We moved away from Florida only to see a sand sculpture of an alligator after having eaten the arm off of someone.   Disturbing?  I would venture to say yes,

So I guess fighting is acceptable in Portuguese public schools. Pippa, my precocious first grader, comes home daily with tales of intense beat downs. I am not talking about small cat fights in the playground. No…what she describes and what I have witnessed when picking her up… have been full out nasty brawls. Punching so much that the teacher ends up putting one of the kids in a headlock. Pippa is unfazed by the fights. How is this possible? She, thankfully, lives in her own world. She sees them, but keeps her distance and just thinks they are cray-cray. Let’s hope it stays that way!

My youngest daughter is basically a complete nut job.  She is insanely funny for a 6 year old.  She gets comedic timing.  She is the Jerry Seinfeld of the 6 year old club circuit.  She makes great observations on everyday life.  I have been writing down her musings since she could talk.   One day at the age of three she stated, “I am going to be president one day.”  Impressed by her assertion I asked her when, she said “when I have hair on my vagina.”  She just operates differently.

We decided a challenge would be good for her, so we signed her up to go to our local school.  No one speaks English.  She does not speak Portuguese.  She did not seem concerned.  She said her job is clear.  What is her job, you may ask.  According to her, “to teach these kids to speak my language.”  We’ll see how that goes.

We packed up everything we owned and put it into a 10×25 storage unit in Fort Pierce, Florida. The same Fort Pierce, Florida that was where the eye of Hurricane Matthew was supposed to hit. The hurricane became pretty wimpy when it made landfall there…luckily! So, the stuff survived and I am taking that as a good sign, that we too will endure during our three year stay in Cascais, Portugal.