Homeward Bound

Sorry for the delay since the last post. I will update you when I get home.  Things have been going great here. We’ve been keeping the kids crazy busy and they’ve been keeping us up crazy late too! We will begin the long process of heading home tomorrow morning at 3AM Portugal time (which is 10PM Saturday EST).  We will fly this way: Faro > Lisbon, Portugal > Frankfurt, Germany > Washington DC > Knoxville.  We will arrive at midnight EST on Sunday. 

Please pray for clear minds while traveling and tonight as we are saying goodbye to the sweet teens here.  We have made great friendships and it’s hard for these kids to do the “leaving” process because that seems to be what they are always doing, saying goodbye.

We’ll be seeing yall soon for Christmas!  Happy late birthday Papa and happy almost birthday Oma!

love yall, -katie  

fun filled days in PORTUGAL!

The night before the conference started (Sunday) a big group of the “staff” and missionaries went out to a restaurant that serves authentic “steak on a rock.”  Its actually really good.

 

 

 

 

The conference began tonight (monday) and we got to meet the teens and watch a traditional Portuguese dance group perform.  It as a lot of fun to watch them twirl and twirl and twirl… I get dizzy just going in one circle so I applauded harder for their awesome skills.

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, we had a great time hanging out with the teens and playing a game called train wreck.  Its a silly game where you set up enough chairs for everyone in a circle then take one away.  Then, the person w/o a chair stands in the middle and tells the group something about themselves.  If anyone sitting down also has done what the person says, they get up and switch seats.  The person left standing then says another thing about them.  If the middle person wants to “mix it up,” they call out train wreck.  We ended up laughing a lot and getting to know the 16 teens a bit better.  We then moved “inside” to our room (which is a room inside another room) and played a name tag game.  Right now we’re about to start watching a movie and hanging out.

Today, Tuesday, we are taking a safari… more like a Jeep tour of the area.  It was crazy fun.  Of course it was the one day that was nearly pouring rain but it made it really pretty and foggy.  The tour took us from the town of Tavira to the boarder between Portugal and Spain.  We learned all sorts of things about the area from the huge sea salt piles to the local trees and wildlife.  At lunch time we stopped in this little town at a restaurant and had a special meal prepared for us with live music and a warm fireplace.  We ate wonderful veggie soup (its close to warm gazpacho but no tomatoes) and fresh sheeps milk cheese with fresh bread.  Then we had  wonderful fresh garden “salad” made of cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and peppers sliced and dressed in the authentic “dressing:" vinegar and olive oil with salt.  And some fresh steamed baby potatoes with sea salt on them and then this wonderful region specialty chicken.  It was wonderful.  We then drove back through the crazy switchback terrain and made it back around 5. 

   Tonight is just planning to be a low key night and a sweet game of “signs”!

 

 

Here’s the link to our total Portugal Photo Album.

First Days in Portugal (pictures included)

So just to update you…

We left Friday afternoon from Knoxville and arrived Saturday afternoon in Faro.  Our trip was uneventful and went well.  Saturday we spent in Tavira at the mall and just bumming around the night time scene. 

Today, Sunday, we have walked around to the city center where the large “castle-like” structure is and the cathedral.  We’ve tried to find different things around town to do with the kids and pick out items for a scavenger hunt.  That’s been lots of fun. 

Tonight we’re headed out to have steak on a rock… they heat up the rock then bring out the meat for you to cook on the rock.  It’s supposed to be the thing to eat here so we’ll have to see.  I’m sure its great.

The weather has been really nice.  About 60’s all day and sunny.  Here’s the link to the rest of our pictures. and mobile uploads.

HEY you! over there! ready or not, here we come!

So we’re leaving for Tavira, Portugal this time tomorrow.  We are super excited and still haven’t packed =).  I just love saving that until the last minute.  There is a slight chance I’ll be able to update the blog while we’re over there, so keep an eye out.  If not, I’ll be sure to update it when we get back stateside. 

Here’s where Tavira is in Portugal… on the southern coast about 1.5 hours from Sevilla, Spain where I studied aboard! Super exciting.

Incase you need an update on your geography… Portugal is the tiny country to the left of Spain and just north of Morocco across the big blue Atlantic Ocean from the US.

and we interrupt this blog to say… OH MY GOODNESS … a car is seriously on fire across the street at the car wash!! not sure the story behind that but literally it was completely engulfed in flames ! How insane! never thought I would see the day! at least no one was injured; the driver made it out safely.

Visitors at Bishops Bridge

So over the last two weekends we have had visitors at the house… The first weekend in November, Mike’s parents came into town to see us for a little. Deb forgot all of her left shoes so the ladies went out and did a little shopping while to boys began work on a little project in the house.  Here are a few fun pictures from that =) I really wanted pull out shelves in the cabinet pictured below.  It’s huge and seemed like there was a lot of wasted space.  Mickey had made some pull out shelves for Deb in their house, so I figured they could handle my little request.  (ok it’s a bit trickier than I thought but they were up for the challenge!) This has probably been my favorite improvement since the painting of the poop colored walls in the stairwell. HUGE THANKS.

Disclosure: No injuries occurred in the photographing of any of these pictures =)  Check out more online. PS: I absolutely love the new shelves! They totally rock my world

Then this past weekend Megan and her boyfriend Justin came into town to hang out and go to the UT football game.  Mike and I seem to have great luck with games.  It seems that every game that we have been to, UT has won! This game was no exception and was a ton of fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had such a great time for sure! More pictures