Finishing Up in Portugal

It's taking me forever to get through the posts about our trip, but I'm motivated to document them here before we start to  forget some of the details of it.  This is the last of the posts on Portugal!

November 1-2, 2016 
(these pictures were taken at two different beaches--Praia Grande and some other I'm not sure the name of)

The weather was so warm and pleasant while we were there, that we decided to visit the beach!  

Although a lovely day, it was November and a tad too cold for full blown swimming, so the kids mostly played in the sand...

and just dipped their toes into the water.    We figured out that we were pretty close to directly across the Atlantic Ocean from home there on the beach in Portugal, so we made sure to wave to our friends across the way! 

Spence found some cool rocks to climb and believe me when I say that these were some very sharp rocks.    I won't lie and say that I didn't feel a tad nervous about him scaling to his precarious position  across the jagged rocks, but he made it up and down without incident, so all's well that ends well!

After exploring the beach for a while, we discovered a steep set of stairs that  beckoned for us to climb them!

We climbed and discovered along the way that there was some well preserved fossilized dinosaur footprints along the cliff wall. Apparently about 60 of them.   (Click here if you want to read more details) 

We admired those for a bit and pondered on how there were footprints on the side of a sheer vertical cliff, but really just couldn't wait to get to the top, so we could take advantage of these amazing views overlooking the beach!   

Wow, wow, wow!    

It was worth every step of the steep climb!

Hiking and exploring are two of my favorite things to do in any circumstance, but  doing them in a beautiful foreign land alongside people I love is pretty much what Lara dreams are made of!  

My only disappointment with it all....

was that I couldn't make my camera capture the full measure of the beauty we experienced there.  

That little hike was not all that strenuous, but it was like a salve to my soul.  I wanted to absorb that serene beauty right into my body and take it home with me.   

We'd loved so much of our time in Portugal and this day hiking and exploring at the beach, was a perfect capstone to a perfect  week!   This is exactly why I love to travel!

Eventually the time came to say goodbye to the beach and head back to the villa.  On our way home, we stopped in a cute little port town called, Cascais.

We didn't really have a plan while we were there, but enjoyed wandering around for a while....

and especially loved this little town square with its patterned cobblestone.

The next day, we just packed up our belongings...

practiced our braiding....

loved on baby Ben (even though he pickpocketed Spence earlier in the week)   😂...   

took a few more group pictures...

 

and got another picture with my Emma girl...

And then headed to the airport...

where Matt's family and Emma headed back to England  and Spence, Adam, Kristina, and I took off for Spain!    

Adam's Talk

Email written to Cami and Emma....12/11/16 

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Hello, Beautiful Girls of Mine! 

Adam's talk today went awesomely well! He did a good job expressing himself, actually got a real deal laugh from the audience, and held himself together when the general authority called him back up and put him on the spot by asking him more questions!

Yes, that's like Public Speaking 501 right there!

He looked so handsome in his brand new suit, bought because he was busting out of his other one!   

Elder Randall Bennett was the visiting General Authority.   He  served his mission in southern France back in the day and he was actually mission companions with Bro. S. 

Below, you can read his talk.   Can you guess which part elicited the laugh?   It's also the part that he got the most comments on afterward.     

Well, I hope you had a wonderful Sabbath day!   I LOVE YOU!!!!!

Love, 

Mom  

ADAM'S TALK 
Sometime in the last couple of years, President Wheatley challenged the youth in our stake to find our own names to take to the temple. I had never done family history before that, so my mom set up a visit from a family history consultant in our ward and my whole family learned how to do it together. Since then, we’ve all tried to take a little time each Sunday to work on indexing, researching, or finding names and now my older sister and I are youth family history consultants in the Vienna Ward. And even my little sister, who’s still in primary, loves doing family history too.

Originally my mom and dad both thought that we wouldn’t be able to find very many names, since they both have had genealogists working on their family trees for many years. With the new technology and descendancy charts, though, we’ve been very surprised at the hundreds of names we’ve found that still need their temple work done.

Elder Boyd K. Packer said, “No work is more of a protection to [us] than...genealogical research. ... No work is more spiritually refining. No work we do gives us more power. No work requires a higher standard of righteousness. Our labors...cover us with a shield and a protection.”

Those blessings sound pretty amazing, don’t they?

Well, let me take a second and have you do a really hard math problem.

What is 0x0?

Zero, you say?

Well, that’s how many of those amazing blessings we get when we use excuses and don’t do any family history work.

So, here’s another math problem, what’s 1x12?

Twelve. Not a huge number, but something. What if we spent one hour every fast Sunday doing family history? That’s 12 hours a year of doing work for our departed loved ones and it opens the windows for receiving some of those blessings.

Now imagine if we did just one hour of family history work every Sunday? That’s 1x52! Now that’s opening the windows wide open for receiving those wonderful blessings that Elder Packer mentioned.

