Happy Father's day!

Father's day was also kind of a welcome to the island for a new leuitenant that came in. We started off with a campout the night before with the kids and Jeff and of course followed with breakfast and gifts of pictures the kids had made along with legos for "dad to play with with charlie" and a hat that heather said she wanted to get...we headed out to a "kids bullfight on the beach which was kind of fun then walked around Angra a bit looking at the gardens and a playground. Driving back along the coast we stopped for ice cream and a short walk on the Paria walking street. We had dinner in mind but we ended up with other plans after swim lessons--a real father's day treat! We of course wished we could also spend father's day with grandpa mick as well but the flights back are overly full (people get left behind) and it just wasn't a possibility this time.

last t-ball

Heather and Charlie finished up T-ball today. Heather fielded a few balls that were hit her way and threw to first pretty well. I would say that her skills haven't really improved that much but she actually is throwing better. Hitting she seems to be a bit nervous and doesn't really whack it like she does at home. She had fun and will probably be willing to give it a go another time. Charlie did great (as did Jeff who pretty much took over running the program for the little kids) and really had fun with his skills clinic. Today they played a game and each team batted once--two times per kids. He had a good time but seemed to have even more fun once everyone had left and I fielded the ball and tried to catch up to him and Heather as they ran the base paths. Of course I was never fast enough to actually catch them so they felt accomplished. Tonight despite the drizzle and even some real rain the kids had swim lessons--rain doesn't really matter when you're IN the pool but it's not that fun for the observers! Charlie did well--they got lifejackets today and the kids were much more comfortable in the pool. Charlie paddeled all around and enjoyed "tag" with the teacher. Heather's group swam around a bit then also donned life jackets to practice jumping in--first the shallow water, then the deep end, then the diving board. She had a good time and the rain didn't dampen their fun. Luckily our friends made us Panini's for dinner which turned out to be fun. The kids are having a pre-father's day camp out tonight with Jeff...so much for getting to sleep in on father's day ;-)

I love a parade--but at 10 PM?

Everyghint here starts late and the festival in Angra is no different. Nothing starts before noon and parades and bands start at 10 pm or later. Nevertheless the Hughes family took naps and off we went to check out a parade. It was pretty cool, consisting of about 6 floats and a themed group in front of and behind the floats. One group included a flame blower--basically he had a torch and blew alcohol in the air, lighting it on fire. It was pretty hot from as far as we were. One float consisted of a large birdcage with real birds, preceeded by about 12 women in costumes with birdcages on their heads--yes with a real bird in each. Another float had a large spinning circle with a zodiac on one side and clock on the other, another the fall and winter on either side preceeded by people in leaf costumes and snowflake costumes. It would have been really cool to have known more about the floats and symbolism but it was still neat to see. One would think that 6 floats would take only a short time but with each group doing some sort of dance or preformance type of thing we left the parade route about 11:30 (yes still PM!!). The kids did great and we may try the "kids parade" thursday night at 10...

swimming and sitting, caring and clapping

So many milestones that I keep forgetting to post...Charlie and Heather had their first swim lessons today for the year. The pool was cold but both did great in the water. Charlie can't touch so his class is kind of hard with 1 teacher and getting in and out of the water to sit shivering on the side. Jeff helped him a little so he could do a bit more but he was not convinced that he wanted to go back tomorrow. (I told him that if he did VBS all week he could decide about swim lessons...but on the way home agreed that if they tried really hard and did what their teacher asked they could each pick a wii game--we don't have any yet--so maybe swimming will win out after all). Heather did really well. In a class of five girls the teacher could really pay attention to all of them however at one time she had them swim out to the slide (over heather's head by a bit) and Heather was the first one out and was turning around when her momentum stopped and she was kind of bobbing and trying to grab a breath as she came up...the teacher got to her just before she panicked and probably would never have taken another lesson again...Caring--also Heather and Charlie who have been playing pretty nicely together the last few days. Usually they have spats and arguements but they've really been fairly pleasant to each other. Sitting and Clapping would be Cameron. He's taken to a pull crawl on his belly and is threatening to actually crawl on his hands and knees soon. He gets up and moves forward but not really in a crawling way, more of a hop or push with one leg. He can quickly go from either move to a sitting position once he's obtained the object of his desire. He also has discovered clapping although not when a camera is around. He happing puts his hands together and waits for someone to show their excitement to him. In the waiting room at an office today he was clapping for people who were not responding and he looked kind of like, "hello don't you know this is my new trick?". I was enthusiastically clapping with him. He is also almost ready to stand. He can certainly support himself with help but his balance is not quite there for more than a few seconds. Heather and Charlie delight in telling us when he's clapping, standing, or other tricks.

vacation bible school

This week started vacation bible school for Heather and Charlie. With much persuasion (and the promise that he could play the Wii when we got home if he went to the class and tried it out) Charlie went to his class happily--it helped that his buddy came at the same time and they walked in together. He came out yesterday and said, "mom you didn't tell mit it was going to be soooo fun!!". Heather went a bit nervously to her seat when she didn't see her friends and apparently got upset for a minute or two when the girls in front of her in line were not keeping up and she thought she was going to be lost. She said that she started crying but quickly a "bigger girl" took her hand and helped her not be so worried. I thought that was very touching--and such the vacation bible school spirit! They're having a great time. Last night Heather had her last t-ball practice. There were only 4 kids so they got LOTS of practice! Today we went to the park for a picnic lunch with some new neighbors.

school's out for summer!!

