Well apparently it's December already and, true to form, we haven't posted anything for a few months. As we've mentioned before, life here is pretty easy and it's a drastic change from the craziness of India where we would see something new and bizarre every day. Life in POA is not that much different than being in the US which is nice although it doesn't lend itself to many interesting and unique stories or pictures. Even so, we are loving it here and life is good.
Elizabeth is in the final days of pregnancy and we are ready and waiting for the arrival of Sofia as well as Kent, Pam, and Marie who will be arriving in a few days with ALL of our baby supplies! Hope they get here before the baby does! She has had a very easy and successful pregnancy so far and we hope the delivery will follow suit. Hopefully the baby will be a new catalyst for some regular blogging! :-)
The last few months have been great albeit uneventful. We ended our first semester of school and so far things are going well. There are some frustrations here and there being that it is a growing school in a country with overwhelming bureaucracy but all in all we are both loving our jobs and the kids and colleagues at the school. We've made some good friends both in and out of school and have enjoyed hanging out with all sorts of people and even having a delicious little Thanksgiving feast for all us Americans from the school.Otherwise, our only other big adventure is trying to buy a car in the coming weeks which so far has been pretty successful. It took some time and research but we finally found some websites to search used cars and even made it to some dealers to look at a few. So far so good.
As for daily life, we are finally settled into our apartment now that our shipment (FINALLY!) arrived with surprisingly no major mold or damage (only one broken frame on a painting that we have had repaired). Just some wiping down of furniture and lots of laundry and we are now settled with all our stuff and it feels like home.
We have finished our Portuguese classes for the time being until the baby comes but 5 months of regular classes has done us a lot of good and we are able to do most things by ourselves now without the help of a language buddy. We've bought furniture, paid bills, had doctor appointments, and even talked on the phone with a good level of success. Hopefully we can continue to practice after the baby comes since we have learned a lot in a short time and don't want to start losing it!
Other than that, life rolls on and all is good down here. We are on vacation until February which gives us lots of adjustment time with the baby before I have to go back to work.
We had a quiet Christmas with just the 2 of us watching movies, listening to Christmas music and playing some games, trying to make it feel as Christmas-y as possible given that it's summer time and there's nobody around. :-/ But it was nice and we are ready for the new year and baby Sofia!
We have received a few Christmas letters and cards from folks in the US which is fun (and reassuring that the local mail seems to work quite reliably here). Sounds like things are good on the home front. Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a great new year! The next post will probably be when Sofia arrives! Lots of pictures and videos to come, promise!
Boas Festas!!
um abraço K&E
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