363 Days in Counting.

We have successfully stuffed our bellies all weekend along, opened countless presents until next year (Thank you family, you spoil us.), heard enough Christmas music to nauseate our ears, and most importantly celebrated and reflected on the birth of our Savior so many years ago. Yet now, the fridge is full of leftovers, presents have been all put away, the Christmas tunes have been turned off, sadly, one more week of Christmas decorations, and they will have to come down, and we had to say good-bye to Mr. Grizzles.

Our merry and bright weekend, started with a gorgeous sunny day of 70 degrees, clear skies and NO rain or wind!! We had B's office Christmas party to attend as well as the Christmas Eve candlelight service at our church. A full day of "Merry Christmases" just to gear us up for the next day. We couldn't go to bed without taking a sneak-peak into Santa's presents and watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original). Santa came all the way to the Azores to give us this... Thank you!!!!!

                                        

Christmas morning and a slew of presents later it was time for the Christmas festivities to begin. B and hosted a Christmas brunch for a handful of our friends. Tasty food, delightful conversation, and a full house makes you forget you are 3000 miles away from "home".

The rest of the day we skyped with our families, made Christmas dinner and you cannot have Christmas without an Elf viewing.

The 26th came upon us, and Christmas was still going. :) We heard our last Christmas sermon at church and then some friends invited us over for one more Christmas meal and celebration! 

Now, it's Monday *sigh*. We go back on vacation in a mere 11 days, so there is really no room to complain.

We hope you all had a wonderfully blessed Merry Christmas with friends and family. 

Pure Entertainment.

There never seems to be a dull moment here (unless you count the hours we spent working on a puzzle yesterday evening), there is always something of intrigue. Last weekend, we were privileged enough to see a several thousand pound sperm whale made of pure chocolate at the First International Festival of Chocolate in the Azores. This was made complete with multiple spotlights, as well, as whale noises in the background. It was as if we were in the ocean.

This weekend, on our routine morning route to the Organic Market, our five minute drive turned into almost twenty when we got stuck behind a herd of cows moving pastures. Now I do not have any pictures to document this event, so you will have to use your very best imagination skills. Imagine, a countless amount of cows moving at less than 1mph, stopping to smell each and every grass blade. In the midst of this, cars are coming every which way at you, neglecting all traffic signs, laws and direction, and you cannot forget our precious son we have in our backseat terrified of the large black and white images passing him. So as we continue on our merry way along a very slanted hill, which has more blindspots in it then you can count, we finally see the open road. 

The fun was not yet over for the day! :) That rare windless evening, we decided to walk the streets of Angra, and enjoy the music and Christmas lights on display. 

Well the music only lasted about the first 10 minutes we were there, but soon came sirens blaring. The normal in these parts, is seeing ambulances or police cars with sirens going, but no noise, and no one bothers to move out of there way. Very bizzare. So hearing these noises got us curious, and to our delight it was Santa!! His first appearance for us here on the island. We felt almost as if we were back in the United States. Our reality soon came back, when we saw a "real" Christmas tree.

It really was him, even though we didn't get a shot of his face.

Can you see the comparison?

What we've been up to.

•  Last week was a whirlwind of things going on. There were 3 Christmas parties, 2 white elephants, 1 holiday fellowship, a cookie exchange, and a Tea Party to be planned and decorated for. That is just the half of it, I won't bore you with the mundane details of such things as work and school. We have one more cookie exchange, and white elephant this weekend and a secret santa game we are the midst of right now. 

• This week we I have crashed and just waiting for the glorious week to come of no alarm clocks, no schedules, no cookies to be made. B has the whole week off of work next week, which he is counting down hours to get to. As well, his school sessions end this week. He did very well in both his classes!! I think we have forgotten what it is like to get to spend time with each other during the actual week.

• CDCs are in. Well sorta. (To refresh those few memories of what those are, I talk about them here.) The authorities above have now decided the new ones will not be coming in soon enough, so B will be completely the old version. Now wait, you may say, haven't you been there a year already and haven't the old versions been available this whole time and oh wait wasn't he not allowed to take classes the first months we were here because he was waiting for the new ones? Oh yes, tis all true. So now, B will have to devote his time solely to those now for the next 4 months, meaning school is put on hold. 

