Feeling Adventurous? Come over for Dinner.

So one week in April, Dan ended up having to go out to dinner a few nights with various visitors from work, it happened that one of those nights I tried something new in the kitchen. After coming home and seeing the pictures he told me he was glad he happened to be gone, but Amelia and I had fun, and they were pretty good!

That day our Senhora do Peixe came by and started our adventure. Definitely one of the perks of living here, having fresh fish show up in a truck at your door and you can choose what you want to cook for dinner. Though occasionally it gets chosen for you. As in this instance, when I chose some fish and then she decided to also give us some samples "for Amelia" along with instructions about how to cook them. So here are some photos of our "Pescadinhas de Rabo na Boca," which translates roughly into little fish with tail in mouth. Enjoy!

Traveling to the UK: the anti-Portugal

After trying for the last few days e-mailing and calling to make a reservation at a B&B for our upcoming trip in Scotland I am really starting to see why so many Brits end up here (I thought it was just the weather!). The welcoming attitude we experience everywhere we go in Portugal seems completely absent in the UK, especially the minute I mention "we will have a baby with us." We won't even have the two year old since she is going to do an overnight with Grandma. I have been refused because of:

1. They can not have us for liability reasons because the steps are too steep ("but he doesn't walk, or even crawl yet"..."but you will have to carry him up them").

2. They can not allow him in our room for fire code reasons (nice excuse to hide behind, just say what you mean already!)

3. They are worried about him breaking stuff ("though I am sure your baby is lovely, not all are"... I hung up after that).

4. The comfort of the other guests (at least this one was honest).

OK, I don't ever remember being bothered by children being present at places I stayed before I had my own, but I think this takes it a little far when a few of the places I found state largely on their Website "We do not allow children under 14 years of age." Are you serious, you think children can't behave themselves until they are 14? I think that when children are expected to behave badly, it is no wonder they live up to those expectations. I am thankful Amelia probably treats people better than some of these adults I was speaking to on the phone.

Daily Amelia-ism

I need to start writing these down, because they frequently crack me up, but then I can't recall them just a few days later. Maybe it is entering my 34th year, or more likely just lack of sleep, but anyway, this one had me going earlier this week.

We were unpacking groceries and Amelia saw the deli packages and wanted some for a snack, so I handed her a couple of pieces. She started in on her turkey and pipes up through her half-chewed bite"Turkey says gobble, gobble" which in itself always gets me going. Then she looks at me and says "Mommy, do you know what the salami says?" and I nearly lost it.

I'll try to bring you more as I remember.

And the Winner is?

I know it wasn't me. Could have possibly been Tristan, or the dogs, or the peas. Yes, definitely the peas.

Just when you think things are looking down...

Our year got off to a bit of a sour start. The airline damaged our new double stroller in route, my computer turned itself off three days after we got home and declined to be coaxed into turning on again, and my car began refusing to go into reverse when turned on, or be shifted past first for the initial 5 or 10 minutes of driving. On top of that Amelia's lovely little infantario (preschool) was forced to close because of lack of enrollment. Unfortunately a common phenomenon at private centers in this current economy, but so sad for us and the wonderful teachers and staff they had there.

So I was feeling sorry for myself and thinking we were having a string of bad luck. Then I talked to a friend who's family is facing some very difficult medical issues, and that particular week she also had a baby with the chicken pox, and I figured the material things we were losing were so petty and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Plus the car was fixable, the laptop was miraculously resurrected 2 weeks after its demise (though I still don't trust it and have the new one on its way), and the stroller still has issues but United has agreed to at least look at the repair costs, and even if they don't help out, I'll get over it.

As for the infantario, we looked at several others and weren't able to replicate the feel we had from the first, but then Amelia's teacher called us to get together one day and we ended up asking her to watch both kids part time until she is able to find a new job. She is awesome and Amelia *ADORES* her and it gives me the chance to a) practice my Portuguese on a regular basis with someone who is used to speaking slowly and clearly for 2 year olds and b) get back to a little work of my own. Not to mention we also now have a babysitter for the occasional night out, sem meninos!

