Anniversary Trip to the Algarve

At the end of May, Rusty and I were able to spend two nights in the Algarve (southern coastal region of Portugal) in celebration of our 12th anniversary -- one last trip for just the two of us before the new baby arrives. Thanks to the Meyer family and the Reese family, who each took a night keeping our boys while we were gone!

We headed out of Lisbon around 11:00 a.m. and drove south across the Rio Tejo to the Parque Natural da Arrábida, between Sesimbra and Setúbal. We had lunch at a restaurant right on the water (literally!) and overlooking the bay. Then, after fighting beach traffic for almost two hours, we finally made it to Setúbal and the expressway and headed south to the Algarve.

Waiting for our lunch

Hilltop view overlooking our restaurant and the bay

We stayed in a lovely, quiet bed-and-breakfast on a small family farm near the town of Rogil on the southwestern coast, within walking distance of a gorgeous clifftop view of the ocean:

The first night, we had requested to have our hosts prepare dinner for us, and we were so glad we did, partially because we arrived pretty late and were tired, but also because it was a truly wonderful meal, probably one of the best and most authentic Portuguese meals we have ever had. Multiple courses, including freshly grilled fish and regional specialties, served to us in their dining room. The family ate in the kitchen, which surprised us at first, but we ended up really enjoying the peace and quiet and uninterrupted conversation.

The next morning, after breakfast, we went exploring! We drove all the way down to the southwestern-most point in all of Europe, the Cabo de São Vincente, stopping to admire the views of the coast and even take a few short beach walks along the way:

After lunch in the town of Sagres, we found a nice beach and spent the afternoon soaking in the sun and watching the waves. We had dinner that night at a beach-front restaurant, and the sunset was spectacular:

After breakfast the next day, we headed to the beach again for a couple of hours. Then, after lunch, it was time to head back to Lisbon. We had a wonderful time -- it was the perfect blend of relaxation and sight-seeing. And the Algarve truly is as beautiful as everyone says it is -- just don't go there in August with everyone else in Europe!

12 years!

Adeus, Angola Team!

Despite my best intentions, I just can't seem to get back on the blogging bandwagon and stay there. I thought after our team left for Angola and life slowed down a bit for us, I would have time to get caught up on several projects, blogging being one of them. But, here it is, 3+ weeks after they left, and I still haven't posted a single entry.

So, yes... we said goodbye to our teammates on July 8th and sent them on their way to Angola. We were excited for them, that this long-awaited day had finally arrived. At the same time, it is always hard to be the ones "left behind." Following their adventures from afar via email, Facebook, and the occasional Skype call, our lives seem almost normal and boring by comparison. Our schedule is suddenly lighter, and it's a lot quieter around here! It's strange to think that they aren't just a phone call away anymore.

I thought it would be fun to recap the last several months with some snapshots of some of our team events. These will go back to mid-February when we returned to Portugal from the States. First, some people pictures:

Me, Teague, and Katie at the church Valentine's Day Dinner

Rusty and the Reeses, soaking in the sun.

Stephen loves his Auntie Jordan!

All dressed up for church, waiting for the subway.

Stephen and Biruk, sharing a seat on the bus.

And now, some events:

In March, we held our first ever Angola Team Track and Field Day. Events included relay races, a game of kickball, and tug-of-war contests, followed by a picnic lunch.

Helping the dads and kids build a pyramid together

In April, we hosted our second Passover Seder at our house. This year, the entire team was able to join us, except for Nathan, who happened to be the U.S. at the time. 

Ready to begin the service.

One of the things we have really enjoyed doing as a team is celebrating the holidays together and creating some of our own unique traditions. This year, we had our first Easter Party. The kids did an Easter craft, and hunted for Easter eggs on the lawn at the Bible Institute (where the Meyers and Jordan lived). We followed all that up with a yummy lunch of brisket, made by Robert.

Showing off their Easter crafts

In May, the Meyers hosted an American-style barbeque and invited all the friends they had made while living in Portugal. The rest of the team helped out by bringing American desserts like brownies, peach cobbler, and chocolate chip cookies.

The grill-master

After their visas were finally approved, life was a whirlwind of activity for a few weeks. There were travel and logistical arrangements to make, packing to do, and many goodbyes and thank-yous to be said:

One of the people we especially wanted to thank was our language teacher, Eunice. We decided to have the kids do a group craft project for her. One of the things they know her for is always having chupa-chupas (suckers) on hand to give to them when they visit the school. So, we had them paint a box that she could keep her chupa-chupas in, and we put a picture of all the kids on the top, glassed-in part of the box.

