Zach and rice cereal

Even though none of my kids have liked rice cereal, I always try it out first.

So we got all set up and ready to go. Bib...check. Spoon...check. High chair...check.





First bite. He wasn't very cooperative, but eventually he opened up.




He didn't hate it, but didn't quite like it either.




Not sure what this face says, but it looks a bit worried to me. But no worries, seeing as I am behind in blogging, he has since moved on to fruits and vegetables and quite likes them. So far it seems that bananas and peaches are his favorite and he still gags quite a bit on green beans. I'm not gonna lie, he eats like a champ.

Botanical Gardens

Rob and I took the kids to the Botanical Gardens. We have been and Kaelin went for a school trip but the rest of the kids have never been there. It's in the capital city, Angra, which is about 30 minutes away. The kids have now come to know this as "really far, far away". Kaelin is rarely in the car for longer than 10 min. and now seems to get a little car sick whenever its any longer.



The Gardens span up a pretty steep hill/mountain so we started at the top and then drove to the bottom so they could enjoy the majority of the gardens without us having to walk all the way up and then back down again. You might call it lazy but we like to call it efficient.



I tried to get a group picture but they were all too excited to get together for 20 seconds so I have individual shots. This is young Zachary, obviously.



The beautiful Miss Kae



Sean boy, who wouldn't even look at me.



Vanna Mei's best smile especially for you.



There is a large obelisk at the top that I'm sure has some significance to the island's history or unique form of Catholicism, but I can't remember what it is. Also the sign is in Portuguese.




Right as we were getting ready to drive down, we smelled THE smell that everyone dreads and started looking at the bottom of everyone's shoes. Sure enough Savanna was the carrier of some stinky mess. So with the help of LOTS of baby wipes we cleaned up as best we could and headed to the entrance to the gardens.



This is the gate at the entrance.




I sat on a bench with Zach and the kids pretty much ran for 20 minutes. Chasing pigeons, smelling flowers or just plain running.



I tried to snap a picture of Vanna and she was almost too fast for me.



One of the coolest things I've seen here is the ingenuity of brooms. I have never seen this, maybe some of you have but it's new to me. If you need to sweep up the dirt, leaves and twigs that are littering your garden. Just grab some trimmed branches from a near-by bush and tie them to a stick and voila! Instant broom. The gardeners use these, the street cleaners in the city and the little old widow ladies in the small villages. I just think it is neat.




This is the gazebo and coi pond in the middle of the lower garden. The building behind is the Angra Gardens Hotel. You can get a room with a view of the garden and then walk out the front right into the city square and the walking shopping streets.









They also had some shaped bushes. There was a teapot, a chair, a basket and a few others that weren't quite filled out yet. the kids all wanted a picture sitting in the chair bush. So here you go.








Then finally I got them to slow down long enough for a group picture but by this time Zach was asleep walking around with Daddy. "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit", right?

Sean and Legos

Sean loves Legos and Legos love Sean (if they could, they would).

This is one of his creations. Can you see what it is? It is a house on fire, the fireman has his hose. I love it! I especially love the man running out the back.

Merry Christmas from the Azores!

I decided to start fresh. It's too overwhelming right now to try and play the catch up game with this blog so I'm starting from now. If I get more time to go back and do past posts than I will.

Merry Christmas

We've had some unseasonably warm days here. Usually we would have rainy, windy, chilly days and instead we get a chilly beach day.






This is the view of the Mary statue from the beach down below. If you can see those rock walls going up the side of the mountain, those are stairs that you can hike to get to the top. It's about a winding quarter mile of stairs. I have yet to walk them because of pregnancy but I hope do it soon.





They kids knew it was too cold to swim but they wanted to wear suits anyway. Savanna didn't want her suit. In this picture Sean is being Indiana Jones. He kept climbing the rock wall/hill and running down a sandy slide/hill and doing it all over.






Kaelin had fun letting her feet sink into the sand. She eventually fell in and got quite cold. Luckily it was time for us to go anyway.









We don't have any beach toys (lame, I know) so they dug with plastic spoons. This is actually the boat docking place. The real beach is on the other side.






this side has the boats <--- /This side has the real beach--->


Savanna fell in and was not happy. I told her we could leave or she could go play more. She decided to play more. She also never wanted to change, it's now almost bedtime and she is still in those clothes.






It was by no means warm, just warmer than usual. I had to try and keep a blanket wrapped on Zach. The street behind us has a hotel and restaurants. The white building by Zachary's ear is one of our favorite restaurants. He will be 5 months on the 22nd! Crazy!








This is the actual beach, but it's set up for the windy winters here. Those green fabric walls work and wind breakers to help keep the sand where it belongs.







I DID IT!

I have had a goal to get a picture of a cow close to the ocean. I see it all the time but I never have my camera. This time I did. Yeah! One more thing to cross off my Terceira list.

There's no cows in this one, don't worry, you're not blind. I just wanted to show the cliff, right at the edge of the cow field.

I'm back!

Alright everybody, if you're still out there? I am finally back to blogging. It has been a LONG time. The baby is good and the computer is functioning so, it is ON.


Now, we have to go way back to Germany. SO to refresh your memory we left off with an introduction to our hotel. To make it easy, for me, these blog posts will be short and I'm going to try to stick with one event at a time. So, one of the first places we went was the BX. It was huge! Think mall and you've got the Ramstein BX. Of course I had to stop somewhere near and dear to my heart.



TACO BELL




See the joy on my face? Crunch wrap supreme, MmMm!

No, they were not both mine. But, I did take some extra tacos back to the hotel with us.

