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.

This week we didn't do much around the island. We were busy with lots of other things. We started the week off finding out that our stuff was still in Virginia! We just shrugged our shoulders and continued on with life. There's nothing we could do so no point to get upset. Just another thing to chalk up about an overseas move. We're hoping by Thanksgiving we'll have them and can really move in.

At school this week the kids had a dress up day each week. One was hat day, duct tape day, spirit colors day, and the one being shown in the following pictures...fake an injury day :D
I dressed their eyes up with the makeup that I had and then placed bandaids on them. It was truly hilarious.

On Tuesday we went to a Halloween playgroup while the older 2 were at school. We don't have any of our costumes and didn't prepare to order any from the states because I was counting on our stuff making it here before Halloween. So I went online to a group I'm in on Facebook (Lajes Field Yard Sale) and found this costume for 4T-5T! I bought it and Sterling got to wear it to the Halloween playgroup. (I went to the thrift store on base hoping to find the others a costume. I found Maelie a mermaid costume and Garrett a dragon slayer costume! Also I found a bike stroller/trailer thing for really cheap! It was a good day at the very tiny thrift store. I didn't find one for Cole so we will have to borrow from somebody.)
At the playgroup we made these ghosts out of tissues and suckers.
Each child got to take home a little bag of candy and these vampire teeth.
On Wednesday I had the first Activity Days activity. We learned about being modest. We read from the FSOY pamphlet, did the Head, shoulders, knees and toes activity and then watched a 5 minute video about modest dresses. Then we designed a modest dress on a paper barbie and then modeled them down the runway.
7 girls: Anna Billman, Sariah Billman, Samantha Morgan, Sophie Davis, Maelie Palmer, Nicole Ramey, and Rebekah Parkinson
Their modest dresses. Maelie's is the yellow dress and mine is the green and pink dress. It was fun.

Cole loves apples. I will give him a whole apple and he will eat it all, core and everything.
After a 15 minute rainfall, the sun came up and shone against the dark sky. I love that look. I tried to take a picture on the beauty of it. This building is the youth center on base.
Saturday was full of soccer games and birthday parties. We normally go somewhere interesting on Saturdays, but there were just too many things going on.

On Sunday after a game of war with cards, we decorated cookies. With no cookie cutters yet we just made circles.




Until next week!

Yet Another Week

Monday started off as a holiday so Denver and the kids had the day off. We decided to go to the beach. The weather was beautiful and the beaches were empty.

The water was cold so I only got in half way. The kids and Denver went in the whole way.


They had so much fun playing at the beach and in the water. It was a good holiday.
This week I got a package from my friend for my birthday. She and her family moved to Japan the same time we moved here. She sent me this Japan candy. It was really good. The bagged candy tasted like a hard candy with pop rocks in it. It sizzled in the mouth. The chews were a mix of starbursts and gum. Sounds weird, but I don't know how to explain it. It was delicious.
She also sent me this cute little bag. I now use it to hold my Euro so I don't mix my US coinage with my Euro. Thanks Brooke!
On Wednesday we had a med group picnic. It was good food and good entertainment. They had 4 people get 'pies' thrown in the face. They weren't actually real pies, they were made of soup mix, ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, cottage cheese, and some other ingredients. Not much fun to have that thrown in your face. It was an auction pie throw so people paid money to choose who got the pie in the face and who got to throw it.
After the picnic, we headed to the gruta do Natal or the Christmas Caves. We saw this vehicle (3 wheeled) on the road.
We also saw this house on the way. It is built up on stilts.
Up in the mountains, it was foggy and WINDY
In the caves we had to wear these helmets. First they gave us hair nets because the helmets have been worn by a lot of people and believe me we could tell, they were stinky.


Cole didn't like the helmets. He kept taking it off, but we made him wear it.
Going through the narrow tunnel. We both had sore legs from our runs that morning so squatting through the tunnel really hurt.
It was fun exploring the caves and looking and reading about all the different formations.

Outside the caves was this pretty forest.

And the wind just about blew us over! It was so strong.
We decided to sport our hair nets on the way home.
We loved driving through this tunnel of trees. It was so beautiful.
On Saturday after the kids soccer games, we drove down to Praia to take part in the expo/fest. There were tons of markets/businesses set up in a huge tent. Denver liked this motor bike.
And of course the boys all liked these tractors for sale.

Another tent had cows and other animals. We think it was a contest, like a county fair would have. Some cows had award ribbons attached to them.
We also watched a dog show for a few minutes.
Our favorite dog was this one. His neck and head were huge! It looked a bit like a mastiff, but don't think it was.
Look at that face!

Like the nose ring??? :) I did.
This one got first place. It was huge! the picture doesn't show that too well.
In the tent with the markets, one shop was displaying these awesome treats, but weren't selling! We did get to sample a doughnut, but I wanted to taste one of the other treats. They said we have to go to their actual store and gave us a business card.


But we did end up buying these other treats.
First of all, these ice cream things are delicious!!!! I had one last week at the bull fight/run and LOVED them so when I saw them here I had to get another. It's not creamy, more of an ice milk, but sooooo good and the outer stuff is like a wafer thing. Mmmmmm, so good!
We also bought these treats and split them with the kids so we could try all of them. Oh so good, all of it! From the brownie and around: Brownie, guava fruit, caramel, coconut, passion fruit, and cheesecake.
It was a good week in the Azores :D.