The Streits

While I am beyond grateful for the experiences that my daughters are able to have living in a foreign country, there are a few things that I feel they are missing out on by not being in the US. Halloween, along with the whole going to the pumpkin patch thing, is one of them. As I discovered last year, Halloween/trick-or-treating is not a big deal here. You might be able to find a random neighborhood with a few people (probably Americans) passing out candy, but I don't know where they are and I wouldn't take the girls there anywhere even if I did. So as an alternative, the neighborhood women's club I'm a member of (which is about 50% American women) had a little Halloween event. All the kids got to dress up in their costumes and take a short walk up and down the street. Along the way, there were a couple stops with someone passing out candy to the kids.

Olivia's costume was easy as she had just received a beautiful princess dress from Uncle Brian and Aunt Jessica for her birthday. Ashton was going to be a penguin. I had found this cute baby penguin costume on Amazon UK and ordered it for her. It arrived a week or two before the event, but I didn't bother to open the package since we were about to leave for Portugal and I was busy. Well, two days beforehand, I finally got around to opening it. I had ordered a size 6-12 months, but what showed up looked like something a 4 year old could wear! It was absolutely humongous. Just look at her...

I was laughing so hard as I took this picture because she was flopping around like a fish trying to turn herself over but unable to because her hands and legs were swimming in fabric.

I know she's on the small size her for age, but really???

She still makes a pretty cute penguin regardless of the size!

It's not like we have a Target around the corner that I could run to and pick up another costume that fit for her and it was too late to order anything else off of Amazon. So I was left scrambling for something else. Fortunately, I remembered I had brought over Olivia's first Halloween costume, a little puppy dog outfit, from three years ago. And while Olivia wore it when she was around 7 weeks old, it was pretty big on her so I was hopeful Ashton could squeeze in. Sure enough, it fit perfectly!

After the parade down the street, all the kids and parents were invited to watch Monsters University at the nearby theater. It was Olivia's first experience at the movies. I didn't have high hopes for her attention span to make it very far into the movie because she doesn't watch movies at home and has difficulty sit still for anything longer than about 30 minutes. However, she surprised me and made it through about 80% of the movie before demanding to go home so she could take a nap. So Mommy and Olivia left while Daddy and sleeping Ashton stayed to finish out the movie.

Back around May/June, I started thinking about wanting to run another half marathon. I had enjoyed the first one I did in San Antonio a couple years ago. With all the chaos of the past year (you know, moving to a new country and having a baby) finally settling down, I decided I was ready to train for another one. A destination marathon sounded fun so I found a half marathon in Lisbon, Portugal and signed up. Before we moved, I had several people tell me how they loved Lisbon and what a cool city it is, so it was already a destination on our list of places to get to. What a great time we had and what a beautiful city it is!

Views from our rental house

Rua Augusta Arch

Rossio Square - Lisbon is famous for its tiled sidewalks. Actually, they have tile everywhere; not just on sidewalks. Designs of all sorts are everywhere and they are beautiful!

Ponte Vasco de Gama bridge

One afternoon we went to the Lisbon Aquarium. Geoff and I hadn't been to an aquarium in years and of course, the girls had never been to one. Olivia loved it and Ashton slept through it. Typical. :)

Wouldn't want to get in this guy's way!

This sea otter certainly is living the good life

Lisbon reminded me a bit of San Francisco. Both cities sit on bays of water and are built on hills. They also have matching suspension bridges, with the Golden Gate being a little longer. (See picture below of Lisbon's suspension bridge.) One thing I appreciated about Lisbon is that it is such a colorful city. With all the red roofs and brightly colored houses, tiles and laundry of all colors airing outside, color is jumping out everywhere.

For the five days we were in Lisbon, we stayed in a rental house. It was great for us not to be cramped into a small hotel room as well as to have a kitchen for cooking some meals. Additionally, the house was right in the center of the city neighborhoods, so we got more exposure into how the locals live. There definitely weren't many other tourists walking the local neighborhood streets where we were.

Tiled house - they love and are very proud of their tiles

Even their street signs are comprised of beautiful tiles!

Since the city sits on hills, there are lots of stairs and steep climbs everywhere. A bit challenging for navigating up and down with small children...and for getting home post-marathon on tired legs. Graffiti is everywhere throughout the city too but I feel like somehow it's more of a cultural thing rather than just some guy writing his girlfriend's name on a wall.

Local trolley car for getting up and down the hills

The castle in the picture below is St. Jorge Castle which is situated on the top of a hill near the center of town, close to where we were staying. We look a trolley up and toured the castle. There wasn't that much to see at the castle itself as it's super old and more or less just a shell of a building. However, the views from there overlooking the city were well worth the price of admission.

Ponte 25 de Abril

Since I was going to be running the half-marathon midway through our trip and needed fresh legs, we tried not to overload our days with sightseeing. We enjoyed a lot of time just resting and playing at the house. September was such a busy month for us and Geoff has been working a lot, so I'm thankful we got some much needed family time.

Trying to look innocent while making a mess in the suitcase

My half-marathon experience was enjoyable. Or as enjoyable as running 13.1 miles can be. The race started on the Ponte Vasco de Gama bridge (see picture somewhere above), which is the longest bridge in Europe, stretching almost 11 miles long. We only ran about a mile on the bridge itself, but it was still cool. In order to get to the starting line on the bridge, shuttle buses were transporting all the runners. It was a bit weird being alone with complete strangers speaking Portuguese all around me. But smiles are a universal language and everyone had plenty of them.

View of Lisbon from the bridge

On the bridge about to start

Once we got off the bridge, the half-marathon course was a bit of a disappointment. The course route went down along the water before looping back up on the other side of the street. It was advertised as containing "breathtaking views" along the course. Sounds great, right? Wrong. The area by the water we were running along was very industrial. Most of the time, you couldn't even see the water as it was blocked by factory looking buildings. It was also pretty warm out, getting into the mid 70's with no clouds and absolutely zero shade along the streets. However, I did get to see Geoff and the girls twice during the race so that was fun. Except Ashton was sleeping and Olivia either didn't see me or ignore me. Geoff gave a big cheer though!

Waving to my fans!

Finished! Final time of 1:49:10.

Post race, shower and nap, we went out for a celebratory dinner. We dined outside with views of St. Jorge Castle from our table and were serenaded by local musicians nearby. One thing I really loved about the city was all the outside dining in the evenings at the cafes and restaurants. It was such a fun and lively atmosphere especially when you add in locals playing a guitar, an accordion or some other instrument.

Musicians providing music for our dinner

Fascinated by the entertainment

On our last full day in Portugal, we hopped on a train and headed to the beach/resort town of Cascais, about 35 minutes away. It's a beautiful little town that sits on the ocean. We enjoyed lunch outdoors by the water and walked around the town before finding a nearby public beach.

Town square

No swimsuit, no problem!

Much to our surprise, Olivia wanted to actually get in the water and swim. At her last encounter with a beach in Croatia, she didn't want to even get close to the water, let alone get in. Maybe her recent swimming lessons have swung her in the right direction. After getting over the initial chill of the water, she started having so much fun swimming with Daddy, we couldn't get her out!