Hard at work, painting the box

The picture we took to put in the top of the box. If you look closely, you can see that all the kids have a chupa-chupa -- yes, even little Sophia!

Goodbye lunch with Eunice

On their last Sunday at the Lisbon Church, the team provided breakfast during the fellowship time between class and the service. At the end of the service, the church did a special goodbye for the team. The children all sang a song, and then some of the leaders of the church prayed over them.

Apparently, Alex thinks he is going to Angola with everyone else. Too bad he doesn't have a visa yet!

Kevin and Angelina Mullins hosted our Fourth of July get-together this year. The Mullins are an American couple who are in Portugal to do church planting and have been attending the Lisbon church for the past few months while they learn Portuguese. We had a cook-out and a devo, and Robert treated all of us to a truly hilarious performance of "The Star Spangled Banner." We even had sparklers for the kids (but we forgot to actually get them out and use them)!

Praise time

My flag cake -- it turned out super cute, and yummy too!

On the day of their departure, we went to the airport to say goodbye. There were a few tears, and a funny moment when Stephen started chasing after everyone as they were walking to the security check-point, yelling "I want to go to Angola, too! I want to go to Angola, too!" But for the most part, we were full of joy and excitement to finally send them on their way, after so many months of planning, waiting, and praying:

Stephen giving Aunt Teague a ride on the luggage cart

Goodbye hugs

"Safe travels..."

 And finally, our most recent team photo:

July 5, 2011

Celebrating our teammates' visa success

Wedding Gift Idea: A Year of Monthly Date Nights

One year ago, my brother Matt married the lovely Miss Janille Wood. About a week and a half later, at our family reunion in Hot Springs, Arkansas, we gave the new couple our family's wedding gift to them, A Year of Monthly Date Nights! Now that Matt and Janille have been married for a year and have opened and (hopefully) used all their monthly date night packages, I can share more details about this gift -- you know, just in case anyone out there is looking for creative and meaningful wedding gift ideas!

Basically, this gift was a take-off of the "date-night-in-a-box" idea, but instead of giving the couple just one Date Night, we decided to give them 12, one for each month of their first year of marriage. This is a great gift for a young couple, just starting out, both still in school, who might not be able to afford expensive dates on top of their bills and other expenses. It also encourages the habit of continuing to "date" your spouse after the wedding, which is so important to maintaining a healthy relationship (but so much harder to do when careers and families are growing)!

Rusty was the creative genius behind this gift idea. Then, together, we came up with the 12 monthly "themes," and we tried to keep them seasonal as much as possible. For example, we assigned the "outdoorsy" type dates to spring and summer months. The date night for the month of December was assigned a Christmas theme. We came up with some ideas of what should be included in each month's package. When my mom and my sister decided that they wanted to help out with this gift, we just asked them how many months they wanted, and then we assigned them some from our list and gave them ideas of what to include, but basically told them just to stick with the theme and be creative. So, this gift also works well as a "group gift" (and it's certainly more economical if you do it that way).

Matt and Janille received two large reusable Walmart shopping bags (you could also use a laundry basket, Rubbermaid tub, or any other large container) containing 12 individually-wrapped packages, each labeled with a month of the year. They were instructed to open one package per month, beginning in August, the month after their wedding. Here are the 12 themes we used, and some examples of things you could include in each package. You could certainly alter this by adding and subtracting themes to fit the tastes and personalities of the couple.

