Just a few more video clips of some past adventures

This first one is kind of long (watching the same thing), but I thought it was kind of cool.  This was in Lisbon, in a Praca (square) outside of a restaurant we ate at.

This next one is the Mafra Palace.  We weren't allowed to take photos inside (although I did sneak a few after I saw others doing it), so I only have this outside movie.  But, I did want to say that the inside is so gigantic that we lost Devan and Tanner several times.  A lady even stopped us to tell us that our sons were looking for us and she thought the little one was crying.  Funny - he wasn't crying, he was laughing.

We went to see the Quinta de Regaleira.  This is a "palace" that was built by a regular guy, not a king or anything.  It has changed hands several times.  This last time it was purchased by Portugal and underwent a facelift, and is now open to the public for tours.  Very amazing place.  Kinda like a "magical kingdom" - and not the Disneyland kind of kingdom.  The grounds were amazing - lots of tunnels, cool Repunzel towers, etc.

This is really a moss covered pond with real stepping stones.  Very cool - but also a little mind boggling to walk across.  The thought of miscalculating a step and falling in - yuck!

Rick trying to coax his mom across - he's not very convincing!!

She took the alternate route, escorted by Rick, through a cave/tunnel.  So cool.

Underground spiral staircase - view from the bottom

View from the top - looking down

Exiting the staircase at the top/ground level

Pathway through the grounds of the Quinta

So, to sum up Quinta da Regaleira - HEAVEN ON EARTH.  My favorite place in Portugal. 

This was THE FUNNIEST little dog, ever!!  We ran across this lady walking her dog in Evora.

The adventure into Spain

These are the last of the videos of the Medieval Faire:  Belly dancer & The Wenches!!

These are the hard workers who would never give us our sandwiches :)

I'm finally getting back to posting the video clips - you know the ones I lost.  Hope you enjoy them.

Pretty cool camels at the Medievel Faire in Torres Novas

For some reason this thing is only letting me upload these 2 videos.  Weird.  So, I'll try posting them and do more on the next one.

June 24, 2011

Wednesday we took a trip to Lisbon to attend an “American’s in Portugal” picnic.  But, before that we took a little trip to the Lisbon mission office.  There, we saw Elder Walter – who completely bagged on me for not keeping up to date on my blog.  So…

SORRY ELDER WALTER!!!!!!!

I will try to catch up a little before we go home.  But, don’t hold your breath – we go home in 1 week.   1 week?  Did I just say 1 week?  Oh my gosh!!!  I have so much to do – I’d better start packing.  Maybe you all will just have to talk to me when we get home to find out anything else about our adventure.

Just kidding – I started packing a week ago, and I’m almost done (can you say excited to be going home?  hmm…).  A couple of bikes to take apart, weight bench to disassemble, last minute clothing to put in our bags and we should be set to go.  Well, it sounds easy, but I’ve been a little stressed.  Why does packing always turn into such a chore?  Sorting through your junk, trying to figure out if it’s really junk or not.  Trying to figure out if it’s worthy to be given away.  Trying to figure out if it’s worth taking back.  Trying to figure out if it should go home on the ship or the airplane.  Decisions, decisions, decisions…

Well, in amongst the stress of these last minute things, we’ve had PLENTY of fun lately.  It almost makes us want to stay a little longer.  Seriously.  Yes, I really did just say that.  I want to make this post very short because tonight I’d like to work on uploading some video and I promised Elder Walter I’d get a new blog posted.  So, let me just tell you that we’ve spent the last few weekends in Lisbon so that the kids could hang out with some great teenagers.  Plenty of fun for them lately.  I’m sure they’re going to be sad to go home since they’ve finally made some good friends.

Well, the picnic wasn’t all that exciting, but we now know that if we were to ever “live abroad” again one of the first things I’d do is go to the American Embassy and check out if there is any American organizations in the country.  Or, at least, do some Google searches to find out if there’s any groups of the same language that we could go have some fun with.

Hopefully, this will appease Elder Walter for a minute. I know I haven’t given an actual “update” to things we’ve done lately, but we have Family Night and a baptism to attend in a little while – so I must be going for now. 

I’ll write again – I promise!!