I'm forgetting to take our camera everywhere we go so I don't have all the pictures I wish I did. I need to do better.

Our normal routine in the mornings starts with Denver going running and then while he's home showering and getting ready for work, I go. One day last week he came home and told me it was just misting outside so I would be fine running. Well, about a mile into my run it went from misting to downright pouring rain! By the time I finished my run I was drenched and dripping. I discovered that I'm not a fan of running in the rain. Another running story Denver told me about. He was running when he came upon some cows in the road heading somewhere. When he got closer he saw one cow was quite a bit farther back then the rest. He just continued running and the cow sped up thinking he was chasing him. He caught up to the group, probably helping the cow herder out. It was funny how he told it, maybe not so much the way I wrote it. Oh well.

Last week we made gingerbread houses. Here are the kids busy at work:

You can see Denver is making a 'cow' instead of a house in honor of the Azores.
Sterling did more eating than building. Can't say that I blame him.
All the finished houses. They have all now been eaten (:
This picture is blurry, but it's the only pic we could get of our house lights.
I went to a store here called Mega China. I know, weird. Not much of a name for a store in a little Portuguese island. Even though everything is in Euro, it seems much cheaper than Modelo (the Portuguese store here) and sometimes even the base. The little boys and I bought some Christmas decorations and this Santa beard and hat. I laughed so hard when Sterling put it on.
Then Denver got home for lunch and we had him try it on. A jolly military Santa.
For our activity days activity we made gingerbread houses. The girls had a great time!

Once every 4 months an orthodontist from the base in Germany comes to Lajes to work on patients that need ortho care. She stays for about 3-4 days. The clinic likes to do something special for her each time she comes. This time we all went to dinner at La Barca. Here is the group. I think we were only missing one person.
I initially ordered the gnocchi, but they were out so I settled for the La Barca pizza, which is pretty much the same as a supreme pizza. Once again, the food was fantastic.
Denver got the house steak. It comes with an egg on top, which he LOVES!
On one of my outings to the mountains, I got some beautiful pictures.



On the way up the mountain I ran into these fellas. A boy was in the front running with and guiding the cows. The truck pulled over to the side to let me pass and the boy in the front tried to move the cows over to the side. He got them all moved and then right when I was able to move forward, a stubborn cow ran right in front of me. I felt bad because the boy was trying so hard and the cows kept getting in front of me. I don't know if I should've just plunged on through and they would move or what. I kept thinking, "Don't worry boy, I'm in no hurry. It's kind of fun to watch." But the boy probably was thinking, "Come on crazy American and just drive on by so I can stop running full speed to move these cows!" Finally I was able to drive on by.
I will say this, the worst sound ever is driving through fresh cow poo, that can't be avoided because it's everywhere, when the ground is already wet with misty rain! I cringed every time because it just sounded so sloppy. I don't know how else to explain it.

As I drove to the top of the mountain, I literally drove into clouds. It was beautiful.


This is one of the windmills that you can barely see because of the fog. At times it was impossible to see them at all. It was so nice to be at the top where I could ponder and enjoy nature, without any kids!


This is what it looked like at the bottom on my drive back. Sunny and blue skies. Such a difference a 10 minute drive can make.

Saturday we let someone borrow our van so we walked to the store together and went secret santa shopping as a family. Each person drew someone else's name and got to choose the gift for that person. Then with our things double bagged so no one could see what each other got them, we walked home.

Today was our primary program. It's later than most because during the summer church is only 2 hours long because there isn't enough manpower to run the primary so they just do singing time as a group without teachers. Anyways, they weren't able to start really practicing until the school year started. The program was really good. I was so proud of our kids. They memorized their parts, except Sterling. I didn't get to see the kids from the congregation because I was playing the piano for the program, but I could see them from the side.


This was a cool piece of news we got. This article is about a boy from New York who put a letter in a bottle and about 3 or so months later was found by a boy and his father on the island of Terceira, our island! Read on to learn more...

Brockport student’s note in bottle found in Portugal by father, son

When Curtis Kipple, 10, of Adams Basin wrote a letter and sent it to sea in March, he never expected it to be read.

"I wrote about how I like to play football with my dad," said Kipple, now a fifth-grader at the Fred W. Hill School in Brockport. "And video games."

But 2,589 miles from Brockport in the tiny fishing village of Terceira on the Azores archipelago, Kipple's letter was found last week by a father and son in Portugal.

"My brother and my father (woke) up earlier today and went to sea to catch a seafood very common here and found a bottle with a message from a boy Curtis Kipple," Ana Ponte, 25, of Terceira, wrote in an email that arrived at the Hill School last week.

The email stunned Hill school fourth-grade teacher Chris Albrecht, who organized the message-in-a-bottle project as an innovative language arts project for his students.

"I was blown away," Albrecht said.

"It took the students a month to write the letters, and when the project was done, I didn't think anything of it."

Albrecht sent the bottles to Kitty Hawk, N.C., with his mother in December 2010.

In March, the bottles were dropped into the Gulf Stream, 30 miles off shore, by an Outer Banks fisherman.

Kipple described the bottle he put his letter in as "green and glass."

"Glassy" is how Albrecht described Kipple's eyes when he told him his bottle had been found in Portugal.

"It was really special," Albrecht said.

"About 80 percent of my students have never seen the ocean. That Curtis's bottle made it across the Atlantic Ocean is pretty amazing."

Kipple's bottle was not the first found, but it traveled the farthest.

In June, student Adam VerSteeg's bottle was found by Jude Major on the beach in Clam Harbour, Nova Scotia.

Both VerSteeg and Kipple were students in Amy Stoker's fourth-grade class when they sent their letters.

"The incredible part to this story is not just two bottles have been found," Stoker said.

"But that the two people who found them took the time to contact us. It's incredibly exciting."

Stoker and Albrecht hope to repeat the project and have received dozens of letters and emails from teachers across the country about it.

They also hope to continue a correspondence with the Ponte family in Portugal.

"The project exceeded my wildest expectations," Albrecht said. "It was a great way to teach the kids paragraphing and geography. But the fact the letters were actually found is mind-blowing."

COOL, HUH!!!