Christmas, Birds, and a Lizard

So here is a long overdue update!
In December 2011, we went down to sunny Florida to celebrate Christmas and New Year with the fam. Here is part of the Christmas program at Kress Memorial SDA Church.

Below is Valmae directing a a group of children from the Sabbath schools playing bells.

Aqui vai uma actualizacao bastante atrasada. Em Dezembro fomos ate a Florida para disfrutar do clima, e para celebrar o Natal e Ano Novo com a familia. Aqui ve-se parte do programa de Natal na igreja Kress Memorial. Abaixo ve-se a Valmae a dirigir um grupo de criancas a tocarem sinos.

On Christmas Eve, we went to downtown Orlando to listen to the performance of Handel's Messiah for the Christmas Eve service at the Cathedral of St. Luke Episcopal Church. What an amazing experience!

Entretanto ouvimos que na noite de Natal havia um concerto do Messias de Haendel, parte da missa do galo na igreja episcopal. O concerto foi fantastico e uma excelente experiencia.

Beth and Ernie Bursey - wonderful friends and mentors

The choir and the pipe organ.

O coro e o orgao de tubos estavam na parte de tras da igreja.

The annual decorating of the Christmas tree with Carolyn and Cecil :) 

A Carolyn e o Cecil a decorarem a arvore de Natal.

Here is Gigi rocking the iPad!! She loved playing with those Angry Birds! :)

A Gigi a aprender a jogar na ipad... ela gostou mesmo dos angry birds! :)

...she got really into it really fast! :)

...ela aprendeu bastante rapidamente :)

stocking time! the guys stockings even came with new moustaches! :)

depois de trocarmos presentes, o Jonathan e eu com os nossos novos bigodes!

Acquire. an awesome game. why did refuse to play it for so long?! we got really into it...

e aqui com o nosso novo jogo favorito - Acquire. podem ver que nos levamos este jogo muito a serio

Rachel and Jonathan finally got to go on a roller coaster together as a couple! :) This is at Islands of Adventure with the amazing The Hulk ride! great roller coaster!

Depois de alguns anos, voltamos ao parque Islands of Adventure, o parque com as melhores montanhas russas que ja visitamos. Aqui a Rachel com o Jonathan em frente do Hulk, na primeira montanha russa em que eles foram desde que casaram.

after standing in lines for hours, fighting the crowds, and feeling guilty about how much was paid for us to go the Islands of Adventure in the first place - night finally came. loads of people left and we were actually able to get into the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter (which, during the day, had been at maximum capacity). We were able to see the village of Hogsmeade, Hogwarts castle, ride roller coasters multiple times with no wait, and drink Butterbeer (cream soda with buttery deliciousness on top!). it was fantastic day!

depois de termos andado em todas as montanhas-russas, varias vezes, la chegou a noite, e com menos pessoas no parque, la conseguimos entrar na nova parte onde foi re-criado o castelo e a vila dos livros do Harry Potter. A "montanha-russa" dentro do castelo tb foi fantastica, embora tenhamos ficado todos enjoados durante umas boas duas horas. de qualquer modo valeu a pena, os detalhes estavam bastante bem reproduzidos. Na foto ve-se o castelo de Hogwarts.

The next day, we headed to Epcot. Here we are in the American pavilion listening to the Voices of Liberty sing holiday songs - one of Valmae's favorite things in the world!

No dia seguinte fomos at Epcot. Aqui estavamos a ouvir as Vozes da Liberdade a cantarem cancoes de Natal

this is how the family settles our differences - dueling with foam swords and shields! oh yeah!

e e assim que se resolvem problemas familiares, o Cecil e o Jonathan a resolverem problemas a Viking.

here's Carolyn ready to challenge as well!

e a Carolyn na fila para o seguinte desafio.

While we were in Florida, we got a chance to spend some time with Jacob, which was awesome. Here we are bowling before we went for some delicious ice cream.

Enquanto estivemos na Florida, tivemos a oportunidade de ir visitar o Jacob e passar algum tempo com ele. aqui estamos nos a jogar bowling antes de termos jantar gelado.

Cecil, Jonathan and I were exploring Winter Park when we found this lizard on a pond. This photo is in memory of him, as seconds after I took this picture, a fish came from below and took him down to a watery grave. 

O Cecil, o Jonathan e eu estavamos a explorar Winter Park, quando vimos este lagarto num lago. Esta foto e em memoria do lagarto, ja que segundos depois de eu ter tirado a foto, um peixe veio do fundo e levou o lagarto com ele.

That same day, the three of us went to the Birds of Prey center, which is an amazing refuge for wild birds of prey.

no mesmo dia, nos fomos a um excelente refugio para aves de rapina selvagens.

Jonathan

these two were hawks, but I don't quite remember exactly what types...

estes dois eram falcoes, mas n me lembro as especies de cada um.

this bald-eagle has lived all her life in captivity, as she was brought to the center right after she had hatched. She imprinted on humans, and has certain physical disabilities that would not allow her to survive outside. Most birds at the center are returned to the wild, but she is an exception.

Esta aguia careca tem vivido toda a sua vida em captividade, porque foi entregue ao centro mal tinha saido do ovo. A aguia registou em humanos como se fossem os seus pais, e por causa de algumas disabilidades fisicas ela nunca teria sobrevivido num ambiente selvagem. De qualquer modo, a maioria dos passaros voltam ao ambiente selvagem.

great horned-owl, awesome bird.

uma coruja (aparentemente jacurutu em portugues de acordo com o google)

well that's all for now. more to come very soon as I am in catch-up mode!

mais muito em breve!

