With our first three kids I think I was literally a crazy person about swim lessons. Crazy, with a capital C. I took my pediatrician's statement to heart, "it's a life saving skill, learn it well." Obviously that meant loads of fancy lessons, running all around the city, getting private lessons half the time because classes were full, basically I didn't mess around. The girls all swim very well. Until 3 years ago we had a pool at our house which helped a lot--easy access to practicing. Romeo's swimming abilitiies though, not so great. He's 8...technically 8 and a half. He swims so-so, and that might be generous. I'm trying to recall whether he's ever had a formal lesson and I feel like the answer is no. Let's just say, I don't turn my back for a second. He can doggie paddle, but generally speaking avoids putting his head under the water so it doesn't take him long to wear out.
So it's my mission on this trip to get him into full swimmer's mode. I want him to be a competent swimmer by the end of this trip. So today we got him in the pool as much as possible and tried to make some progress. I know that all kinds of things seem to slack as you get farther down the line of kids....the 4th kids gets the shaft on certain things (but on a brighter note they get the benefit of a mellowed out parent too tired to nitpick about small stuff.) John likes to point it out all the time. I was more militant about sugar with the older kids, I was more militant about t.v., more militant about video games and scary movies. All true, but the one thing I actually feel bad about is the swimming because that is dangerous. Mark that under things I did wrong.
So other than swimming today, we hit the grocery yet again and bought pork shoulder to make shredded port tacos tonight. The pork needed to cook all day, so we had to start early. Every time we go to the grocery store John swears we won't eat all the food we've bought, and then later on I inevitable hear someone complain that we are out of something or other. He must be clueless about how often I go to the grocery at home. Groceries miraculously show up (in fairness I only grocery shop for probably 40% of the groceries, the rest are delivered, and even then I feel like I go ALL the time.)
We've officially got our food circuit worked out here. There are three large grocery stores all within about 2 blocks from one another.... one has the best produce, one has the best organic/gluten free section....one has the best meat. Of course no one store has it all. That's probably why the kids are in food heaven. All the other place we've been or will go are in the city (except when we are down in Provence), so they have smaller grocery stores and if there isn't something there, it's just not there, end of story. There's a lot that is NOT there (syrup is the perfect example).
This house has been great. It's literally in the middle of nowhere, country-side Portugal, but it's been so lovely. We are convinced it's owned by a wealthy Swiss banker and her family (the owner called us to make sure we were enjoying ourselves, they are indeed in Switzerland). They have a Portuguese caretaker who knows not one word of English, and I think they probably rent this place out relatively seldom. Hence the measly 12 reviews. It's clearly a second home, owned by someone wealthy looking to sock away some money. It doesn't have the drug/mafia house vibe that our pimped out Corsica house had several years ago (owned by some guy who was in the "plumbing" business and you could just feel the all cash deal in the air.) No, this house is definitely being loved and used, and it's incredibly peaceful out here because there just isn't anything to do--literally. Supposedly, according to our caretaker via google translate, you can drive 30 minutes to a little cute town, but I'm guessing a Portuguese small village isn't quite as cute as say, a Provence small village. I feel like the fact we don't see it in our Portugal guide book NOR do any pics show up when we google the name, isn't boding well for the visitability of the town. That leaves nothing but eating and relaxing, it couldn't have come at a better time because I think we all needed a breather.
Instead of our run we decided to "run stairs". There's a steep stone staircase that takes us down to the pool area, and we decided we'd hit that for 25 loops (up and down counted as one). I made a pile of sticks and each time we went up and down we moved one stick over to the other stone railing. It sucked.
The older girls are knee deep in watching Prison Break, so in the evening it was just John and I after the littles went to bed. Luckily we were not attacked by bats. It was a quiet night other than the sound of me eating a sleeve of gluten free cookies (there's a brand in Europe that is amazing, vegan and gluten free biscuits that are so great with tea). I spent some time considering the fact that I might need to bump up the stair stick run to 35 tomorrow.
Signed, ME {lv}
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