New Year's Eve

We had another surprise for the holidays. Rui and Susana called us the other day and invited us once again to come eat with their family on New Year's Eve. Don was wondering what the traditional food would be for that meal and night, and I had to laugh to myself when they put the same meal (newly cooked, of course) on the table as we had on Christmas Eve. They eat this meal other times of the year but the Christmas dinner and New Year's dinner are always the traditional "boiled" bacalhau, greens, and potatoes. I liked it even better this time but I'm not too sure about Don (I need to ask him) - he did eat a lot of potatoes though. They had more desserts and sweets this time and several traditional dishes from other parts of the country.

Anna could not come with us as she has just come down with some kind of flu but she wanted us to go on and not miss the time with them. Susana sent home a bag of desserts so that Anna would be able to enjoy some of the things we had. We got back in time to talk to Danielle on Skype and watch the New Year's celebrations on the television.

Today they want us to come to the New Year's lunch that they share. It has been such a blessing to be invited in to their family circle and even though we can not speak much with the parents and sister (well, Susana's father does speak enough to have conversation with), we left last night feeling that we know them all a little bit better. Our hope and prayer is that by next year, we will be able to sit at a table and speak only in Portuguese and be able to share our love for the Lord with them.

Hopefully Anna will feel up to coming with us today. We will have to wait and see.

This is Sissy. She is a lot of fun. She loves bread, cheese, and coffee, and probably a few other things that we don't know about. She likes to put her head on your lap hoping a few things will come her way.