We went on a holiday!

We went on a holiday! And it was fun!

I promised I would not become a daily blogger... and I did not.  We went away to Portugal last week and I suddenly felt weird about live blogging a holiday so sorry for the bloggy silence.

But also, the holiday was super busy.  There really wasn't much down time, and the down time was way better used catching up with our friends who joined us from America for the trip.  (FYI, they called it a "trip" and not at "holiday"... which was apt)

Anyways, it was great.  We flew to Lisbon and stayed at an AirBnB in Colares which was about 45 minutes from the airport.  I need to figure out how to both blog it and what to do with my 1,000 photos of it.

Our friends have a 2 and 5 year old so the kid game was strong.  My friend learned to say "I would like a table for 10, 6 children and 4 adults" in Portuguese, which helped to get tables and also to realize what a crazy number of kids we (I) have.

We booked flights on Easyjet, and paid for 1 checked bag between the 6 of us.  

Packing cubes are great.  We had to shuffle a bit to get it to the right weight (23kg/50lbs) but we just managed it.

We each got one small carryon item (under the seat - no rolly bags or overhead bags).  We mostly used this allowance for bags of sandwiches and food.  Big kids and grown ups had backpacks.

We also get 2 "child items" per kid.  This has to be a pram or baby backpack or travel cot etc.  We did make use of this allowance:

I'm not being lazy - I had Aubrey in a pram.

• The IKEA bags had our carseats (4)
• There are also 2 travel bedrails
• And the backpack Andy is wearing
• And the pram I am pushing.

We looked like a circus, but we made it to our rental car (7 seater, and we barely fit)

We spent 8 days in Portugal with 2 days of travel either side.  I will have to do a bigger post on that later, but it was definitely one of the best trips we've ever done.

We somehow managed to explore the famous Quinta De Regaleria in Sintra

My friend and I took our "big kids" (5, 5, 7) to Pena Palace

Mostly I made traveling with two year old twins look casual and easy:

Just kidding.  The trip was great, but two year old twins are not the easiest travel companions.  However, they loved it.  

And I am not too tired to function. I am just normal tired, and have had an awesome trip.  Traveling with friends is the best.  Especially ones who put up with 20 hours of flights (Portland to Lisbon is not Direct) to hang out with twin two year olds.  

Also, less importantly, I managed to get a new jacket on the day before we flew.  Marks and Spencer came through!