So things were really actually looking up, and to top it off, today I went in for a consult with Tristan's hearing specialist who told us that his latest hearing test came back normal for both ears! She said that occasionally the ears haven't finished development before birth, but can keep developing for the first few months. She wants to recheck him when he is one year old, but is optimistic they will not regress. Now that is news I would have gladly thrown 100 laptops out the window to hear! What a marvelous start to 2011!

3 out of 4 ain't bad

We finally made the trip down to Lisbon to the French Embassy to apply for Tristan's French passport. It was a pretty straightforward process. Since they are only open until noon Dan had to take the whole day off of work , so we decided to make a little trip out of it. We stayed over Friday night and had a relaxing lunch and an afternoon in the little indoor hotel pool, followed by a nice sushi dinner. Then Saturday morning we were off to the Lisbon Zoo, where Amelia had us make a beeline for the giraffes before we could pay attention to any other animals. She was also pretty excited about the gorillas, until one of the big ones pushed a little one out of the way right in front of her and she got pretty upset by it. She recovered well and enjoyed elephants, the antics of the orangutans, the big cats, and the little children's farm. Tristan slept his way through nearly the whole zoo, and Amelia slept the whole drive home, and now we still have another day with Dan home. Aren't 3-day weekends nice?

As a result of this trip, everyone in the family but me has two passports, and in order for me to get mine they require me to exhibit some proficiency in French. Judging by how long Portuguese has taken me it may be a while before I hit that landmark, but at least the kids have options for work and travel in the future!

We're Home!

Happy New Year Everyone!

After a long and exciting trip to the US, we are now back in Portugal. It was wonderful to see everyone, and we know we are lucky to have such great little travelers. They were amazingly pleasant on the 11 hour flight from London to LA to start our trip, and I don't know how they transitioned the 8 hour time difference almost immediately. We hit the beach and Sea World in So Cal and spent some quality time with her cousin Coco, who is just a few months older than Amelia and visiting my mom's house. We then went up to Oregon and spent a week with my family and friends there, and Dan was amazed that the sun made a few appearances and we had surprisingly little of the wet stuff falling from the sky. Finally a week in Vermont with Dan's family and visits with many more friends.

We started thinking three weeks was a little long to be away from home, when about halfway through the third week Amelia asked for the "red car take to Mia's house." But she continued to be a trooper the whole way through. Visiting lots of people she didn't know or remember, having tons of fun with her cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and everyone else. She even decided she wanted to go to the circus with our friend Beth without Dan or I, and she loved it and apparently didn't miss us at all!

I knew the trip home would be the hardest part. An overnight flight to Europe followed by a few hour layover and another flight from Frankfurt to Porto, after a long (but fun) New Year's Eve party. It was looking dubious when on arrival to the airport they couldn't find Tristan's ticket in the system (though he had been on all of our previous tickets). After 30 minutes of waiting we had to rush to get through security where we watched them finish boarding our flight (thank goodness Burlington is quite a small airport). We were the last to get to the gate, and things started looking up when I handed the agent our boarding cards and she took one look and said "Oh, we've upgraded you all to first class for your flight to DC." We had a nice flight until the descent when Amelia turned to me and without a word threw up all over herself for the second time in her life. The flight attendant helped me clean up as best we could, and again in DC we were one of the last to board after hiking through Dulles and getting both kids cleaned and changed.

Luckily we had a row of 5 seats to ourselves and all got some, albeit limited, sleep on the flight to Frankfurt. Amelia waited until we were on the ground waiting to deplane before she threw up multiple times as we exited. Nice. Sorry United clean-up crew.

We all slept through much of our final flight, and made it home and since with no additional incidences. Dan managed to get up and go to work the next day while the kids and I collected the dogs and stocked the fridge. Now we just need to find places for all of the extra toys we brought home and our lives will be back in order. And after all that, Dan and I started planning out our next vacation last night, so I guess we weren't overly daunted after all.