School

Back to School

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The kids started school a few weeks ago. They began going to school about a week and a half before classes officially began. That was nice because they got to adjust before having classes and a bunch of extra students. Not all of the students started early, so on the official start day things were much busier. The first day dropping them off was a bit rough because of course they were nervous. Sofia is in first grade and Leo is in pre-school, so they won’t spend time together and will only see each other in passing.

Leo actually loved school right away. At his old school a big complaint of his was that they made him eat soup, so we used to practice how to say “nao, obrigado” but he still complained. Every day we pick him up at the new school he ecstatically tells us that they don’t make him eat the soup. They just take it away and give him chicken instead! He loves his new school and apparently all it took was the option to not eat soup.

Sofia did not like school the first few days. We thought she would have an easier time because her teacher and some of her classmates speak English, whereas Leo’s teacher and classmates do not. Also, Sofia is much more extroverted and loves being around people. For about the first week she had a tough time and didn’t really like school. A few days before classes officially started she began to enjoy it more as she made some friends. Ever since classes began she has really enjoyed it. She loves math class.

Their school offers extracurricular activities, which we’re excited about. Somehow going to school has given the kids even more energy and they’re more crazy than ever when they’re home. So maybe some extra exercise will wear them out. Each of the extracurricular activities take place once per week after school ends and we will pay a monthly charge. We signed Sofia up for dance class, which will cost 22 euro for the month. They have yoga which I really wanted to sign her up for, but it costs 40, which is a bit steep, and the brochure didn’t say which day of the week it is, which we really need to know for planning purposes.

Leo is going to take judo class and that will cost 16 euro. They also have a class about understanding emotions which we really love for Leo, but since he is still learning Portuguese we’re not sure that he would really understand it quite yet. There’s also a chess class, which Sofia would probably enjoy.

You can also sign them up for swim lessons through the school and the school will transport them to swim class, but we decided to just do that on our own. The swim school was closed in August, so we signed them up to begin again in October. This time they will just take classes once a week (for now at least). So they’re already in school 40 hours a week now and come October they will be even busier. They seem to really love their new school, so Kyle and I are obviously really happy about that.

So we have been back to the grind for a bit now. We were planning on going to Disneyland for Christmas, but when I booked it I didn’t know the exact dates of the kid’s Christmas break. It turns out we would be going the week before. Sofia can only miss 10 days of school without a doctor’s note and we don’t want to use up 5 for a vacation, so we’re going to have to skip Disneyland this year. I’m really hoping to take Sofia to the Netherlands in spring to see the tulips, so that will be our next big trip.

In a few weeks I’m taking my solo trip to Seville, Spain. I’m really excited to see the city. It will be weird without kids but will also be nice getting to see palaces and other places on my timeline and without worrying about being too loud. My first day there I’m going on a two hour walking tour. I don’t think I have ever gone on a walking tour. Kyle just got back from his solo trip to Vienna. He had fun, but he ended up missing a connecting flight home so the trip turned out to be a bit longer than expected. But he made it home eventually and I survived almost a week taking care of the kids by myself.

School Registration

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I’m still trying to figure out the Portuguese schooling system, but here are a few things I have figured out so far. School becomes mandatory the September after they turn 6 years old. For Leo this is pretty easy since his birthday is in February. So Leo will turn 6 in February of 2026. That means that school becomes mandatory in September 2026. For Sofia it’s a little more complicated, but not much. Her birthday is in September. She is only 5 years old right now and will turn 6 just a few weeks after the school year begins. They do have an exception if the birthday falls between specific dates. I can’t remember the exact timeline, but it’s something like if the student turns 6 between September and October then they can begin school when they are 5 instead of waiting the entire year until they turn 6. I’m not sure if school becomes mandatory this year for Sofia or not until next year, but she is definitely ready now and everyone I have talked to has said she can start when she is 5.

Mandatory school here starts with 1st grade. They have cycles and I have only really learned about 1st cycle, which includes grades 1-4. Prior to 1st grade kids can start with pre-school and then kindergarten. Here is our experience with enrolling them for kindergarten and 1st grade.

We registered them for private school, so the process might be a little bit different than public school, but I imagine it’s probably very similar. It all started by contacting the school. I think it was around March that we emailed them for a tour. We showed up and they told us that the next step would be to come back on a specific date to register them. We showed up on that day and they gave us a folder full of paperwork and a list of the requirements for registration and they told us to come back at a specific date in 3 weeks.

They asked for photocopies of documents (residency permit for student and guardian). Since they’re a private school who bases tuition on income they also asked for a recent rent receipt as well as our IRS tax return. They asked for the student’s residency number and utente number. They did ask for social security numbers but since the kids don’t have those yet I just left that part blank. They also had us fill out some of the usual stuff like who to contact in an emergency, if the kids have any allergies, and who is able to sign them out of school. There were a few things we had to plan out a bit, like getting their vaccination records from the Centro Saude and a letter from their doctor saying they are fit to attend school.

