We have all of our furniture needs provided so we are fine, it's just nice to have some things to do like sew or play piano. We had about 300 lbs. of our stuff arrive which included things like pots, pans, dishes, toys, diapers, wipes, our highchair and double stroller.
Our dining room:
Our kitchen:
Our garage aka playroom: The door is too small to comfortably drive our van in so we use it as a playroom. Once our stuff comes, half of it will be playroom and the other half storage.
The good news: Denver came home at lunch on Monday and said that because of the inspection that happened last week (all Airmen pulled crazy long hours for the inspection) most of the airmen got to have the rest of the day and Tuesday off! So away we went to explore more of the island while Maelie and Garrett were still in school.This is the road we take anytime we want to go on base. The housing we are in is 'on-base', but technically it's off base :).
We went to a place called "Make me nuts." It specializes in doughnuts. They were pretty tasty, nothing spectacular, but yummy.
This forum Terceira has little shops in it.
We took the boys to the playground to enjoy our doughnuts.
And then to the beach, which was EMPTY. NICE! On the way we saw this white horse, made me think of a fantasy movie with a unicorn. I thought it was pretty.
On the way we also saw this house of the Holy Spirit. If someone feels that the Holy Spirit helped them recently (for example, if someone was really sick and then were healed), they through a big party in one of the many Holy Spirit homes on the island and invite friends and family. They all look different and all very decorated and pretty. Their structure is the same though.
The first thing Sterling did when we got to the beach was make a 'sand angel'. He ran ahead of us and immediately landed on the sand and started making it. I don't know where that came from, but thought is was hilarious.
The boys had soooo much fun on the beach. We knew we couldn't stay long because the kids get out of school at 2:30 and we had to be home for them then so we didn't change into swimsuits, but they had fun getting their feet wet and playing with the sand.
We watched this wind surfer for awhile. He looked like a beginner, never leaving the shore area. It looked hard.
Love that face. He had so much fun on the beach, he even took some home with him. Even though sand got in his eyes, he continued to smile :)
Monday at 3, the base threw a big party for everyone because of the inspection. They had free food, ice cream, and even beer (we obviously didn't partake of it, but I was surprised it was free. Normally the alcohol costs extra while everything else is free). They provided bouncy houses and face painting for the kids and had a live band. Sorry, no pictures of the party. I forgot my camera. It was fun though and the food was good.Tuesday we decided to take advantage of having only 2 kids at home and went to lunch at a Portuguese restaurant.
The place smelled like an ashtray, but the food was super delicious. Their meat was extremely tender and good and the price was cheap.
This is a picture of our Honda Prelude, island bomb. It's a Japanese car so it reads in kilometers instead of miles and the steering wheel is on the right hand side. Fun to drive.
There is a great library on base so the rest of the work days I enjoyed reading books to the boys and my books.Saturday morning we spent doing chores. Yep kids, we even have to do chores here. A lot of people get a maid to clean their house, but I need my kids to continue to learn to clean so no maid for us, as much as I would like one :) Sounds nice!
After the chores, we went to Maelie's and Garrett's soccer games.
Maelie is a very tentative soccer player. She would rather just run with all the kids and run with the ball than actually have to kick it. this is a hard picture to see, but she is throwing the ball to her team:
Her team name is "Little Hurricanes" and her coach is Coach Williams. She has fun playing and that's all that matters.
Garrett's game was after hers. He is much more aggressive with the ball and kicks it as often as he can. He even made a goal! The problem with the 5/6 year old team is that they get very distracted from time to time and start talking to their friends instead of playing. It is very funny to watch. There are losers so it's nice they all walk away a winner.
Garrett's team name is "Dragonhawks"
Huddle (this looked so cute)
After the games, we headed off to do some things on the island. So we headed up the mountains.Here is a beautiful hydrangea we saw on the side of the road. These flowers are everywhere. When there is a bull fight, people decorate their cars with these flowers.
It's always a scenic drive here. Even the cows.
