Portugal Part 7 - wrappin' it up.

* they lost our luggage on the way there AND on the way back, but it all panned out easy in the end.

* we payed a 50 euro fee for accidentally going through the permanent pass lane on a toll road - only to find out later we'd have only owed around 3 euro if we did it right. uh huh...that's how we 'started' the trip.

* I lost 10 euro on the beach because I opted to chase after the 20 euro bill instead.

* we slept until 1pm on the first day....and then until about 10 or 11 am the rest of the days....oh yeah, I'm hurtin' right now.

* Jake dented the rental car our first day there, on the gate into the house, the rental car people didn't even care/see/whatever, we didn't have to pay for it ;-) which was good because they basically MAKE you get insurance through them when you get there, doubling the price of our car....

*it took us at least an hour and a call back to the States to figure out how much 250ml translated to so we could make boxed chocolate mousse.

*I spent too long on the beach the last day there....ya know, the day before we spend 24 hours in a plane/in an airport....trying to finish a really bad book and totally fried my legs...TOTALLY.

*One of my favorite things was watching the families. They LOVE their families. The dads were all so attentive, people hugged, smiled and it just oozed happiness. (I know, it's a 'real' place, but the majority of the families actually looked to be enjoying each other....it was a stark contrast to my view of 'norm here in the States)

*Did I mention their love of nap time?

It is a really cool thing except because we kept sleeping so late, it was right when we got hungry EVERY DAY and no one would feed us ;-)

we somehow managed and it didn't bother us but you'd think we'd learn after the first day? funny funny.

*loved finding the garage sale, loved walks on the beach (I'm a beach girl for sure - I could never see snow again and be perfectly happy), loved the sleep, the reading, the food, the company :-)

NO COMPLAINTS...what a fabulous trip.

we both feel like it was a time of clarification and peace for our lives.

our marriage is great right now so there wasn't much to dig through there.

(well, there's always a place to dig, but Jake is working on it ;-)

we do both, however, have areas personally that we needed some time of prayer over, some time of listening to Him over and some time to hear it!

the books we read were so timely, the amount of time we had to relax was beautiful.

we came back cleared out, empowered and reignited for His names sake.

if ya know what I mean.

ok, just a few more pictures and then I'll move on tomorrow to how the girls did, how the reunion was and how we're doing now.....not that I really want to write about that last one!