As part of my calling as a youth family history consultant, we try to do some family history every week. But another thing my sister and I have done is to host a family history night for all the youth at our house every other month or so. Our house isn’t very big, but we always make treats and everyone has a good time working on family history together. We help when people have questions about indexing or finding names and we’ve had so much success that the Vienna Ward youth have provided almost all of the names for our temple trips for the last year or so.

Elder Bednar said, “As you respond in faith to this invitation {to do family history}, your hearts shall turn to the fathers. The promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be implanted in your hearts. Your patriarchal blessing, with its declaration of lineage, will link you to these fathers and be more meaningful to you. Your love and gratitude for your ancestors will increase. Your testimony of and conversion to the Savior will become deep and abiding. And I promise you will be protected against the intensifying influence of the adversary. As you participate in and love this holy work, you will be safeguarded in your youth and throughout your lives.”

I have felt that protection that both Elder Bednar and Elder Packer talked about and I have felt a connection with my ancestors as I’ve found their names and then been baptized for them. I am so grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to play a small role in helping those ancestors receive the blessings of salvation. I encourage you, no matter what stage of life you’re in, to remember those simple math problems we’ve done today. Whether it’s 1x12 or 1x52 or even more, we can make the time to open those windows and allow those blessings to flow into our lives.

I say these things, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I'm Sort of Famous....

I MADE A FLYER!!!!   

And it was sent out by email to 1000's of people all over the DC area and was posted by two members of Studio C on their Instagram accounts (see here and here)!!! 

Check out my creation....

So, I'm not actually famous, since no one (except a couple of people who helped with the planning) actually knows  that I made it, but I still felt kind of cool that my self-taught photoshop skills got to go to a good use.       

The event turned out much bigger than the planners anticipated, a fact which drew the wrath of the security guards at the Lincoln Memorial and brought the whole night to a premature ending.  Ellie still got to meet the cast members briefly though, so she definitely called the night a success!

Alright, now that I'm done gloating about the tiny little role I played in this awesome event, it's time to shut the computer and get back to real life again....

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Our Journey in Homeschooling

Our homeschooling journey started when I felt very strongly that I needed to homeschool Spencer for 8th grade.   We did it just that year and then he went off to high school the next year, refreshed and ready to work hard.  I didn't necessarily have the same strong impression to do it for Cami as I had for Spence, but she really, really wanted to do it and over the course of that year, we decided that 8th grade was a perfect year to pull all the kids out.  Thus our homeschooling for just 8th grade tradition officially began.   It's been a beautiful way to reconnect with each child before they head off to high school and I like that the only thing on the high school transcript that we have to worry about that year is math, and other than that they can each have some freedom to explore and learn about things that interest them.   

When Ellie started having seizures when she was in kindergarten, I wondered many times if I should just pull her out and homeschool her.  She was so tired from the medications and the seizures were so frequent that they interrupted her learning time at school.   I was frankly rather surprised when I prayed about it that it wasn't the right thing.    The reason for that answer became very clear the next school year, though,  when Spence was diagnosed with leukemia and our lives were 100% turned upside down.   I've often been grateful for the loving and steady support we had from the kids' elementary school during that crazy time and, in hindsight, I can see that having them in school was absolutely the best place for them to be at that time.   

Sometime during Ellie's 2nd grade year, though, I had the impression that I needed to consider homeschooling again.   Her medication side effects were less than they had been, but her seizures were as frequent as ever and they were starting to affect her socially too.   We met at length with the school staff that year to find solutions, but ultimately we realized that there was no amount of "special education" she could receive in a school environment that would ever suit the needs of our intelligent, well-behaved child who had frequent, but quiet seizures.  Basically, because of her intelligence,  she'd find strategies to fill the gaps in instruction that she'd missed during her seizures, but still it wasn't enough to keep her from struggling.   But because she didn't struggle enough to make her work fall below grade level expectations, she didn't qualify for anything in the way of special education. 

Everyone at the school was actually great to work with and tried very hard to be accommodating, but  because a school is a school with hundreds of students and our one student had a rather unusual set of circumstances that caused her to struggle, they couldn't offer what she needed.   It was quickly becoming clear that Ellie was being set up to fall through the cracks of the educational system.  What she needed was  someone who could tailor her education to her individually, who could pause when she had a seizure, and help when she needed extra help.    She needed mom to be her teacher.  

We prayed and this time felt very strongly that we needed to pull out both Ellie and Adam.   Adam was a kid who was doing great at school and that answer frankly surprised us a bit, but looking back I can see that it was absolutely the best thing we could have done.    Homeschooling them  has changed the daily dynamics of our family in a big way, but it has been a blessing far beyond what we ever could have imagined.  

When I started homeschooling, we just approached it as a take-it-one-year-at-a-time mentality.  After four years though,  I think we're in it for the long haul.  It's changed us all for the better and the fact that Ellie still has seizures is only one tiny factor in our reasons to continue to homeschool. 

