The Palmer Family: catching up

It's been a while since I last posted so bear with me on this long post.

We went to a bull fight (yes, another one-it's what you do on a small island) near the base (the best place to go to because of the closeness of the bulls and the fence for protection.) In this first picture you can see one of the 70 + spirit houses. It's the yellow, blue and red bldg.

The men holding the rope. They don't have gloves on! That rope has got to hurt when the bull runs and they have to stop him.

The bull is attacking that 'fake' person. Clothes stuffed with fluff.

This bull fight was fun to watch because there were some really aggressive bulls. We stayed to see the 4 bulls even with the rain. They got right up to the fence a couple times and charged.

See that guy in the middle of the picture climbing up the pole? The bull was right under him and stayed there for a while. That guy had to have gotten tired. He jumped up there. There are barbed wires at the top.

On one sunny, summer day, we decided to make a watermelon cake.

Maelie and Garrett were in a play "The Frog Prince". A couple of actors from Missoula, Montana came to the Azores for a week to put on a show with the kids. They had practice every day for that week and did an INCREDIBLE job. The costumes were great and the show was fun and entertaining. Garrett was a venus flytrap and Maelie was a duck. Here we are waiting to watch the show.

The Stage

The swamp things

The Knights

The whole cast

Garrett as a venus flytrap

Maelie as a duck.

On one evening we went to dinner with some friends. This plant was there and it looked fake to us, but it had some decaying areas. We asked the guy if it was real and he said 'yes'! I was surprised.

Our group, minus me (I was taking the picture). The restaurant we went to was La Roche and it is right off the water. We got there when it was still light and you can see the ocean out the window.

Toward the end of August we moved. We had a week to do it and moved about one room or so per day. We didn't pack up boxes, just loaded up bins of stuff and moved it that way. It was really an easy move. We had to get the other house move in ready so we had to paint the blemishes but we were given all the paint and paint equipment to use. If we were just moving off the island, we wouldn't have had to do that, but since we were just moving from one on base house to a different one, we had to. We were actually very shocked that they allowed us to move. We really expected them to say no when we asked, but they didn't!!! I love my ocean view, playground and basketball court right outisde our backyard. Every morning when I wake up I look out my bedroom window. I LOVE IT! Since the move, we have seriously considered extending our tour here one more year. Here we have a great view, great schools, and we like the base. If we move to another base for just one year, we might get a non-desirable place with bad schools, etc. They may not let us extend, but we really love it here.

To the left of this picture is the basketball court and right next to that is the playground. The playground is never busy. Usually it's just our kids. Occasionally there is one or 2 other kids there, but not often. It's like it is our own playground.

We went to the nearby bakery and got a few things to try. The one on the top with the powdered sugar and white cream inside was the best, but I wasn't too fond of any of them. They look better than they taste.

A beautiful sunrise on the kids' first day of school!

Maelie and Garrett going to school. Garrett: 2nd grade -Ms. Sorrell Maelie: 4th grade-Mr. Morris

Leaving our house, walking to school. 100 yards away ;).

Deacon at almost 3 months

Colson LOVES Deacon. When he says, "Deacon" (very loudly), Deacon's eyes open wide with worry. :)

An Friday, August 31, Sterling turned 5. He asked for an angry birds cake.

On Friday we let him open the presents from us. Because he turned 5 he got to have a birthday party, his very first one. (We do parties for the kids at age 5, 8, and 12.

He got a leapster 2 with games, a chess game (he loves to play. A quick story about this: He calls chess, chest. We were at someone's house and he saw a chess game there. He loves to play chess with Garrett so he asked the mom if he could play with her chest. I quickly had to explain that he wanted to play with her chess set. Yikes!) and a captain america figurine.

Sterling's b-day party was the next day, Saturday. We had angry birds bowling:

We had angry birds coloring sheets:

And Angry birds pin the nose on the pig.

Outside we had boxes built up to throw the 'birds' at, but with the wind that didn't work too well. So we hooked up 3 hoses and made a waterslide on the park behind our house. The kids had a ball.

Sterling invited 7 friends: Bella and Ruben Morgan, Meagan Parkinson, Megan Brown, Tyler LeNeave, Aubrey Nelson, and Allyson Hull.

Pizza time. After playing hard in the sun, they were hungry 4 and 5 year olds.

Some of the parents that stayed.

It was too windy to keep the candles lit so we ended up inside for Sterling to blow out his candles and then back outside to dish it and eat it.

The party kids left before we opened his presents from them so we did that later. Right after Sterling's party, we had another party to go to.

Her is Chyrece Campbell and me with our babies, both born in Germany about 2 1/2 weeks apart. We kept each other company in Germany.

The party had a lot of animals to pet and hold and also Pony rides and a wagon ride.

After that party, Sterling opened his presents from his friends.

Sterling's birthday quiz

How old are you? 5
What is your favorite color? yellow
What is your favorite toy? monster truck
What is your favorite fruit? oranges
What is your favorite TV show? power rangers
What is your favorite movie? astro boy
What is your favorite food? pizza and mac n cheese
What is your favorite game? angry birds
What is your favorite snack? fishes and cream cheese bagel and apples
What is your favorite animal? baby chicken and dog
What is your favorite song? I don't know
What is your favorite book? super heroes
What is your best friend? Ruben and Bella Morgan
What is your favorite cereal? Oh's
What is your favorite thing to do outside? play angry birds (mom says catch bugs)
What is your favorite drink? soda (root beer)
What is your favorite holiday? christmas
What makes you happy?
What is your favorite place to go? Germany
What do you want for dinner on your birthday? mac n cheese
What do you want to be when you grow up? like a Dad? (he asked it)

For treat night one Sunday, we had fruit pizza. Mmmmm.

For family time we sat around our firepit and roasted. marshmallows and starburst. Sterling turned to me and said, "mom, this is special." I'm glad he could feel the special feeling of spending time with your family. When it got darker, we told ghost stories. It was funny to hear some of the kids' ghost stories.
Some highlight stories were: 'Gotcha where I want ya, now I'm gonna eat ya" told by mom and "Bloody fingers" told by Maelie

For Labor Day we had a bbq with 6 other families.
Stroms, Browns, Morgans, Rameys, Beckers, and Andrea and Andre (don't know their last name)

I found Maelie putting make-up on Deacon. I chastised her and then sent her away and secretly took a picture. Inside I was laughing, but I didn't want her to know because I didn't want her to do it again. He wasn't very happy about it.

Rainbows! We saw about 2 days of rainbows. One day we saw multiple rainbows within an hour time span. This rainbow ended in the water. Good luck getting that pot of gold.