Birth Story

I love reading the "birth story" so if you do too, here you go.

If you don't already know I was in England for the birth. Since we don't have an American hospital here on Terceira, we have the option to be sent to an Air Force base in England or Germany OR stay and give birth in a Portuguese hospital. For many reasons I chose England and then with the diagnosis of Gestational Diabetes, I was sent a little bit earlier. So from the middle of June until the baby was born I was in a hotel-type room. Alright here we go...

On July 22, I woke up at 3 am for my regular potty break and when I climbed back into bed I noticed I was having slight contractions. So out of curiosity I stayed awake to try and time them. They were really easy, and short contractions so I decided to go back to sleep. I couldn't fall back asleep, mostly because I was distracted by the contractions. So I took some Tylenol and read a book in a warm bath. The contractions didn't stop but neither did they increase in pain or length. After a LONG bath (it was a good book) I got out and toweled off. I notice a very light tinge of blood on the towel and figured that this was the real deal and should start getting ready for the hospital. This is after 4am, and I woke up my Mom and gathered the few last minute things for my bag. We called my "go to" person for our ride to the hospital. It is walking distance, maybe 5 min, but the contractions increased in pain and I didn't really want to walk. We wait outside to be picked up. When her van pulls up I have a big, bad contraction to the point where I couldn't move. So I'm standing in the middle of the road backing up the small amount of traffic there is at 4:30 in the morning on an AF base. I make it in the van, drive around the corner and into the Emergency Room parking lot. My driver (thank goodness) runs in and get the attendants to bring out a wheelchair. I get in pass along all pertinent information and head up the elevator. The labor nurse asks if I can get into the bed on my own, which I do. SIX MINUTES later Zachary Hayes Carlsen is laying at the bottom of the bed. 6lbs. 12oz. in weight 18 1/2 in in length born at 4:51 am. By the time the doctor got there I was just waiting around for a few stitches. I'm very thankful for my Mom being there with me, for Cindy for driving me to the hospital (and everywhere else), and the labor nurse who helped breath and focus because I don't think anyone was expecting it to happen that fast.

Now, he is 1 month old and doing fantastic. I figured I better get this story documented before he get too old.

Slacker

Yes, I know I am a major slacker about blogging these days. And I won't be getting around to it anytime soon either, because I am flying to England to have this baby of mine on Thursday. It would be a great time to blog seeing as I'll be sitting around with no kids, but I won't have any of my photos. So, the next time you'll hear anything from this blog won't be until August something or another unless Rob decides to blog in his "spare" time. Wish me good luck and send Rob luck and prayers.

Polly want a cracker

I have to put this video on. It has nothing to do with Germany and everything to do with how silly Savanna can be. Give it a watch and have a good laugh.

Germany-2

Sorry this one is a little lame because it's just about our hotel and a little of the surrounding area. Sorry, you have to wade through the less cool stuff before you can get to the castles and dinosaurs. I don't think there will much commentary.


The name of our hotel, obviously.



Here is the green lantern to go along with the name.




The view out our window, there is a castle up on the ridge.




Here is a zoom of the castle. We visited it twice but that is another post.






We decided to go walking around the neighborhood our first day there. One reason was to see what was close and two so that we could get to the rental car place. That church had such random bells. They were never the right number to be the time. Sunday had all sorts of bells I would assume they went along with their services.





Down the street in the other direction. This is a good picture because it reminds me that I need to get the pictures off of Kaelin's camera. I'm pretty sure this was the only day that she took her own pictures anyway.




A cute little side road on our walking trip. It sort of reminded me of where I grew up in NJ.


We passed a lot of shops but all seemed to be closed because it was Sunday. It was nice to see that the town/country had so many things closed on the Sabbath Day. We finally found the rental car place but that too was closed. We kind of expected it but thought we'd take a chance.
Instead of walking all the way back, we stopped in this gas station to call for a taxi. They were extremely nice and even gave the kids some crackers.




We hung out on the sidewalk for what ended up being a really long time. We have been so used to standing out in Portugal that it was weird to blend in so well and see such diversity. We did a lot of people watching sitting on this sidewalk.




Now you have to not look too closely to these pictures. I wanted to take some when we first got there but we weren't in our room for too long. We really only used our room to sleep. Rob took these pictures almost at the end of our trip so the room is pretty trashed, with dirty clothes, opened suitcases, unmade beds, food wrappers, and all the random stuff we collected over the week. So bare with me.




My legs and hips were having a tough time so I was taking some down time with my book. The pillows are huge squares, but they are soft enough that you can fold them in half. It's kind of smart because if you want a really soft pillow you just leave it and if you need more firmness, go ahead and fold it in half.




Savanna was in our room on a fold out bed, when it's folded it looks just like the chair that Kaelin is on. All the tv was in German so the kids are watching a movie on the IPAD until bedtime.




Sean was posing on the window sill. He also got a haircut at the BX while we were there. I couldn't get any picture of that because he fell asleep during and I was busy holding his head.



Our green and brown bathroom. Those little shelves got quite full because that was all the counter space. It also had a shower and a tub. The kids thought that was cool.




This was the kids room. Overall, we really enjoyed our hotel. We were glad that the tv was in German because then we didn't watch any. We were glad there weren't many sitting places because then we just stayed out until bedtime. I was glad there was really no where to eat because then I was able to get lots of fast food.

More on the fast food I ate in a later post, but I will tell you that I have gained 10lbs. in the past month and I don't think it's all baby and I don't doubt that I gained it all in our one week in Germany.