School Days. School Days.

There is so much to write about, I don't know where to start.

Although it is already the middle of the week, I will start with the previous weekend. Brandon had a 3 day weekend, it was wonderful, and guess what we get another one this weekend!!! :) The sun was out and shining for a good majority of it. I will let the pictures tell our story.

We drove up to a very high altitude, scenic spot. We actually found it on our 1st attempt. It was very high, like very nausea in the car, high! Those our windmills in the background. We brought some lunch with us to enjoy outside.

Of course, we cannot leave our son home on a gorgeous sunny day.

It was about 61 degrees up there. The sun's rays felt wonderful, but the cold wind chills were enough to sun bath with our sweaters on! We kinda planted ourselves in the middle of the ramp overlooking the view. We didn't think anyone would be up there. We were wrong, it was a bit awkward having all these people walk around us. Luckily, they were all Portuguese locals, so our actions could be just blamed on weird American ways.

That evening we went to Copos & Ca Restaurant in Praia. We were the only ones in the restaurant. We felt a little silly, considering we called to make reservations. It wasn't because the restaurant is no good. They were having a street bullfight right up the road, so apparently until that was over they wouldn't be getting any business.

My chicken pasta. I feel I always end up getting the pasta at restaurants. Chicken is not big here, at all, so on menus they normally just have 1 to 2, if any chicken dishes. It turned out tasty.

Brandon's 3 pepper loaf. (It was literally called a loaf)

Oh, so a little bit of a cultural lesson for you, in case you are ever in the Azores islands (I am sure they do this many other places as well). If you do not want to pay for appetizers, do not eat the bread, butter, or any other delicious treats the servers put on your table prior to your meal. Without you ordering, the servers will come and put all these appetizers, listed on the menu, on your table without saying anything. Free food, yes! like chips and salsa. No. We were not naive, however. We found this out a couple restaurants back, and we like to spread our good words of wisdom to others. :)

This was only our adventures on Saturday. We throughly enjoyed the rest of the weekend, as well. It was so sunny and warm we actually went out to beach! Do not be fooled, sweaters were in tow. The weather lasted a good hour before the clouds blew in.

Moving on, school is starting, hence the title. Brandon found out that his CDCs are no longer going to be ready anytime soon. Why? Because they haven't even been written. So his supervisors now are going to allow him to begin classes, since there will be an even longer wait. B filled out the application for the University of Maryland University College last night, where he will be taking classes for a computer information technology degree. He will start June 14th! I am so excited for him.

After all the "drama" from last Monday, it kinda was worked out, but not really. I don't know anymore. Nothing has progressed from that day, except I was told to keep moving forward. ?? So, I am still working through getting my clearance for the education center, and hopefully will start soon. I think I have said that before. As well, I am headed back to the school this friday to "tackle" some 5th graders. I must enjoy the torture, or something.

Only 2 more days till another fun filled weekend! Happy Wednesday!

Tomorrow is a new day.

This might be confusing, but hang in there with me.

Monday, as mentioned, was not a great day for me.

I was called in to sub for a measly 2 1/2 hours for a 1st grade class. 2 1/2 hours, I got this, right? Wrong! The class was relatively behaved. I had these 2 students that just wouldn't stop. Whatever "threats" I made, however many smiley faces I took away, they did not listen. Their recesses were taken away for the next day, and they still carried on. They were very disruptive to the entire class, would not work on their tasks assigned, and continued to throw pencils and crayons at each other. As I replay this in my head, I should have called the office to come get them off my hands, but being the "I can handle everything on my own" type person that I am, I did not.

As one of the kids continued, the other decided to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Literally, he sat in the corner, and would not move. I surrendered, and let him sit there, there was only X amount of time left in class, so I let him be. At least he was quiet.

So now we are at the end of class, where I have the kids lined up, all but one. I bet you can guess who it was. He continued to sit and pretend he was a sleep. He would NOT get up. I had to take the rest of the children down the hall to meet their parents, but I couldn't leave him unattended in an empty classroom. I went across the hall to get some real teacher support, and her great advice was "You have to get him up!" I kept trying, and nothing. That teacher finally came up to try. Fail. A 3rd teacher came over to try. Fail. They stayed, while I took the rest of the kids. When I came back, the teachers went to get the kids Dad. You think it would end there, yes? It was a good 10 minutes before the Dad was able to make the kid leave the classroom.

