Hat Trick

The Algarve continues to impress with its gorgeously colored water and impressive cliffs and rock formations. Today we ventured over to Ponta de Piedade. This is an impressive part of the coastline. The top of the cliffs had a board walk that took us to all the good viewpoints. 

We found a cafe along the boardwalk and stopped for lunch. Cormac announced that he would now wear his hat on the side of his head while in public. Azure joined him. Lucette had no hat, so she improvised.

While at lunch we discussed what our "Talents" would be if we were characters in "Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians." In that book the main character, Alcatraz, has the talent of breaking things. His grandpa's talent is arriving late while his 2 cousins have the talents of tripping and speaking nonsense. It is all delightfully silly. After a bit of speculating on each other's talents, however, we decided this might be a good way to hurt each other's feelings so we stopped. We did have some good laughs though. I really like spending time with these people. We have a lot of fun together. As a random side note, Cormac has decided the Portuguese  sounds like Spanish with a French accent. Delightful.

After lunch we headed back to one of the spots we saw earlier where you can actually swim. We walked down all 8,492 stairs (okay, maybe it was less than that) to get to the water. There was almost no beach down there. The water looks so amazing from the top of the cliff. Unfortunately, the water is not as impressive when you try to get in it. Those coves tend to trap all the seaweed and gunk. It smelled gross and the water was pretty nasty. We swam out a ways to where the water was not so yucky then we swam over to a cool cave. Sadly, the cool cave had sharp rocks in the water and a few of us ended up with cuts Otherwise, it was really beautiful. Swimming back out of the cave to the beach proved to be rather more difficult against the current and wind. Cormac and Azure swam ahead, the rest of us followed more slowly. Lucette was struggling since she hurt her ankle a little on an unseen rock and was worried about more. Some very kind kayakers saw her struggling and offered her a ride to shore, but she thought they were weird and refused. We did eventually make it back to shore where we then climbed all those stairs back up. We then hiked back to the car.

We returned to our Air BnB and Azure wanted to go to our beach here. Everyone else was wanting to shower and be done for the day, so I joined Azy. We had fun playing in the waves (in much cleaner water) and then laying on the sand for a bit. I didn't let us stay too long as we weren't properly sunscreened. 

After getting cleaned up we watched some Olympic gymnastics. I have been promising the kids ice cream, so we grabbed Cormac out of his secret room (the door is a panel in this book shelf thing that opens up into his hidden room) and went in search of dessert. When we exited the apartment building we are staying in we could hear some crazy whistling and other sounds. I thought there must be some people having a good time, but Azure spotted a feathered friend. This cute parrot was hanging out talking and making all kinds of funny noises. We watched him for a bit. I'm not sure where he lives, but I am glad we got to see him. We could hear him for a good long way as we walked down the street.

Every once in a while on this trip one of the kids will ask for an item of clothing as a souvenir. It is not something Ammon and I have wanted to get them though since they always grow out of them so fast. Cormac and I did get hats a couple days ago and the girls asked if they could also get hats. I figure that as far as items of clothes go, hats are great since you don't really outgrow them and they tend to last a long time if you take care of them. We found hats for the girls then found some ice cream. Ammon has not wanted a new hat, he says he has enough. I think you can always have more hats. Anyway, we snapped a picture of those of us who have been recently hatted together. 

After dinner Cormac and I watched Greece beat up the USA Men's team in water polo. It was sad. Cormac is getting inspired though and is excited for water polo to begin. I saw some clients and am excited to soon be back on a normal schedule when working. It is one thing to be a night owl when you are up crocheting, watching shows, reading, or doing other tasks that don't require much brain power. It is an entirely different thing to have spent the whole day playing and then to try to show up to an appointment with all your brain power intact and try not to yawn through the whole session. Yet, as we get closer to the end of this trip (by this time next week we will be back in Utah), I find that part of me really wants this not to end yet. It has been a dream to be nomadic all summer and to experience awesome new places and things with these little people. Being a mom to these kids is pretty awesome. I'm thankful for the memories we are making and that we can keep making more when we get home.