While doing this we also had to register them online at the Portal das Matriculas. I thought that this was only required once school becomes mandatory (at 1st grade), but the school told me I need to register Leo too. Through the Portal you have to submit a lot of the same information that the school asks for- residency card, proof of address, and approve or decline some releases. You also have to choose your school- I think you can pick up to 5. Our school told us to just pick them as they will approve our kids. I think the selecting up to 5 is more for the public schools just in case your top school is full you need a backup or two. Registering Sofia was a bit of a pain just because I had to translate so much, and even once translated not everything made sense.

The school and Matrículas wanted passport sized pictures of the kids. There are tons of apps that will convert pictures to passport sized ones. I found one with a bunch of different countries (since passport photo sizes are different in Portugal than in the US) and a 3 day free trial. I took a couple pictures, uploaded the digital ones to Matriculas and Kyle printed out two copies of each kid. Then I cancelled the trial.

We showed up to school yesterday to complete registration. Apparently I was supposed to make an appointment, which I completely missed during our last conversation. The woman doing regisration at the school does not speak any English, so I have been trying to get by with my super limited Portuguese. Luckily she is amazing and said she would do the registration. Once she entered all of the information she had me pay a fee for each child. Overall it was pretty easy, but a little bit tedious. The first day that we decided to tackle the paperwork took us a few hours to translate and get a lot of the documents together.

I am so happy that they are registered and just about ready to go for September. The only thing left to do really is order their uniforms from the website the school gave us. The woman in the office told me that there is a parent meeting the night before school starts. Hopefully we can find a babysitter and learn a bit more Portuguese by then. When we did the tour there was a woman who spoke English and she told us that the parents go to school with the kids 3 days during the school year and we’re hoping that the first day is one of them. I’m sure they will have a lot of helpful information at the meeting, we just need to be able to understand it!

Getting Pulled Over in Portugal & Even More Updates

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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.

Pneumonia in Portugal & Other Updates

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I know it has been a few months since my last post, but we have finally gotten to a point of just living our lives and I guess it has been too boring to post about. 😂 There are a few blog posts I am going to make once things are done, but for now I can give updates as to the things we have going on.

I guess I’ll start with the title. The kids got sick a few weeks ago. They have had a lingering cough but nothing too bad. Kyle got sick and then he just kept getting sicker and sicker. By Friday it was looking pretty bad. Thanks to Doctor Google I figured that it was probably an pneumonia or maybe bronchitis. In the US we wait until we’re on death’s door to go to the doctor because of the cost. I knew Europe wasn’t like that, so this morning I convinced Kyle to go to the hospital to see what they say. I have been essentially a single parent for the last few days and I’m ready to have a partner again. I don’t know how single parents do this.

Anyway, we decided to go to the private hospital that takes our insurance. They don’t have an emergency room, so we found the information desk and she was able to make Kyle an appointment for 45 minutes later. Kyle paid 17 euro for the visit. Kyle went to visit the doctor, who quickly confirmed that it is in fact pneumonia. He gave us a prescription and we went to the pharmacy where we paid 20 euro for 4 medications including an inhaler and antibiotics. It has been 3-4 hours later and Kyle is already starting to feel way better than he has in a while. So overall it took just a few hours and 37 euro to get treated for the pneumonia! We are still working on shedding our American mentality and getting to the doctor sooner out here. I’m so happy that we were able to get that taken care of so quickly and cheaply.

On to update #2, which would be our residency cards. So I renewed mine, Kyle’s, and Sofia’s online and Leo’s had to be done in person. Everyone’s has arrived except for Leo’s. They said that if his does not arrive in 60 business days that there is a problem. It has been 67 business days, so we have emailed them and hopefully they can get this sorted out.

For update #3, we have been getting ready for school registration. Elementary school registration opens April 15. Originally the plan was to enroll Sofia in the public school right next to her current school. That way we could park and drop Sofia off at 1st grade and Leo off at kindergarten. Since Leo has already been going to his school for a year he probably wouldn’t be too upset about having to go without Sofia. Sure, it would kind of suck, but it wouldn’t be scary as he already knows the place. Well, his preschool recently announced that they are closing down on August 31, so Leo can’t go there next year.

Leo’s Birthday Cake

We know that Leo and Sofia will be fine no matter what, but it would be kind of nice for them to be at the same school. It will also make things easier for us. Since we are looking for a combined kindergarten and 1st grade, that means private school. So I was expecting our expenses to go down by a few hundred euro a month since we were going to transition Sofia from private to public school, but now it looks like our school expenses will go up quite a bit instead. Arg. We found a great school somewhere in Leiria (I’m not familiar with the area) and we went to tour it. We love it but unfortunately they don’t have any openings for kindergarten or 1st grade. There is a school we always used to walk past and Sofia always wanted to go there. We see kids all over Leiria with their uniform, so we went to tour it and we like it a lot too.

There are pros and cons to each school. The one further away reminds us a lot of what an American private school would be. They even have a swimming pool and have lessons there included. They take regular field trips to the beach. The curriculum is very much to let the students take control and decide what their strengths are and what they need to work on. The school closer to our house means we would probably walk them to school a decent amount of the time. Their curriculum is more strict- actually the kids are a bit behind (especially Sofia) and they begin teaching them to read in kindergarten. Sofia has been learning a bit at home, but not enough to know how to read yet. Also if we go to the school closer to home we would walk into downtown quite a bit more as the school is on the way downtown from our house. The school further away would cost 415 euro each kid, and the school closer to us would cost 399 euro for 1st grade and something like 300 or 350 for kindergarten. I can’t remember.

