Putting up the tree

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Last week we decided to start celebrating the season. So we went and bought a tree... not exactly the way we were used to doing it in Jackson. No horse rides or cutting down our own tree but we did pick it out and put it together ourselves:) And we had a fun time decorating the tree together. The big girls enjoyed seeing the ornaments with their names on it and then they found the Christmas music and they were done. Tirza, however, was all about decorating... she helped me until every single ornament was on the tree and every last decoration had found a place to be displayed. I think she has only broken three ornaments so far and all were glass ball that had no sentimental value so we're good.

We are excited to see and be a part of the Natal (Christmas) season here in Portugal. They already have lights and decorations everywhere. Our street even had lights and the downtown area is amazing with all the lights and decorations. I love it!

(Now I know you all think I skipped Thanksgiving... I didn't we had a nice dinner with friends last Saturday and I will post pictures soon. Our language teachers have been kicking our tails at school and I have been coming home so worn out that I am behind in posting. So soon...)

We just can't stay away...

One of our favorite places to visit... the Belem tower. We love going to Belem and we really love taking new people. It is right on the river and the whole area of town is just beautiful!
This is our friend, Craig, this was the end of his vision trip to Lisbon... so we thought we would show him a couple of our favorite places.

We just realized that Belem means Bethlehem, how cool is that!?!

Sete Rios

Last week the fellowship we have been going to celebrated their 10th anniversary. The kids helped with part of the program, they told a story and then sang. Sahara was excited to join in the fun. She sang every word perfectly! She may not be talking to much in Portuguese yet but she sure will sing! If you know Sahara you know that sound about right:) Tirza was sitting with us but when she saw the kids lining up to sing she couldn't miss out so she ran up front and stood with Sahara. The video is kind of dark and I am not sure you can even see Tirza but you can hear the cute song.

Afterwards there was a huge meal, HUGE! It was great, we tried all sort of new stuff. And we spent several hours practising our Portuguese. Everyone was very patient and helpful. We went home with full tummies and tired brains:)

100 lbs. of FUN!

Last week my friend, Lori, sent us 100lbs of goodies and her husband:) Okay really her husband came on a vision trip from their church and she loaded his suitcases up with stuff for us.

She sent things that are hard to get here or really expensive for us to buy here. I have never had so much fun unpacking!

Fruit snacks galore, spice mixes, real deodorant... surprises for the girls:)Peanut butter, vanilla hot chocolate, halloween candy, shoes for the girls, toothbrushes...
Goldfish!!!!!!!
Tirza and I are immensely enjoying the goldfish crackers. And she got the Whole Wheat kind that I like... Lori, we love ya:)

The Clayton kids send the girls each a new LilKins Webkin... if you know anything about Webkins you know what a blast this was for the girls to come home too!

Meet our new friends... Sahara's puppy,Lydia!

Tirza's little ball of fluff, Sparkles!!!

And Bria's sweet kitty, Glitter:)

Thanks so much Clayton Circus... we love you guys and appreciate your support and encouragement more than you know!!!

Last weekend we spent a fun Saturday at the Oceanarium. Lisbon has an amazing Oceanarium, there is a HUGE center tank and then area for each of the world's oceans. It actually is all one giant tank and the areas are kept separate by the water temperature. So the right fish stay in the right ocean because of the temperature, just like in nature. Very impressive!

After we were done there we spent some time discovering the area around the Oceanarium. It is a beautiful area, right on the river. There are lots of things to see, places to walk and even fountains that shoot up water, the girls loved that. It is where they held Expo 98 so there is a neat area with all the flags of the countries that participated.

Lemons and a prayer

I have 2 little funny stories for you...
1st one is brought to you by Mark and Learning a New Language Blunder R US. Actually he has 2 entries in that department:)
Church on Sunday... pastor asks Mark if he would pray... of course he said it in Portuguese and then added that Mark could pray in English. Mark only caught the word "Pode" which means you can or can you? He replied to the pastor, "Pode, Pode" or "you can, you can." The pastor said a few more things and then told Mark to go ahead. Mark sat, and he stared, and he sat... making no indication that he was aware he had been asked to pray. I, started getting nervous... so I started poking him and whispering, "Stand up and pray, stand up and pray!!!!" He listened to me and slowly stood up, cleared his throat (making me again nervous that he thought he had to pray in Portuguese) and then finally offered a very heartfelt prayer. He later admitted that he had no caught any part of the pastor asking him to pray, lucky for him that his sweet wife had his back:)
His second entry was on the phone making reservation for dinner. He did well, using almost all Portuguese the whole conversation. At the very end they asked for our phone number and he successfully got all the way through, until the very last number. -----when he said, "tres, tres... duche." Now on his behalf, duche is not as bad of a word to mistake here as it would be in the States, it just means shower here. And he was trying to say dois... and he knows dois. It just seemed that duche maybe fit better into his rhythm... I don't really know. But I do know that I laughed, and hard for a good 10 minutes!
And lastly, the lemons. I know you are all anxiously waiting to hear how those fit into this post. Well it seems we have begun the "sneaking things home in your backpack" phase of life. And for us, and our sweet little Sahara, it begins with lemons. And we found out about these contraband lemons because while no one is watching she has been dissecting them in her bathroom. Making lemonade you ask, nope just tearing them apart. And she just can't figure out how I keep knowing when she is doing it. Hmmm, does she really not smell herself?!? Oh, you can't help but crack up... and it does make the bathroom smell lemony fresh:)

Nova Mesa

We are so excited about our new table! We had been looking everywhere for a dining room table and chairs. But we just couldn't find anything we really loved for a price we were willing to pay. Then I remember seeing a little carpentry shop on a little street we had driven down after getting gas one day. We had no idea what to expect but thought that it would be a fun cultural experience... so off we went. We found the shop and through pictures and pointing and even a little language:) we explained what we wanted.

For for not much more than we would have spent anywhere else we have a handmade, mahogany dinning set. We love it! It turned out better than I imagined.
The shop that made it for us was a father/son business and they were very proud of their work. They said if anything ever goes wrong with it just to let them know and they would fix it. They didn't have us finish paying them until I had seen the finished product and approved of it. The dad wanted me to know that the chairs were very solid and safe for the kids. So he picked one of the chairs up and threw it on the ground! I had a mini- heart attack, but he proved his point... nice sturdy chairs:)
We had our first "dinner company" last night, the table and chairs performed wonderfully!
So, whose next!?

Trick or Treat

There isn't much in the way of Halloween here... they do celebrate All Saint's Day but it isn't a big thing, mostly just a day off. Lucky for us it is one of the little guys on our team has a birthday the day before, so they had a birthday/halloween party. It was a blast! And we had 3 little princesses, of course:)
Here is our Island Princess with one of the Wicked Witches that showed up at the party. It was okay she turned out to nice except that she ate all the food and especially the candy:)

Christmas time Belle

Little Cinderella with her new magic wand.

Happy Halloween and All Saint's Day everyone!

Worms and Dirt

A few weeks ago Auntie Heidi sent the girls a package full of treats!!! One of the treats was chocolate pudding and gummy words... worms and dirt. The girls loved it! They thought it was just the funnest thing ever. We made the pudding and then they decorated their dirt:)
They really thought it was funny to hang the worms out of their mouth...

Thanks Auntie Heidi the worms and dirt were a big hit, well the whole package was really:) Ohhh, that reminds me I still have a brownie mix from that package hidden away in my kitchen:) Yummy!