first of all and most important, little niece is now three years old! 🥳🥳🥳 has it really been 3 years since we held her in our arms for the first time…? what a miracle that the universe produced this beautiful creature, filled with joy and mischief, who demands to be held closely and tolerates being covered in kisses. we gave her a shelf to store her (many) story books, and she was happy to show us all her (many) favorites.

august is the month when all the emigrants are back in town for their holidays, so we get to see lots of friends who are usually far away. we played finspan with some of them, and they brought us some pão-de-ló in a nicely shaped boat that is typical from their parents’ town — how cute!

we also went to check out the codfish museum in ilhavo, did a boat tour of aveiro on a moliceiro with other friends, and had dinner and tripa with yet other sets of friends! it’s been a particularly social period for us, which is a little exhausting, but also super nice to catch up with everyone and their kids (and dogs!).

now it’s time to pack and head off to spain for our first total solar eclipse! paulo has been planning this moment for the last 2 years, and i’m also super excited about it — even made some special postcards for the occasion:

i wanted just 20 or so, but the printing company did a mistake and ended up sending me 50…! 😱 it’s a little disappointing that correos did not make an affordable postage stamp for the occasion, as it would be cool to send some matchy-matchy postcards… but oh well! i’ll still have fun making some mementos of the day and sharing them with friends. :)