Heather finished her last day of kindergarten with a fiesta and certificate presentation. Not a big ceremony but enough that the kids felt special and important as newly proclaimed first graders. She was sad that she wasn't chosen to bring home the class turtle but excited that we might get to pick out our own turtle as a result. The kids spent the morning playing at the playground at the school then Heather gave her teachers hugs and off we went (11:30). At 12:15 she proclaimed she was bored and summer had officially started!! Jeff had the day off on Friday so we spent the first day of summer on an adventure. After lunch and a relaxing morning with lots of books read we headed out to the duck pond so our freezer could get rid of some of the bread we had been storing up. On the way all three kids fell asleep so we drove around the farm roads a bit and enjoyed the flowers which are beautiful right now. When we got to the duck pond we fed the ducks which were a bit more aggressive than before but happy to be fed. From there we went to the "gruto de natal" (christmas cave) to hike down and check it out. The kids got to wear hard hats and it was a pretty cool cave. Jeff and the kids even tried out the "adventerous only" part which was probably only about 4 feet in height. The cave was pretty well lit with spotlights around and was dripping water and quite wet but not slippery. The kids weren't too tired to play on the playground together when we got home and watched a movie during their "campout" with Jeff in the living room--a new weekly occurance.

bread anyone?

On the way home from the playground yesterday (read post below) we ran into a traffic jam at one of the spirit houses. For 7 (8?) weeks the Azoreans have a special celebration at which they pass out bread and I believe wine and a meat. They do a parade and move from the spirit house through the community passing out bread. We saw these people coming from the spirit house with 3,4, 5 loaves of bread and I was really wanting one (they looked so good!!). The kids were sleeping so we just hung out in "traffic" and waited for the cars to start moving. Eventually we moved one car length at a time and got up tot he spirit house. The truck in front of us was handed a few loaves fo bread. Jeff and I started to get excited and when our car pulled up sure enough he presented us with two loaves of bread. We thanked him (well first I wished him good day accidenatlly). Three other people tried to offer us bread but I showed them we already had it. The guy in the picture gave us two more anyway so we happily finished driving the coast eating our loaves of bread. I feel like we've been welcomed into the Azorean culture now ;-) The kids played on the playground and we had friends over for dinner to complete the day.

Obama came to visit!

Yes, yes it's true Obama came to our house...Obama the kindergarten class turtle was our guest over the weekend ;-). The kids had a good time looking at him, saying good night, and feeding him over the two days he was here. I was just happy that we didn't kill him!! In other weekend activities the kids had t-ball on saturday then we had some good fried chicken for dinner--almost as good as Miller's!! Sunday was a busy day as we headed out with some friend to the indoor pool to let the kids swim. Heather did really well putting her face in, diving underwater for objects...Charlie also had a good time getting chased by shark Jeff and doing some bobs. Then we went to a park nearby and found a really fun swing kind of thing (see video) that the kids really enjoyed once Heather got over her fear of the speed (not really that fast). They did monkey bars and we hiked up to a fort to get a better view of the harbor and the playground.

so close yet so far...

A read on a friends Facebook page that the space shuttle landed in Columbus for a refuling mission yesterday--wow!! I'm so jealous that we weren't there to see it--how cool for all our friends who were. On the homefront we had some excitement as Hilary Clinton's plane landed to refuel here. Jeff got to go down to the flight line to meet and greet with about 100 other airmen but was released to go back to work when they were told she wasn't getting off the plane. Charlie and I watched the plane land from a hill and enjoyed a doughnut while some of the secret service/plane people came to the club for a treat. After Jeff and the other guys left she apparently did decide to get out and "greet the troops." bummer for him that he missed it. On a better note our playground out back finally got finished so the kids again have freedom to play. Heather has 5 more days of school and is excited for summer to come. Now if only it would start to feel like summer!

on with the training wheels (and life jackets?!)

Last weekend we were pretty busy with lots of base activities. Saturday was a rainy/sunny day so Heather had a few innings of t-ball before it got rained out. Charlie's was rained out much to his dismay, "how come Heather got to play and i didn't?!". We took advantage instead of an Asian pacific heritage event where kids and adults did dancing from hula to japanese drumming and karate to judo. The kids liked it and the food was pretty tasty too. Jeff participated in the volleyball tournament so we were all busy. Sunday we headed out early to let Heather practice on her two wheeler. Somewhere during the week she lost her confidence and it was a much rougher go of it. It was more like I expected her to be riding with only two wheels. Charlie tooled around on his bike and did loop after loop winning race after race and defeating chick hicks several times. That afternoon we tried out the swimming pool which was freezing! Both kids were much more pool shy than at the end of the year last year so hopefully Jeff can get them up to speed before swim lessons start. Monday Jeff had the day off but spent most of the day reading for a military class he has to take. It was still nice to have him at home.