Robertsons & Daughters: The Azores- São Miguel

YAY!!! Time for Spring Break 2024! We were going to go to Arizona for spring break. I saw a YouTuber that I love to watch, Dawn Madsen, was going to Mexico for a mission trip. I then switched plans and we talked to Lee's brother Kent and his wife Saundra about coming to Cape Verde and helping there. I told my kids we weren't going to go on a lot of trips this year so Haley and Shanna could work. Each of my kids needs to save a set amount of money before leaving home. But then we ended up scheduling a few trips! Like going to England soon.....

Our vehicles are on the tail end of their lives. We decided to do two one-way rentals to and from the Boston Airport. We flew from Boston to Praia which saved us $1500 and a 10 hour layover. We had to make sure to bring only things that we were flying with. Can't leave blankets and pillows in rentals. Well, you can but you won't get them back!

New York City on the drive up.

On the way to Praia we had a 24 hour layover in the Azores. We were on the island São Miguel. We spent a lot of time in Ponta Delgada and out in the country. I should have thought the flights through and stayed through Monday so we could go to church in Ponta Delgada. I contacted the airline several times but they wouldn't switch our flights unless we paid a big fee. The connecting flight from Ponta Delgada to Praia was free, so I was hoping they wouldn't charge me. Sadly we missed church that day.

Quick note, Clark at a talent show playing piano and the euphonium.

And a duck in Haley's Forensics class with Mrs. Woodall.

A sunrise one morning on the way home from seminary.

The kids did seminary online that morning and then we went to the foot doctor for Lee. He broke his foot and didn't know why. He had been wearing a boot for the past 6 weeks. The doctor said to wear it one more week, but Lee threw it away at the office.

Kent and Saundra wanted a few things from the states. Saundra had a few things shipped to us. It was funny because that morning or the night before I told her, last chance--we're at Walmart at 8:30am for anything else!

The route by my parents took the same amount of time as going through DC. We had some extra time so we swung by there to say hi and get ice cream.

FINALLY!!! Boston!

Made it through security and getting our bags checked! Our flight left pretty late, 10:30pm.

We had a meal on the way to the Azores, at about 11:30pm. Kind of funny.

On the way up to the airport we discovered some cool things about the minivan--like back seat cameras!

We made to the Azores! They are a group of islands part of Portugal.

When we first arrived they held our luggage back since we were just doing a layover. But we weren't prepared with just our backpacks for our 24-hour stay. We got our luggage then the rental car. Thankfully Lee has cell service overseas with Verizon and thankfully I had WhatsApp already. We drove by the place that we rented for the night, an apartment at a boutique hotel. Someone was there and dropped off our luggage. But then I checked WhatsApp and saw that we could check in. There isn't staff there all the time and I wanted to make sure we could get our luggage. So since they were there, and we could check in--it was only about 9:30am, we flipped around and went right back to the hotel. We got our luggage out of the office and brought it up to our apartment. It was such a cool space!

We walked down to the beach for a first excursion.

We did a little downtown as well. Fancy underground bathrooms.

We needed to pay for parking and couldn't figure out the onlin qr code payment. I stayed with the car and Lee and some kids went to an ATM to get cash AND then bought something to get small change.

Love the walkways and paths. So beautiful!

It was a bit cool outside and very cloudy.

We tried to go up the bell tower, but it was closed on Saturday.

We saw some of the country side and went on a hike. It was so cloudy!!! Loved walking along the ridge.

We explored an area with some type of bridge or wall.

We were supposed to see this view from the top of our hike but it was too cloudy. We got to see this lower down. These are lakes by volcanoes.

We stopped at a grocery store for snacks and ice cream.

Mini-mini potato chips!

I love these carts at grocery stores. They have them in Europe too. Not sure why we don't have them in the US!

Yum. Frozen fish in the freezer.

The store had a little seating area which was nice! And no one kicked us out for using it either.

These pine trees are unreal and very cool!

After our hike and treats and driving around, we stopped by the ocean again and explored a fort.

Our "hotel!" The kitchen was very streamlined and modern. And we forgot our outlet adapters there. Ugh. The panel with the paper on it is the fridge. Below it is the freezer. Oh, we even got breakfast included! I asked for croissants, yogurt and chocolate milk. They gave us baguette type break, yogurt and Nesquik powder to make hot chocolate in a coffee pod machine.

We went out to eat that night so parked and walked around downtown again.

These were people of some religious order or something.

Dinner at Tasca! We had a REALLY long wait, but it worked out fine.

Shanna ordered fried octopus....

These puff pastries filled with cheese, honey and walnuts were pretty tasty.

Lee and Haley ordered this grain dish that had a raw egg on top and a WHOLE shrimp....shrimpy head and eyes included. The server mixed in the raw egg right at the table. Thankfully we had already been to Japan. Having a raw egg on top of your food and then mixing it in is really normal there.

I ordered a bean stew.

Night life!

Back at the ranch....Frozen 2 haha.

Another flight! On our way to Praia. The plane left an hour late. It was funny, we saw a McDonald's in Ponta Delgada but didn't go there because we figured there was one in Praia and we told Elden that we would go there. But there wasn't one. We loved our time in the Azores and wish we had a few more days there--and a bit warmer weather!