4th of July in Spain!

Our Fourth of July weekend was pretty good! We started out the weekend by going to the celebration on base. There were food stands hosted by each division of the military, a stage with performers, and a huge play area for the kids with a few rides and huge blow up things to play on. We set up our chairs/blankets with a bunch of people from church on the grass, ate, let the kids play, and enjoyed spending time with our new friends! It ended with fireworks, of course, which Elizabeth was a bit scared but it was a pretty good/long fireworks show!

nothing more American than fried goodies! :) fried oreos :)

yeah...she didn't like the fireworks :)

The next day (they did the 4th of July on the 2nd here...since they gave a four day weekend they did it early because most people take off and travel :) ) we packed up and took a little trip to Portugal! We went to Lagos and Sagres Portugal which are in the extreme southern part/coast of Spain and it was gorgeous! There was beaches and cliffs everywhere and our hotel was on a cliff and it was amazing! We could look out and see the ocean from our room and the pool had an amazing view as well. 

right outside our room

We spent a bit of time at the pool, which the kids loved, although it was a bit cold for me! They would end of shivering and chattering their teeth and we'd have to go inside :) We did go to the beach one day, which was a warmer day and it was gorgeous and super fun.

This was actually quite a last minute trip for us so we didn't do any planning beforehand and didn't really know too much about the area except we knew some friends that were going and we figured we'd just look up stuff once we got there..but then we got to our hotel and there was no wifi in our room which made it hard to look up stuff and since we were outside of Spain our phone data didn't work either...soooo that was fun! :)

just hanging out with his train :)

we went to the city center or Lagos and there was a spot with this mini food truck carts that were SO cute!

seriously..how cute is that? 

ya know..just reading some magazines and tour guide books :)

this was one of my favorite things...this pottery shop was huge and the outside covered in plates and dishes! so neat! I got some fun things there

Let's see...one morning we went to the zoo nearby, which was just a small little zoo...had TONS of birds and overall most of the exhibits were fairly open...there were kangaroos hoping around freely and we could have touched the reindeer we saw. Won't probably go back there again (way to $$ for how small it was!) but the kids enjoyed it so it was nice.

Another part of the day we went to Sagres, which wasn't too far down from Lagos. We went to an old fort there which was pretty cool. It was on the edge of this cliff/peninsula and was a huge open area with a walk way all around the outer perimeter of the peninsula with beautiful ocean views all around. It was amazing! It was great for the kids too because they just ran around and explored and it was just nice to be outside! It was super windy but a beautiful day overall.

hard to tell here but there were these guys FISHING off these huuuge cliffs!!!!

see him over there? amazing...I don't know how they catch anything being so far up!

this girl is so good! She just sat all chill in her stroller while we walked around. She's so awesome

Nearby around to another point off the cliffs was a lighthouse, which we also saw one day. It is the actual southwestern most point in Europe and just like at the Fort, it was surrounded by ocean views and it was just amazing. They say back in the day they considered this area the edge of the world and I cant totally see why they thought this. The cliffs are such a drastic end to the land and then there's nothing but ocean as far as you can see!

SO yeah...I don't have a lot else to say...it seems like it was quite awhile ago so I can't remember all the details but it was a pretty low key trip so there's not much else to say ;) We had a great first trip out of Spain and are looking forward to doing more!

Love these kiddos! :)