Happy Halloween everyone! What a Halloween it is too. I am not sure how much trick or treating Dec will get to do since it is rainy and windy. I am not talking about a little windy. I believe the weather warning Stephen read said winds to 58 mph tonight. I just went and closed the shades (they are roll down shades on the outside of the window) in the living room because you could see the whole window moving when there was a strong gust. Dec is at school still and Stephen is at work getting some training stuff done. Not much to do around here. I wish I had the fabric I need to make curtains for the house. Then I would have something to do. I have my sewing machine but with no fabric, it isn't much good. I promise to post a picture of Declan in his costume. He is going to be Darth Vader.

Here are some much awaited new pictures!

The other day we lost electricity for a while. We took the oppurtunity to take a drive to the village of Biscoitos where we had looked at a couple of houses. The waves had been pretty big looking at the water from our house so we thought it would be cool to see how it was down there. We encountered out first "Lajes traffic Jam" on the way. A farmer was moving his cattle to another field via the road.


When we got to the shore it was amazing! You can see in the first picture where they have built cement steps and platforms to get into the swimming holes. Most of the swimming holes were protected somewhat by a row of rocks.

Here are some more pictures. In the first one you can see a person standing there taking a picture of the wave. They didn't stay there too long. The wave broke before it got to them but splashed pretty far. I bet they wished they had a rain coat!

Hello again! I just wanted to keep you all updated. We moved into a house on base yesterday. We have views of the ocean (and beautiful green fields with cows in the back of the house) from all our windows and can hear cows mooing and a rooster crowing! So far we only have part of our stuff. The rest should be here soon. At least we have furniture! The government supplied stuff isn't too bad. Our living room and dining room will be all cherry finish. The dining room has a nice big table and we will be getting a china cabinet to match the table. Our bedroom is also cherry and Dec's room is oak finish. It is sad to say, this is the nicest furniture we have ever had, and it isn't even ours! Once everything is here and we get all settled in, I will take pictures and post them. We will have the internet by then. Now that our phone is working, we can sign up for the internet. After that it will be about 8 days before it is working. (Nothing is done in a hurry here.)

The weather here has been great! Yesterday it was in the low 70's and there was a nice breeze. Today, it is cloudy and it is supposed to rain. That is on top of the 45 mph winds. I am going to have to tie a rope to Dec to keep him from blowing away!I will check in again soon. Maybe next time it will be from my own computer at home.

And the adventure has begun!

We arrived on Saturday night but it was too dark to see anything but we could tell it was NOT flat! Jake and Annabelle were very vocal about their dislike of the whole experience. Our sponsor, John, had bought us some milk,bread, peanut butter and jelly, and a few other basics to get us by until we could go and get stuff. He was very nice. Thankfully he had a pickup truck so we could fit the 2 suitcases, 2 cats and carry-on stuff. They dropped Dec and I off at our room and took the cats to the kennels.

When I woke up the next morning I got up and looked out the window. I couldn't see much but we soon went on a walk to see what we could see. Just around the corner of the building this is what we saw:


That is the beautiful blue Atlantic Ocean in the background! We went for a walk to check things out and found the things that are important to Declan, ie: the bowling alley, Burger King. Here is another pictures from that walk:

On Monday morning Stephen had to go check in at work and then he rented a car. That meant that we could go adventuring! We took a drive off base through the villages of Lajes up to a town called Biscoitos. The scenery is beutiful no matter where you look. At one point there were rocky cliffs with waves crashing against them on one side and the other direction there was lush green fields bordered by stone walls with black and white cattle grazing going up the side of the mountain. Here are a few pictures from that drive.




On Tuesday, we went "house hunting". A nice Portuguese man, Tony, from the housing office drove us around and translated for us. We saw 4 houses. Of course the one we likes was too far away to drive to and from everyday. It has a beautiful room and a seperate building with a bar, a big fireplace, a full bathroom and another room that could be used for a guest bedroom. It was on top of a hill and had a GORGEOUS view. 25 minutes to and from the base was a little too far though. I did get some nice pictures though! The village was called Biscoitos. Tony (the housing guy) told us that the town was named that because the lava rocks on the coast remind you of biscuits (the drop biscuits) before they are baked. When you look at the pictures, you will see the resemblance. I am sure we will go back there on a nice sunny day and I will get more pictures. Here are the ones I got:

This is the view from one of the houses we looked at. It was a little small and it had a spiral staircase to the second floor. The view was great but it was so close to the water, we could have fished off the back patio!

This was the view from the house we liked. Too far of a drive though.