• Our plane tickets are booked. Lord willing, we will be arriving in Texas on Jan. 16th in the late evening and staying through the 28th. Everyone go ahead and pull out your calenders now and mark that down on your schedule. There are 2 weeks to see the Morrises, so plan accordingly. :)

• Mas is doing good, he is excited about Christmas! Looking just as cute and cuddly as before.

This post has literally taken over half the day of coming back to the computer to finish writing, but there you have it. :)

Oops.

We received this email yesterday.

"All,

Please see attached photos about Beira Mar parking lots, where as result of
faded parking spots lettering and lines, some unidentified individuals have
sprayed the pavement to either highlight the letter that used to be there or
just choose another spot in accordance with their convenience. This is
considered Graffiti and they can be charged with vandalizing government
property. 

Electrical underground  renovation has just wrapped up so there is no more
need for ditches digging around Beira Mar (to include parking areas) and
since housing renovation part 2 is on hold, sometime soon might  be
recommended to start repainting parking areas at least close to buildings
where renovation already happened (T-1500, T-1501, T-1503, T-1505, T-1506,
T-1507, T-1508, T-1509, T-1510, T-1561, T-1562, T-1563, T-1564, T-1565,
T-1566, T-1567, T-1568, T-1569 and T-1572).

If you have any questions please call Miguel Maduro at 535-6825 or Mr.
Patrick Henson at 535-3727.

v/r
Housing Management"

Our car is famous! Who would do such a thing?? :)

Hello Dec. 1.

The Christmas season is upon us! It is now deemed correct to decorate ones tree, drink hot chocolate wine and cookies every night and receive Christmas cards. Oh wait, y'all received those weeks ago... hmmm.. at least we waited till after Thanksgiving to set up our tree. It took everything in me to withhold from setting it up early.

We wanted to share our Christmas spirit with y'all, so here you go...

We are in the land of "the ugliest tree-toppers for sale ever", therefore we might be protesting without one this season.

You put us to shame Hillary & Matt. :)

Its the best we could come up with when you have no trees to work, concrete walls and winds that just might knock everything over. Happy Hump Day!

A Time to Give Thanks.

Thanksgiving was a success. As much as I stressed over there not being enough food, I feel people left without eating anything (of course they really did). There were so many leftovers! Brandon and I are still working our way through them. His office is getting a plate full of pie today! Hope they came to work hungry.

The big successes of the evening:

• Everyone seemed to love my friends cranberry sauce she brought over.
• My green bean casserole
• & I really enjoyed the pumpkin pie 

My turkey man.

Turkey #1

Turkey #2

Look at all the food!!

So family (who we missed dearly) book your plane tickets now, so you don't miss any of the food or excitement for next year. :)

Gobble. Gobble.

Whew! Just finished a 10k this morning. My first one ever. One of the squadrons put together a "Turkey Trot" for this morning to put everyone in the turkey spirit. We had the choice to run a 5k (3.1 miles) or a 10k (6.2 miles). There are rarely opportunities here to run "marathons/races" so I choose the 10k to prove to myself I could do it, and I did, in 49 minutes and 10 seconds. That is a long time to be running, my body kind of aches right now. B is on call this week so he couldn't run with me, he had to be in to work very early today.

Now on to start the cooking after work today!! Wondering what is on our Thanksgiving menu?

for appetizers...

spinach dip

meatballs

my little vegetable turkey

the main course...

2 turkeys

mashed potatoes

green bean casserole (with no cream of whatever being used!)

broccoli slaw

waldorf salad

creamed corn

mac n' cheese

carrot rice

sweet potato

stuffing

cranberry sauce

buttered rolls & Portuguese bread

for dessert...

homemade pumpkin pie

homemade chocolate pecan pie

my fabulous chocolate peanut butter cookies

If anything turns out super duper, out of this world delicious, I will be sure to share the recipe!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!