So much has been going on the past few weeks and everything just feels like such a whirlwind. I’ll start with my favorite update- travel is back on! I guess I should take a few steps back first. So we heard back from the guy doing our taxes (he charged 185 to file the return) and it turns out I owe quite a bit less than I expected. This year work has been slow, so I have been trying to work as much as I can and save money because I thought we would owe way more in taxes. Work has been picking up the past few weeks and I even got a new contract that I’m really excited about. With that contract comes a lot of training, so I have been busy trying to get training in as well as learning the ropes of the things I will be doing in this role. So now that I’m not having to save so much money each month we can afford to travel again. I’ll talk more about that in a second.

The accountant we used charges 75 euro per month to do everything tax related. He will file all of my green receipts and social security. He will tell me how to pay my social security (and how much), and I can prepay some of next years taxes if I want to. We decided to go ahead and work with him because I still have not looked at how to file social security and clearly I need some help as far as taxes go. I signed a year long contract and that price will also include filing my tax return next year. I am relieved because the last 2 years that we have had to file taxes we scramble around in January/February tying to find someone who can help us file. It’s a huge weight off my shoulders to barely even have to think about taxes anymore.

I guess I should touch on the title as well! Kyle got pulled over a few days ago. We have had the car for a year so I am kind of surprised we hadn’t gotten pulled over until now. Two police officers were standing on the side of the road looking at cars and he said he knew he was going to get pulled over because they looked at his plate and then did a double take. They waved him over to the side of the road. They were pretty upset that he still has his US driver’s license, so we’re going to try to get started on the license exchange again soon. That’s going to be a huge headache. Kyle got pulled over because our inspection expired in December. We had thought we had more time but were wrong, so we got a 250 euro ticket. Ouch! Kyle schedule our inspection for next week.

The school closest to our house had a spot open for Leo. We went and got all of the paperwork and will have to bring it back to the school on May 6. We need Leo’s residency card so Kyle went back to the place I originally applied for it in Lisbon. The lady there said that they are really, really backed up and it will probably show up at some point. She gave us a paper and said to give it to the school. I didn’t translate it, but I’m assuming it says something about us paying and having to wait for them to send the card. I’m hoping that providing that letter as well as our receipt will be enough. I finally registered Sofia online today at the Portal de Matriculas, which is required from 1st grade on. It wasn’t too bad, though it did take me about 45 minutes or so because I had to Google a lot of things to understand them. Sometimes even when they were translated into English they still didn’t make sense. Once we (fingers crossed) get them officially registered I’ll make a post all about that.

We finally got the kids signed up for swim lessons, which is something we have been meaning to do for a long time now. They’ll stop going to school next week and won’t go again until September 1 at their new school. Hopefully they will have tons of fun this summer. They will go to swim lessons twice a week. Kyle just went to our local public pool and they had tons of options to choose from. I think it cost something like 128 for the both of them for 1.5 months of classes 2 times per week.

I have been busy getting back to vacation planning and have 3 booked for the year. In early June Sofia and I are going to Efteling. I have been wanting to go there ever since I heard about it. This will be our last trip together for a while. Leo and I will be going to Amsterdam in early July. There is a CenterParcs about a half hour outside of Amsterdam that we will stay at. He really loved CenterParcs and it makes things easier for me. For the Christmas holidays this year we are going to Disneyland Paris! We will be there the week before Christmas and we’re going to stay on site. I’m really excited because the kids are going to love it and it will be great to see Dinsey all lit up for Christmas. We haven’t gotten their school schedule yet, so fingers crossed they actually have the week before Christmas off. I have been trying to find out how many days of school kids can miss in Portugal but am not having much luck.

So that’s what we have been up to. And now I have to get back to my ever growing to-do list.