the big thing this week was that, in addition to our friends and their dogs, we also had my brother, his wife and baby LJ in the house! 😅 they needed a place to stay while taking care of other family stuff in faro, and prices in algarve are predictably off the roof during summer… so they ended up staying with us for a few days.

baby niece is still her delightful self, now with the addition of a few gimmicks that she’s been learning, like the sound a few animals make, where her tongue and nose are, how to say she’s had enough food… and paulo’s name! the boy has been so consistent trying to teach her his name, that she suddenly started saying it — well, a version of it that sounds like “pau-ummmmm”. it’s adorable!

i’ve also finished a few books here and there, a mix of things. i enjoyed the thursday murder club (about a group people in a nursing home that solve murders!), contos da montanha (the vocabulary is beautiful, the words just straight out of my grandma’s kitchen), all creatures great and small and a thousand splendid suns. this last one, about the lives of 2 women in afghanistan in the years since the revolution, was a punch in the gut, every page filled with heartbreak… i’m not sure how i managed to finish it, but i definitely needed some lighter literature after that.