The first thing we saw was the volcano about a whopping 15 miles away. This was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. We got to go inside of a volcano. This is the only place in the world where the public can go inside a volcano. There is another volcano in Indonesia, but it's only open to geologists.It was green all around.
Algar Do Carvao
We've all heard it, but it's sooo true-pictures don't do it justice. If you want to see how awesome it is, you really have to come and see for yourself.It starts in a room like this. Has a dungeon feel and is just a bit freaky.
Then you go through a tunnel, equally freaky.
And there's these 2 freaky mannequins standing there. Not sure what they're there for, but one of them is holding a sign. Interesting.
And just in case you forgot where you were, there is a map reminding you :)
Our camera doesn't take good pictures in the dark. We were able to accomplish getting a few nice pics, but most were blurry and too dark. Here are the best ones:Inside of the volcano:
This volcano erupted twice according to the tour guide. Once 3000 years ago and again 2000 years ago. She explained a lot of neat things. How certain domes and structures were formed.Looking out the blowhole:
Much prettier in real life.
Toward the top of the volcano everything was very green. Deeper down, everything is rock/lava.
We kept going down and down. It was kind of nerve wracking. Just the thought that I was going deeper and deeper in a volcano. Just last week Denver and I watched "Dante's Peak". Probably not a good choice when we live on a volcanic island.
Looking up:
It was a really neat place to see. We'll definitely go again before we leave. It's only open from May through Oct. so we were glad we saw it before it closes. Next week we plan to head to the Christmas Caves because those close mid-October too.After the volcano, we took the kids on a very non-strenuous hike.
We went to a place called "Furnas Do Exonfre" which means "? of Sulfur," You would think Furnas meant furnace, but when I looked it up, furnace in portuguese is fornalha and our Portuguese dictionary doesn't have the word furnas at all. I think it's just the name of the place. ??? There were many places with steam coming off rock and it definitely smelled like sulfur. It reminded me of my Yellowstone days.
It was very muddy and Colson was trying his hardest to not get dirty. He ended up slipping and sliding and covered in mud :)
This is steam: Crazy
More steam. Vegetation can't grow there because it's too hot.
Okay, take a close look at that Mountain Range. It's called the Santa Barbara mountain range...
...Now, what did that say? Look right in the middle. POTENTIALLY ACTIVE. The whole line says "The mountain range of Santa Barbara, one of the most recent volcanoes in Terceira Island, is potentially active. It is the highest place on the island and...it is an area of great botanical and geological interest..." No kidding, luckily for us the university of the Azores is constantly monitoring any "sismovolcanic activity" according to this sign.
I loved this bridge. It's beautiful
Another view of the Santa Barbara mountain range. The middle of the picture shows where the steam is from 'furnas do exonfre'
After our hike we spontaneously wanted to find a bull fight in one of the villages. You can find out where they are, but we didn't plan on it initially. We thought one might be near the water hole in Biscoitos so we headed back down the mountain. 
When we got there, we saw all these tents and vendors. We asked a lady who barely spoke any English if there was a bull fight here today. She said it was tomorrow (Sunday). We were bummed, but it was still fun to see the day before party. People had campfires and it smelled like they were burning cedar. It was a very GOOD smell. We ended up buying cinco maca's pronounced 'me sans'. (5 apples) from a street vendor and just walked around. We went down to the water hole, but didn't stay long. We were all getting hungry for dinner.
On the way home we stopped at a lookout point and took some pictures there.
This was the cutest table and bench overlooking the water. If we had food with us, we would have stayed for dinner.
Instead we headed to Pizza press to try out Portuguese style pizza.
It may not look like much, but it was delicious. The pepperoni's were thick and good.
Today we got another dinner invitation. This will be our 4th Sunday dinner invite in 5 sundays. Everyone is so friendly in our branch. We love it.
I didn't get to see the RS broadcast live because of the time difference, but the RS in our ward want to get together and watch it as a group so we're having a eat and watch broadcast coming up.
This week was full and fun, a week of play.