• Movie In -- a DVD, microwave popcorn or other snacks, packets of hot chocolate
• Dinner Out -- gift certificate to one of their favorite restaurants
• Dinner In -- a cookbook like this one, elegant tablecloth or placemats, candles and candlestick holders
• Picnic -- a picnic blanket, a picnic basket, a book of poetry like this one for reading aloud, gift certificates to Subway or other sandwich shop
• Disc Golf -- disc golf discs, print-out of locations of disc golf courses in their area
• Hiking -- sunscreen, insect repellent, stainless steel water bottles, trail mix, a hiking book like this one
• Movie Out -- gift certificate to a movie theater
• S'mores / Camping -- fixin's for s'mores (marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate), barbeque skewers, fire starters, camping gear (If the couple lives in a home with a fireplace, you could treat this like a "cozy up in front of a crackling fire night," or you could do an outdoor camping package. Depending on what they already have, this could include anything from a cozy two-man tent to a campstove and dishes to a nice cast-iron dutch oven with a cookbook -- lots of possibilities here!)
• Game Night -- board game (or could be a card game or even a game for a Wii, Nintendo, or X-box if the couple has one of these and enjoys playing together)
• Spa Night -- romantic candles, music, bubble bath, massage oil, etc.
• Christmas -- Christmas decorations or basic ornament set (a young couple just starting out is not likely to have much), a book like this one, a CD of Christmas music (Basically, the idea behind December's date night is to encourage them to begin thinking about creating their own holiday traditions -- whether that's baking cookies together or making their own Christmas cards or ornaments for the tree or reading a special story together. So this could go in a hundred different directions based on the couples tastes and preferences. There are lots of awesome Christmas idea books out there!)
• 1st Anniversary -- This will be the last package they will open, and the idea is to encourage them to take some time to reflect back on their first year together and create an "anniversary tradition," whether that's taking a special trip somewhere or buying a gift together or just watching their wedding video and looking through their pictures. We included this keepsake book in our package. (Rusty's mom gave us one of these for our wedding years ago, and it has become one of our favorite memory books. It has a space for a picture each year as well as a place to record where you lived, and any memorable moments. We also write down where and how we celebrated our anniversary that year and the gifts we gave each other.)

And there you have it... a Year of Monthly Date Nights. It's the gift that just keeps on giving

Photo credit: Ben Earwicker of Garrison Photography

Check it Out!

I'm blogging over at the Angola Team's website today about our recent presentation to a church in the Lisbon area about our plans for Angola. Click here to read all about it. It was my first time to speak publicly in Portuguese, but thanks to a lot of preparation and practice, I was able to get through it without too much difficulty.

Then, while you're over there, stick around for awhile and check out the website... read an article or two... and sign up to receive our e-updates if you haven't already.

And, just in case you haven't heard the news via Facebook, Twitter, or email, our teammates all received word that their Angolan visas were approved last week! Well, all except for Robert... no one is quite sure what is going on with his, and we are all praying hard that he receives it soon so he can travel to Angola with his family. Please join us in praising God for this wonderful news and in our continuing prayers for Robert's visa.

On Our Own

I mentioned in my last post that we have a car now. It's just a loaner from some friends who are on furlough for a few months, although we are looking to purchase another car around the time they return. Having a car has been a great blessing to us, first of all because it drastically cuts down on the amount of time that we spend getting from point A to point B. For example, it used to take Rusty or me the better part of an hour to go pick Alex up from school and bring him home each day -- 15-minute bus ride, followed by a 10-minute walk to the school, a 10-minute walk back to the bus stop, and then another 15-minute bus ride home. We could almost walk there and back in that same amount of time, except that we would be walking up a giant hill. Now that we have a car, we can literally get there and back in under 20 minutes.

A couple more examples: getting to church from our apartment used to take at least 45 minutes via bus, metro, and walking, and that was if we timed all of our connections just right and didn't spend too long waiting for a bus. Now, we can get there on a Sunday morning in about 20 minutes. And we can get to the closest beaches in about 30 minutes, whereas the same journey would take about 90 minutes via bus, metro, and train. Obviously, when traffic is heavy, things take longer. Still, though, I am amazed at how much closer everything seems now that we can get to it by car. Riding public transportation can really skew your perspective when it comes to distances between locations -- at least it did for me. Of course, there are some definite advantages to public transportation, and I am certainly thankful that Europe has such an efficient and reasonably-priced public transportation infrastructure. It is entirely possible to live without your own vehicle here -- maybe not as convenient, but certainly possible. As I get bigger and more uncomfortable with this pregnancy, though, I am also thankful that I am not having to deal with maneuvering my way on and off of crowded buses or metros, or running to catch them!

Another thing that having our own car has done is really opened up our possibilities for exploration further afield. We noticed this feeling in Japan as well, once we purchased our van after living there for 6 months with nothing but bikes for transportation. There is a definite sense of freedom that having your own set of wheels brings. You feel like you can go anywhere! In the last couple of months, we have taken advantage of several opportunities to get out and see some things outside of Lisbon that are more difficult to access via public transportation:

At the beginning of April we visited the little town of Óbidos. We went for the Chocolate Festival, which, although it sounds really cool, was actually pretty lame and certainly not worth the 7 euro per person entrance fee we paid. But the town itself is very quaint and cute, and I would love to go back and spend more time there when it isn't packed with festival-goers.