Parents of enrolled students are currently having to sign contracts for the next year, so by the end of the week most schools will know what their fall openings will look like. The further away school has a waitlist and it’s doubtful that we will get an opening. The school closer to us already knows they will have openings for 1st grade as many of the parents put their 1st graders into public school. We’re not yet sure if there will be a kindergarten spot so we have to go next week to sign Sofia up and see if there is a spot for Leo. Obviously we hope there is a spot for him as he needs to go to school and we were hoping to keep them at the same school, but we just have to wait and see.

Our last update is about taxes. Maybe next year I will get everything right…? So last year I learned that I am supposed to be filing green receipts with the finincas. I learned how to do that and got it done last year. I also was able to get a social security number for myself. Now my next step is to learn how to pay quarterly social security taxes. Last year we found a big company to do our taxes for 400 euro. Their price this year is something like 600 or 700 euro. This year I really wanted to pay less as most accountants don’t charge that much. We dug around some Facebook posts and Kyle was able to find someone recommended that charges…I can’t even remember. I think it was around 200 or so, so that’s way better. He will file the return next week. I really want to see what we owe. Last year I used a bit more of savings that I should have and am a bit stressed about what we will owe for taxes this year. It will all work out fine, but I’m wondering if I owe what I think we will or it could be more, but it could also potentially be thousands less. Another thing to wait and see.

So that’s our life right now. I’m working and we are waiting to see what happens. No travel on the books right now unfortunately. We can’t afford it quite yet. I’m hoping that once taxes are paid we can have one last hurrah before the kids start school again in September. Oh, and we decided the kids will just finish out this month at their school, so they won’t be in school May-August so things are about to get a lot more hectic!

We have a preschooler

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When we lived in South Carolina, there was a drop in daycare. When I was pregnant with Leo, we dropped Sofia off at the daycare to go tour the hospital where Leo was going to be born. We missed Sofia so much, but when we went to pick her back up she didn’t want to leave. She went back a few times before the pandemic hit. She always loved it.

There have been times we have been walking around Portugal and have passed a school. You can always hear the kids playing. Sofia notices them, and has been asking to go to school for a while now.

Sofia and Leo checking out preschool

In Portugal school is free, though you can pay for private school or an international school. We have always wanted Sofia to go to public school. She is young enough that language won’t be a problem because she will learn Portuguese so quickly. School is not required until the age of 6. From my understanding there aren’t many free preschools. People with lower income have priority, so most people have to pay for preschool.

The regular school year starts in September and I think it runs until June. I don’t think preschool follows this schedule because we are starting Sofia in April. We looked on google and found a preschool near us that gets good reviews. We contacted them on Facebook and set up a tour/meeting.

We were hoping that we could send Sofia part time. Technically we could I guess, but it’s set up for full time. You pay the monthly fee and it doesn’t matter if she goes for 1 day or 25- the cost is the same. They charge 275 euro per month. It costs is 235 to sign her up. That fee is the application fee and uniform fee. She will have a super cute uniform of a blue polo shirt, a blue hat, and a blue apron. The uniforms are color coded by age group, so when the age groups mix it’s easy to quickly figure out who belongs to what group.

If Leo were to enroll as well, there is a sibling discount and it would have cost 505 euro per month for the two of them. The cost includes snacks and lunch. I’m not ready to send both of my babies off to school quite yet, so Leo will stay home for now.

Sofia will be in the age 3-5 group. Most of the students are 3, so she will fit right in. The school is open from 8AM-7PM. It’s nice because we can mostly drop off and pick up when we want. Morning activities start at 9:30, so we need to drop her off by then. Afternoon snack is at 2PM, so we will probably pick her up after snack time.

Registration was easy enough. They had a few forms to fill out with some basic info about Sofia and us. It did take me an hour or two with google translate to fill them out. The school requires a copy of Sofia’s NIF paperwork, our lease, her vaccine records (in English is okay), and the 235 euro fee. Also copies of all our resident cards. That’s it. She will start in April, after we get back from Aveiro.

Sofia will need to bring a sheet and blanket for nap time (they have cots to sleep on), a hand towel for the bathroom, and a water bottle. Sofia has decided to really start potty training the past few weeks and she is doing great. She saw the bathroom at the school and asked to use it. She loved the kid sized toilets and sinks and she can’t wait to use them again.

Sofia will be the only American in her class, but there is a British student, a Ukrainian one, and a few Brazilians. They start teaching English in preschool and are excited to have another English speaker in the class. They said that she will be a great fit for their group.

She is so excited and is going to have so much fun. We are going to miss her so much. I can’t believe she is going to be gone so much! At the same time, she has been driving us a bit crazy. She really wants to be out socializing and learning all the time. We have a few weeks until she starts, so we’re really going to enjoy them.