This all happened in between another frustrating event. As some may know, I am working Mondays and Tuesdays at the education center. That was supposed to start weeks ago. I have been waiting 3 weeks for a security clearance to get run, so I can have government computer access.

Lets back track to last Friday, called person A to figure out what was the hold up. Person A called Person B to find out the reasoning. Person A reports back to me that they have been waiting for my medical records to arrive before they can sign off. Hmm... Person A gives me the number to call Person B to discuss details. End result, Person C tells me to turn in needed paperwork on Monday morning.

Monday morning

me: "Here is the paperwork I was supposed to turn in"

Person D: "I have no idea what you are talking about, Person C works in that building"

(that is not really what he said, but you get the basic idea)

me: "Here is my paperwork, Person C."

Person C: "Um, I told you to turn it in over there on Friday, let me call them."

to person D "Yes, she needs an appointment to get a physical so we can start her a medical record"

Um, okay.

After subbing, time for my appointment.

Waiting. Some more waiting. Some more waiting. Waiting.

Doctor: "What can I do for you today?"

me: "I do not know, I need some type of physical to get a medical record started"

Doctor calls over to Person C.

Doctor: "Yes, Person C said you need an employee physical, she said you first need to go get this paperwork, fill it out, make another appt. and come back and then I can fill it out."

WHAT!!! If you followed along, can you feel my frustration.

I walked out in a huff, and decided to wait to the next morning to continue to deal with it.

This morning, I called the education center, to tell my story, saying I was going to call Person A to see if he can help get to the bottom of this mess for me. I was then informed that Person C called saying she had received a call from the Doctor, who was trying to figure out why I was so upset. Person C continued in her conversation, saying she had no idea why I was so upset, and if this is how I react I should not be working in a customer service position.

And scene.

This is where I am now. I haven't heard any further information, but we can probably safety say, however unjustified it may be, that I will not be working at the education center.

Weekend Blurs.

The weeks seem to be racing by...

The weekends just come and go and we move on into a new week.

Its hard to think back and reiterate the weekend for y'all, but we try our best.

Friday: I had a spouses dinner and game night that I attended, while B worked diligently on a power point for work that was due by Monday.

Saturday: We had tons of quality time together. It was a half decent day outside, a little too windy, but we pressed on. Saturday morning, we wanted to use all of your new kitchen toys we just received, so we made waffles and french pressed coffee!! We then ran some non-note worthy errands, along with a trip to Modelos. One thing we do have here in our advantage, is the price of wine. Y'all are getting ripped off in the states! We can buy quality wine literally for just a few Euros. It's fantastic!! So we picked up some of that at the store.

We spent quality time with our son as well, and took him to a nice walking path right along the ocean, where we were able to have our mid-afternoon coffee as well. :)

Sunday: Sunday's church service was the very last for the current Chaplain. Him and his family our PCSing (permanent change of station) to San Antonio actually, small world. The service was followed by a potluck lunch for them. We made sure to pass on the good name of El Mirasol to them. Later that evening, we had an Eagle Scout Ceremony, for one of the boys in Brandon's troop.

Monday started off with a BANG, more for me than Brandon, I will try to remember to fill you in on that tomorrow.

It arrived!!!!!

Our stuff is here! You probably couldn't be as excited as we are! Our house is in the works of becoming a home. We have been unpacking for 2 days straight now, and it still looks like a big mess. Brandon even got the day off yesterday to help out.

Work break. :)

Some before and after pictures. It had been a long 2 months living in an empty household.

Just wanted to fill you in on the excitement!

Only Child Syndrome.

Now, before anyone gets way to excited by these cute pictures. "Lucy" had to go back, and we didn't get to keep her.

What happened to Doug you may ask?

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I am going to be able to make it home in May. We couldn't get the plane schedule to work with us correctly, so I will be going home sometime in the fall. On the plus side, we have special visitors coming in June and July, which we are super excited about!

We decided what we could find on the island.

Not much.

They have a selection of classifieds on lajesads.com and every once in a while a pure bred dog gets posted, and that is where we came across "Lucy".

She was so cute, a 3 month old Siberian Husky, whose actual named was Coco, but we changed that immediately. The current owner's wife is allergic to her so they had to get rid of her. They agreed to let us take her for the night to see how she behaved with Mas-face, and such. We were 100% positive there would not be a problem. Mason gets along with everyone.