Alex posing in front of one of the festival decorations

Towards the end of April, we visited Mafra and toured the Palácio de Mafra (Mafra Palace), which is actually a massive combination palace-monastery, so big it would be very easy to get lost in, without all the signs marking your route! Here are a few of the more impressive highlights:

 The main facade and entrance into the church

 This little guy was our guide for the day! He had so much fun running up and down the long corridors.

 Inside the church

The hospital, where the monks cared for the sick. On either side of the corridor, you can see the little curtained cells for the patients.

 The trophy room... in addition to all the trophies on the walls, the furniture and the candelabra are all made from antlers!

Saved the best for last... this was definitely the highlight of the whole tour, the library. It is home to some 40,000 15th to 18th century leather-bound books. Stunning! It reminded me of the library in "Beauty and the Beast."

After our tour, we ate our picnic lunch and let Stephen play for a bit at the nearby craft village in the town of Sobreiro. It was a combination of museum and playground. There were displays of traditional Portuguese shops, miniature villages with windmills, waterwheels, and trains, and of course, lots of places to climb, explore, and play. Stephen really enjoyed himself, and we decided we'd like to come back when we can bring Alex (he was in school on the day we went).

One of the miniature villages... it even had a river with real water that flowed through the village and turned a waterwheel.

Recent Field Trips: Sintra's Pena Palace

For May's field trip, we made another trip to Sintra, a hop, skip, and a jump away from Lisbon. We have been to Sintra several times now, but there is so much to see there that each time, so far, we manage to see or do something new. This time, we toured the Palácio de Pena (Pena Palace). We had a picnic lunch on the grounds and then enjoyed wandering around for a little while. There are many species of exotic trees and plants there, including a few California redwoods! Then, because we have a car now (just a loaner from some friends who are on furlough for the next several months), Rusty and I drove out to see the Convento dos Capuchos, also known as the Cork Convent. We ended our day with a visit to a café in Sintra to load up on some of the local pastries, queijadas and travesseiras. Yum!

This is the view of the palace as you are walking up to the entrance. It is pretty impressive.

They don't allow pictures of the inside of the palace, but most of the furnishings are original and equally as impressive. Here are a couple more shots of the outside:

Whose belly is bigger?

 Our group, posing on a Western red cedar. This is all one tree -- the lower branches form a J shape and put roots down into the soil where they touch the ground.

Inside the Convent dos Capuchos. Somehow, I managed to squeeze my pregnant bod inside this tiny monk's cell. The doors are cut small, supposedly so the occupant had to bow in humility to enter!

Recent Field Trips: Frigate and Cristo Rei

On April 1st (my birthday), we took a field trip to the other side of the Rio Tejo to see the Dom Fernando II e Glória, an old frigate and Portugal's last sailing warship. It is currently being restored to its original condition as a museum ship. After touring the frigate, we visited the Cristo Rei statue, nearby. We had a picnic lunch in the statue's shadow and then rode the elevator to the top for fantastic views of the river and the city of Lisbon on the other side.

Alex and Eliana in one of the ship's lifeboats

 Our group, posing on the gangway

 Alex, pretending he is a cook in the ship's galley

 Helping Eliana sign her name in the guestbook

 Attempt at a cute cannon shot ("The sun's in my eyes, Mom!")

 Eliana trying to ring the ship's bell. She was just barely too short to make it work, so Daddy had to help her.

 The Cristo Rei statue from the back...

 ...and the front

 View of the Rio Tejo and Lisbon on the other side. The bridge is the Ponte 25 de Abril, Lisbon's own "Golden Gate Bridge."

Happy birthday to me! On the way home, we stopped in Belém for yummy pasteis de Belém and coffee. These things are to die for, especially fresh out of the oven when the custard filling is still warm and the pastry is golden and flaky!

Recent Field Trips: Lisbon's Funiculars

There's been a lot going on around here lately. I guess that's why I haven't done much blogging. I've been going through our pictures, trying to organize them somewhat, and thought it would be fun to share some photos of some of our recent sight-seeing. First off, I'll share about the last several field trips we've taken with Eunice. In February, we toured Lisbon's elevadores, or lifts. Three of the four are old funiculars (see a picture of one here). The fourth, the Elevador de Santa Justa, is Lisbon's only true vertical lift. We can ride all of them free with our bus passes. Here are a few pictures:

One of the funiculars

 Stephen and me inside the car

Fabulous view from one of Lisbon's miradouros (viewpoints)