"When there are men around, women don't get tired."

This morning there was an actual alarm clock that was being used because this morning, Sunday morning, we were going to attend church! I put on my Sunday best and the whole gang of 5 headed out the doors to the cobbled stoned sidewalks to head on over to the Riverside church service. We walked down the hill, across the train tracks, passing a small convienent store where Mama Baptista once owned and ran.. and voila, we made it to our destination! We walked down a couple of flights, and I realized that this church was technically an 'under-ground church.' That's pretty 'spy'cial if you ask me! We walked into the small venue and I knew that the crowd here were true Jesus lovers. Churches weren't common in Portugal. Let alone non-Catholic churches.

We made our way into the sanctuary and learned that today's service was going to be multi-lingual. The band started to play on their instruments and the worship felt familiar. The words would then interchange between Portuguese and English, and even in that... the Lord was there. He is here. Wherever I am, where you are. Languages aren't a barrier for His love. They do not hold Him back from His great deeds. Countries are tiny little speckles to Him, and the reminder of He is big hit me once again. We listened to the pastor preach about Revelations in Portuguese first, and then the translator repeat in English. Truly beautiful. God's word is definitely for every ear.

Afterwards, Noah (the little boy) insisted that Luish and I go to his house to play. This was after he picked all the little bugs out of my hair and hugged my neck from behind, and that is when I realized I had a new best friend. We explained to him that we had plans to go the Avó Baptista's house for lunch. We got back to the apartment and jumped right into the car to head to old town Lisbon to visit Luiz's grandma, aunt, and uncle. As we were walking over to her apartment, I noticed a sweet old woman on her balcony waving down at us as we walked in.. and immediately I knew it was their sweet grandmother. When we walked right in to the quaint apartment, we were greeted with hugs and kisses and cheerful faces to see us. There were pictures all around the house of small Luiz and small other little trinkets. We all sat around the already food covered table. There were so many options to choose from! All new sorts of food were going to be tried there. The majority of the food was fresh vegetables mixed together to make a creation. Finishing off the homemade meal with a from scratch cake and jello, we all walked down to the little corner shop for coffee.

Kissing their grandma goodbye, Luiz pointed out a couple past memories he had from the place, and that also including that her belongings hadn't changed since when he was a little boy. We leave their place with saying our 'goodbyes' and promising to learn Portuguese for next times visit, and we left with happy, full bellies. We arrived home where it wasn't long or hard to decide that the pool would be an appropriate place for us. So, we threw on our clothes there created for such a thing and hung out and around the pool for the next couple of hours. Getting a darker tanning color and a bunch of pages ahead in my book, it eventually creep to being dinner time. I know what you're thinking... food so quickly?! But Jeff, Luey, and I all made our way down to the ocean shoreline to scout out some appetizing places.

After gawking at the rocks in the ocean and the tide being low due to the full moon, we made it to a little corner shop that would satisfy our eating wants and desires. We made ourselves at home outside of the area and Luiz had to translate just about everything for us that was on the menu & we had to put our trust in solely his word. We laughed and talked and eventually all of our of meals had been served and consumed by each of one of us. Topics changed quickly in our group, and once again the whole "Oh! This is vacation." factor sunk in a little more.

With being wobbly from all the food, we walked back to our place but not without stopping at the local Caffe to slip in and grab a sweet treat. Jeffs' excitement became like a little boys when he realized that they had mint chocolate chip and Luiz's mirrored the same when he ordered one of his favorite childhood ice cream cones. Arriving back to the apartment, we all sat and watched some television while finishing off our after dinner desserts, and eventually Luana and Jessica came back home from their YL dinner. That's when Luana pointed out that there was a full moon tonight, and the statement "when there's a full moon, I'm going to go for a midnight swim" once occured....

SO WE WENT! We went for a midnight dip in the pool when the sun was definitely no where to be found and the water temperature had dropped by a couple degrees... but... once every full moon, eh!?