Avo with a team of Oxen. Gabe gave him a bit of a tongue lashing after this because it was fairly dangerous. The bull on the left is very unhappy because Avo grabbed his horn, and he could have stabbed him with it pretty quick. But, Gabe also admits that Avo has been around Oxen his whole life, and was probably quite comfortable where he was. The bull on the right loved him though. He is licking his hand.

The one of Gabriel with the bull isn't as bad. He says. He is back away from the horn, and didn't grab the horn.

Bela got her face painted. It turned out really cute. This day was probably the funnest one she had there. It was at a little fair, and they had all the bulls, and face painting and balloon animals, and a huge blow up slide.

The town square in Velas, the biggest town on the island.

Superstar! What a little ham. We knew these people. One of the ladies is Gabe's neighbor and her mother, and one is Gabe's cousin.

We are working on getting some more pictures up. We took a lot of pictures, and there are so many that I love. But there are also some pictures that say, "Why did you take a picture of this?" And there are some others that say, "Why did you take 10 pictures of this?"

These are some pictures I took with Brian's camera. I am really glad I had both cameras. Brian's camera is just fun. You pay a lot more attention to what is in the frame, and they come out so good. With the digital one, I took several more pictures of the same thing, and could make sure I had a good one. I always wanted to have both camera's with me everyday.



They have one of these catholic churches in every single town. They were all pretty small, and looked almost identical to this one. The white walls, dark edges and tower with a bell, and they were all dated with the year they were built. I don't remember what the year on this one was. This is the same church that I took pictures of from our apartment, from far away with the cliffs in the background.



This is a view from the place we stayed at. The waves seemed to come at different angles when we would look out. On this day, they were at a pretty sharp angle. Some other days, the waves were more even with the shore line, instead of angled like this. This is the ocean between the two islands, San Jorge and Pico. When you would look at the water on different days, it would look like it is traveling in different directions. I thought I was loosing my mind the first few days, until Gabe said something about it.

This is the little beach Bela and I would walk to. It was very rocky, as you can see. When a wave would go out, you would hear a low pitched rumble, like thunder. It took me a day or two to figure out that it was the rocks being dragged out with the water. It was a little scary. We did not go wading. You can also see the church in the background.

Pretty cliffs. Very pretty cliffs.

this is pico island

anabela
cheer with agua or water in the plane

anabela and mama by avo's house

anabela playing with agua from xafariz gabriel used to get water from xafariz to take home back when he lived there,water to drink, make food ,wash ,etc .every town has one they are all dated with the year they were built

This is our last day in the Azores. We flew to San Miguel Island and our lay over was just long enough to meet up with his brother Ludjero for about an hour. It was interesting to see him. He was night and day different from everyone else we had met on San Jorge Island. I thought he looked a lot like Gabe's dad in his younger pictures.

Neither one of them recognized the other when we came out of the airport. The airport was very small, and most of the people that made the trip on the plane didn't leave the security area because they were moving on to Lisbon or something. Ludjero and his fiance were the only people waiting, and Gabe and I were the only people coming out. It took a minute, but they finally realized who the other was.

The last time Gabriel saw Ludjero, Ludjero was only 8. Now is 30! Gabriel was about 17 the last time Ludjero saw him, and the first thing Ludjero said was that he didn't recognize him because he was fat.

Gabriel and Ludjero Ludjero and his fiance. Unfortunately, we don't remember her name. Well, Gabe doesn't remember her name. I didn't know it, cause I couldn't ask her.

Bela and Ludjero. She warmed up to him pretty good.

This is Ludjero's fiance's little sister, Alexandra. She was a cutie. She watched Bela almost the whole time so the grown ups cold talk. When Bela was a little loud or ran off, the big sister would deliver a harsh word to Alexandra. I thought that was interesting. I still got after Bela, but I guess it's was just automatically the little sister's job to tend her. Not a bad idea.

So we got back Tuesday around 10 pm, and we got our bags back Thursday around 7 pm. No trouble for us though. It was just a bunch of dirty clothes.
Here are some more pictures. The island we were on was extremely laid back and slow paced. Very old buildings, not many modern structures, we saw very few people that had all their teeth, and most of the buildings were lava rock stacked up and plastered. Sometimes not even plastered. The roads were narrow, and there was no shoulder. When you parked, you just parked on the road and people drove around your car. That was so funny to me. Ants and flies everywhere, even in the restaurants, (well, bars that serve food is a little more accurate.) There were still miles and miles of lava rock walls dividing the pastures, and those dark heavy rocky walls just made the blue sky and green plants that much more beautiful. It was really pretty when it was foggy, because the rock walls you could see forever, but the green trees and other plants would disappear in to the white clouds. When it was foggy, the white Hydrangers looked like the fog jumping out from the distance and resting on the leaves. To sum up, even though there were there were some modern sights, that island was a step back in time.
When we flew out to go home, we stopped in another Island, San Miguel. We were able to meet up with his brother for a few minutes there. San Miguel was very modern. It had beaches, roads with more than one lane, parking lots, restaurants that weren't buzzing with flies, and very modern and pretty buildings and hotels. People were dressed very nicely, with chains around their nekcs and gel in their hair. The town could have been plucked out of the east coast somewhere. If I hadn't been able to see it, I would have been under the impression that all the islands were like St. George. But they weren't. St. George was still small and quaint and old. It was very charming though. Where else was Bela going to be able to see someone milk a goat, fetch the chicken eggs in an abandon rock house, play in grape vines, and wake up to a rooster? Or pick an endless number of flowers to put in her hair? Walk down the road and stop to feed a baby cow?

This is a picture at his aunt's house. It was beautiful. They had a really great view too, but you can't really see it cause it was foggy on this day. They had plants everywhere, and some potted cactuses. Lots of people had cactuses in pots. The white house in the forground on the right is the living house. In the back on the left is the house where he has a contraption to grind corn in to flour. With a donkey. The house on the right in the back is their store house. They had potatoes all over the floor, piles and piles of onions and corn hanging from the ceiling.

This is a church. I have about 20 pictures of this church, because it was close to where we were staying and I thought is was so pretty with that old building up against those huge cliffs.

Lava rocks.

We're back!

We're finally back! We got back at about 10 pm last night. We were all exhausted, and the traveling was horrible. But I'n glad we were able to go, and Gabe is already talking about next year's plans.

Here is Bela imitating the "Avo Bird"

Ok, here are some things I am looking forward to:

airplane rides
Bela getting to ride on an airplane
ferry rides and boat rides
taking pictures flowers and people and the ocean and cliffs
smelling the ocean
seeing Bela play with goats
old buildings
seeing Gabe see his Dad

Here are some things that are worrying me:

Bela riding on an airplane
making all the transfers
weird food
starving
Bela starving
Gabe filming a pig being slaughtered
Gabe running in to his Stepmother
money
the plane crashing

Here are some things we had to buy for the trip:

film, alot of it.
memory cards, alot of them
a leash for Bela
jack converters
tape for video camera
some clean shirts for me, (gotta make a good impression)

Welcome to the blog for our trip to Portugal!

Of all the things that are exciting and new about a trip to a foriegn country, Gabe has been talking a lot about some local birds that would sing him to sleep when he was a boy. He has been mimmicking the sound they make, and Bela has picked up on it. Of all the things...