It's definitely been a windy journey to figure out the type of homeschooling that works for us, but after four years, we're getting there.    We've got a great network of homeschooling friends around us, the kids are working hard (without having meltdowns), and the rigor for all the subjects seems just right.  And I feel like we're finally really starting to reap the benefits that homeschooling offers--benefits like having the freedom to be able to travel and  the kids actually loving to learn (and not just checking boxes to get a grade).   

It really is a beautiful thing!  

What better way to study culture and architecture than to walk the streets of Venice and visit Basilica San Marco in person?

One of the best parts about living near DC is the opportunity for really cool field trips.
This was Adam at a class on the Constitution at the National Archives. They dove into documents,
learned about the different parts of the Constitution and what they mean in today's world, and
then went to see the actual Constitution.  How cool is that?   

Here is Ellie at the same class at the National Archives.

We also recently attended a class all about birds of prey.  

We have a co-op for Biology this year and it's been the perfect blend of academic rigor and hands-on experimentation. 

We extracted DNA from peas and examined it under a microscope.

We've also examined cell structures under a microscope (Adam was very proud of this picture)

We also have a AP US Government co-op class where they dive into the history and workings of the US Government.
I don't have many pictures of it, but this day Adam, his friend, Abby, and his class went downtown to a
National Lawyer's Convention where they got to hear national politicians (Ted Cruz, Nikki Haley, etc) sit on panels and discuss controversial topics that America  is facing right now. Again, how cool is that?!

Emma's Turns Sweet Sixteen In Portugal

After spending two wonderful days in Lisbon, we rented a car and headed to a quiet villa near Sintra where we spent the remainder of our time in Portugal.  

We were right next door to what looked like a cute little hobby farm, complete with ducks, geese, chickens, and large garden plots.  

 

The villa was large enough for us all to stay there together.   Since it was homey, it  meant that we could get settled in and get comfortable for our time there.  There was a kitchen to cook in, a washing machine for laundry, and beds enough for everyone but Spence, who slept on a couch.   

Portugal apparently has a thing for castles on hilltops.    In Lisbon, there was the one where we surprised Emma and in Sintra, there are two.    One, called the Palace de Pena,  is bright and colorful, the other a moorish castle is gray and dull by comparison.   We opted to visit the colorful one built by King Ferdinand II in the 1800's.  

We enjoyed admiring the beautiful view from high atop the hill...

and enjoyed walking around the lovely surroundings.  

It was another gorgeous day...

and it honestly was just quite nice to spend the time outdoors....

The fact that we were at a lovely castle on top of a mountain in Portugal was just an added bonus!  

My little nephews  decided that photobombing Emma was a fun past-time!  (THEY ADORE HER and will miss her when she comes home in a few weeks!!!)

Here are some interior pictures....

And these little cuties were melting my heart!

Another day there in Sintra we visited Quinta da Regaleira, a UNESCO world heritage site.  The interior was a little more boring than Palace de Pena, but the grounds were SUPER COOL!   

We walked through interesting tunnels,

got put in the dungeon....

and crossed through alligator infested waters (haha!  There weren't really any alligators, although we teased that there could have been underneath all that algae.)

These cute stairs were crying out for a quick photo shoot!   I miss my sweet Emma! 

I had to take a picture of my footwear for the day, since I laughed every time I looked down.   It rained so much during our trip in May, that we all packed Crocs for our main shoes.    They were actually surprisingly comfortable and other than feeling a little unfashionable every time I wore them, they were actually great shoes for traveling--lightweight and totally waterproof!

I loved spending time with all these awesome people!

I was totally obsessed with finding missionaries  on our trip.   Walking through the town of Sintra on a Monday (their preparation day) was the only time we did other than at church on Sundays.    I was so excited to find them and take them out for ice cream!    Imagine my surprise when Spence walked up while we were talking to them and knew one of them from our home stake.    It totally made my day!

Speaking of church, we went to the Mems-Martins ward near Sintra on Sunday.   Of all of the times we've attended church in foreign countries (New Zealand, Iceland, Italy, France, and Portugal), this one was by far my favorite.  

The fact that it was our favorite had mostly to do with the fact that we happened to be there the day of the Primary Program.  Talk about a beautiful tender mercy.  Listening to those sweet children (all 12 of them) bear their testimonies and sing the beloved primary songs in Portuguese was something I'll never forget.      

My favorite comment from my 4-year-old nephew, Jack, upon hearing the familiar primary songs playing from the piano, "At least the piano is in English!!!"  

Emma turned Sweet Sixteen while we were there!     Mostly it was just a day of exploring and enjoying, but  we did take her out for a special meal to celebrate.    Too bad the menu was all in Portuguese and  google translate wasn't much help.

We ended up with a few weird things...

but mostly it was pretty good! 

Overall, we loved Portugal and we loved being with Emma on her birthday!    I definitely want to come back here with Glen sometime!