Thanksgiving!

Fall is now officially over (even though it really doesn't feel like it as we haven't had any snow to speak of yet...)

Ja la vai o Outono, o Inverno veio para ficar (embora n pareca nada sem neve no chao...)

...but before it left for good, we had a chance to enjoy an amazing ice cream staple in Greenwood - Mrs. Curl. This was the last day it was open for the season...but we were super bummed that we hadn't found it earlier...this place has the MOST amazing homemade curly fries and ice cream we had ever tasted!  We are already counting down the days until it opens in March!

No entanto, antes de dizermos adeus ao Outono, tivemos a oportunidade de disfrutar da loja de gelados da Sra. Curl. Sem duvida um dos melhores gelados que ja comemos, mas ainda melhor --  as melhores batatas fritas encaracoladas caseiras:) Estamos a contar os dias para a re-abertura em Marco!

It has become a sort of tradition in the Baltazar household to make grape juice in the fall...but this year the mix of grapes we used didn't taste as good as we had expected, so we made the juice into jelly instead (which actually is GREAT and lasts longer...so woohoo!!)

entretanto, como ja comeca a ser tradicao, fizemos sumo de uva...  mas como n gostamos da mistura das uvas, acabou por se tornar em compota (que ate ficou mt boa, e dura mais tempo! ;). 

and look who helped! :)

One of the many great things about Indianapolis is that it has cheap hockey, which we love! We two and Amber headed down to an Indiana Ice game a few Saturday nights ago to watch them play against the Muskegon Lumber Jacks. We had great seats and had a lot of fun....

Uma das vantagens de viver em Indianapolis e hoquei barato! O nome da equipa e os Indiana Ice, e fomos ve-los jogar num destes Sabados a noite contra os Muskegon Lumber Jacks, e embora os Ice tenham perdido o jogo, nos divertimo-nos bastante.

Amber even made a new friend!!! :) he thought she was pretty great :) 

A Amber fez um novo amigo!!:) ele gostou bastante dela :)

This Thanksgiving, we decided to buck up and actually run in the YMCA Buffalo Turkey Trot with Sarah and Chris (since we have wussed out on it the last few years!). Here are some of the 13,000 runners that we joined to run the 8K through Buffalo, New York, after driving for 9 hours, arriving at 3:00am, and then getting up to run at 7:00am...we were a bit beat afterwards! However, it was a lot of fun running in the oldest race in the US (it was 116 years old this year!) and we were glad we did it!

E aqui estamos (detras da camara) em Buffalo, Nova Yorque para celebrar o dia de accao de gracas com a familia. Depois de conduzir 9 horas e termos chegado as 3 da manha, levantamos as 7 para correr 8kms com outras 13.000 pessoas na corrida mais antiga dos Estados Unidos (116 anos)!

and here we are at the end...cold, tired, but happy we all finished strong! :)

e aqui estamos nos no final da corrida:)

Some Occupy protesters we found in downtown Buffalo

Protestantes do movimento Occupy na baixa de Buffalo.

Brother-in-law Jonathan flying his awesome kite.

- Commercial Break!! - 

If you want to hear an amazing rendition of "We Three Kings" - head on over to Jonathan's website (http://www.jonathanmeharry.com/)! The song is currently available for a free download! We did the photography for the cover, so besides the fact that we love him...we also feel pretty close to the project!

O Jonathan a fazer voar o seu "papagaio" -- No caso de n saberem, ele lancou um novo single, uma cancao de Natal que esta disponivel gratis! Nos tiramos a fotos para a cada do cd, o que foi muito divertido! Aqui vai o link para a cancao - http://www.jonathanmeharry.com/

Poor George...he never quite understands why so many people come over for Thanksgiving, make a ton of amazing food, and then never share with him...

O George - em honra do seu paciente caracter durante o dia de accao de gracas, quando abundam deliciosos aromas, e todas as suas tentativas de partilhar da refeicao sao ignoradas.

On Sabbath we headed down to ___________ to see this gorgeous gorge :)

No Sabado fomos visitar um parque nacional num sitio qualquer no estado de Nova Iorque, e caminhamos ao longo DO desfiladeiro. Estas cataratas sao as irmas mais pequenas das famosas cataratas do Niagara.

All the cousins :)

Todos os primos :)

The pictures of this place just don't do it justice! It was enormous!
Check out these two pictures of Cecil...

As fotos deste desfiladeiro n lhe fazem justica! Era enorme!
Vejam estas duas fotos do Cecil...

(can you find the blue dot...?)

(veem o ponto azul...?)

us :)

nos :)

Reuben had a great time attacking everybody with leaves :)

O Reuben divertiu-se bastante a atacar-nos com folhas :)

big Lowry....little Lowry... :)

grande Lowry... pequeno Lowry... :)

our family portrait for 2011 (aren't we so lucky to have an actual knight in the family?! :)
and next year there will be another little one in the photo - Chris and Sarah are having a girl in May!!!

o retrato de familia de 2011 (somos sortudos por ter um cavaleiro na familia!) e no proximo ano vamos ter mais um rebento na foto - O Chris e a Sarah vao ter uma menina em Maio!!

well that's all for now - more updates coming soon! :)

e e tudo por agora - mais daqui a pouco tempo! :)