It took us about 45 minutes to determine Mason said NO!!! He was not having it. Whether it was because the puppy was super hyper, or just because he was confused, he didn't want "Lucy" in his house, nor in his backyard.

We had to return her. Mason comes first. We were disappointed.

Bye bye "Lucy".

The rest of the weekend consisted of grilling bbq chicken pizza outside, DELICIOUS, and some card playing with some friends. Then Sunday, consisted of our normal routine of church and Mason walking. That evening we had dinner with some friends at As Nossas Ilhas (Our Islands). There has been an event going on the past 2 weeks on the island, and yesterday was the last day. You could dine at any of these top rated restaurants listed below and for 9 euro, you get an appetizer, entree, and dessert.

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The restaurant was "downtown" in Angra, the capital/largest city. Little did we know "Benfica won its first Portuguese league title in five years". (I had to look that up.) The streets were going wild!! It took us about 30 minutes to get out of the traffic. There was honking, people hanging out of cars, flag waving from the beginning to end of dinner, and who knows how long everyone stayed out there. It was fun to see everyone so excited, although we had no idea really why at the time.

Hope all the moms we know had a wonderful Mother's day, especially our favorite two. :) Wish we could be there.

Happy Monday!

Crash!

This morning started off just a typical morning.

Then this happened.

Which caused this.

...and this.

...and later this happened.

Have a great weekend!!

1st day of subbing.

It actually wasn't bad and I got one great deal out of it...

an hour and a 1/2 being the lunch/recess monitor for 1/2 days pay, 2 days in a row!

Recess was all inside today since there has been a downpour of rain all day. So the yelling was magnified against the gym walls. :)

I started with the kindergartners whom I watched Toy Story with for the first 30 minutes. Piece of cake. A little "no talking" here and "please sit down" there, and their recess time was up! They were the most behaved out of all the grades.

I sent the kids to lunch and went out to watch the 1st graders for their 30 minute recess and then the 2nd/3rd graders for theirs. They were soo rowdy. They had a little more attitude as well, then the kinders. I got a whole lot of "ummm, who are you?" Nothing I couldn't handle, but I had to use my mean voice. If I so in fact have a mean voice. The other teachers must have looked at me like I was going to get eaten. The students tried to take advantage, but I was stern. :)

I do it all again tomorrow. Woo!! As well, I am actually subbing on Thursday for a class of 5th graders. That should be a little bit more calm.

Weekend Recap.

Sorry for the lack of blogging. I have no excuse. :) I will entice you to forgive me with pictures!!

Friday night, we finally found a delicious restaurant!! We both approved. It was called Sabores do Chef, translation, Flavors of the Chef. We kept hearing great reviews on it from literally everyone, even a taxi driver told us, so we gave it a try, and it was a success! Brandon had the filet mignon and I had a pasta dish with chicken. We even found a Azores originated wine that tasted very close to, one of our favorites, La Crema. It was called Curral Atlantis. We were so lucky we got a table. Apparently, you must call for reservations, they only had one available table that was not reserved. As the evening continued, so many came in and had to be turned away because they had no tables left.

A bad picture, of the outside of the restaurant.

We took our picture in the entrance of the restaurant to avoid stares. We were the only Americans in the restaurant. Our waiter spoke English. :)

The restaurant was very elegant. It was one of the Top 10 restaurants in the Azores, we came to find.

The bar. Their wine racks were neat.

After, we wanted to check out the karaoke at the Top of the Rock Club. Its basically the community club on base. We thought we had heard good things about it, we were wrong. We came and saw and were ready to leave after our drinks. We ended up running into a friend so stayed a little later than excepted. Nothing was really too terrible about it, it just wasn't our scene. It was kinda the bar scene for all the singles living in the dorms/18 year olds. We vowed never to return. :)

On Saturday, we intended to go to the bull fight out on the streets of Praia that evening, however, we had stayed up past our bedtime on Friday night so we decided to put that off till next weekend. We only stayed out till 10:45 pm folks!

We ended our weekend with Sunday morning crepes that turned into pancakes, church, a competitive game of bowling with some friends, where Brandon won both games and B bbqueing on Sunday night. Nothing fancy, just chicken and corn on the cob. It was tasty! We did get a cute family pic out of it. :)

Awwwwwwwwwww.

Oh, and yes that is us wearing a sweatshirt and jacket. Isn't everywhere supposed to be swimming pool weather by now?