I know it has been too long since I wrote a post. I have just been working and trying to save some money for our upcoming plans. Classes for Sofia and Leo officially end in a few weeks. School will be open in July, but there won’t be any classes. We will probably send the kids for a few days a week, but they will stay home a lot too. They are required to take an entire month off during the summer, so they are going to take August off.

The kids have adjusted really well to school. Sofia’s Portuguese is great. She has a best friend and those two are joined at the hip. Unfortunately her best friend will be changing schools next year, so that’s going to be tough on Sofia. She says no one else plays with her, but when we pick her up from school she is obviously well liked by lots of her peers, so I wonder if she is ignoring them for her best friend. Leo has adjusted even better than we expected. He has numerous friends in his class. His Portuguese is coming along well. I think that sometimes he doesn’t even realize when someone is speaking Portuguese or English. He will say that he doesn’t speak Portuguese, but then when he is with friends he does speak it. If we ask him how to say a specific word in Portuguese he will say that he doesn’t know, but then he is able to speak to his friends just fine. He’s shier and more introverted than Sofia, so it’s nice to see him doing so well.

Their school is offering a week of fun activities after classes get out. Things like a trip to the beach and other local places. Sofia’s best friend is going, so we signed Sofia up. It will be nice for her to have a last great week with her best friend. I don’t think that we will see her a ton after that. I feel really sad for Sofia and hope she makes some other good friends next year. Her best friend is not Portuguese and I wonder if that is part of what bonded them at the start of the school year.

Since the kids will be taking August off each year, we will probably have to start planning our family vacations for August. This year we are headed to Italy. Somehow I stumbled upon Lake Garda when I was looking at potential trips. It looks amazing and I think it might actually be a perfect place to retire one day. We are going to be flying into Verona and then staying in the Lake Garda area. We’re going to visit Gardaland amusement park and a water park over there too. I’ve heard that Italy gets pretty hot in August, but I’m hoping it will be tolerable since we will be in and around water everyday.

I think we might finally try for a US trip next summer. My parents really want to see us. I need to go to Florida at some point for one of my work licenses. I’m really hoping to fit it into our US trip so that I don’t have to go to the US twice next year. I’m trying to plan the trip with non-stop flights and our own layovers. We would fly from Lisbon to Miami, since that is a nonstop flight. Miami doesn’t have nonstop to Portland, Oregon but Orlando does. So we would take the train to Orlando and then fly to Portland. I don’t love Miami, but it would be okay to spend a night or two. Summer in Florida is miserable, so in Orlando we would try to spend some time at some water parks. For the moment it’s just an idea because it’s too far in the future for me to even book flights.

I would love to take one of the kids on a trip during one of their school breaks over the year. The US trip would cost a lot, so I already need to start saving if we’re going to make it happen. We’ll see how things go, but I really want to visit Siam Park in Tenerife and I know Sofia would love that. I really miss getting to travel with her.

The kid’s passports are up for renewal in March of next year. I want to start the process as soon as we get back from Italy. If there is a chance I can take her to Spain in November she might need a new passport since there won’t be 6 months left until it expires and some countries will refuse entry. In order to get their passports in Portugal we have to appear in person at the US embassy in Lisbon. It’s by appointment only. I keep checking to make an appointment, but August isn’t available quite yet, so I’ll keep checking until we get one. So I guess in a few months I’ll have a post about getting a minor’s passport in Portugal.