on instagram lately / 15

mar16-instayet another busy month over here, the move from new orleans, living in an hotel whilst  looking for a place, adapting to life in berkeley, spring, easter with my parents visiting and our new home – it’s been only a week and i’m slowly getting organized and needless to say, excited to finally get in a routine. we’ve been finding pretty amazing spots around the bay area and can’t wait to share some of our adventures – in the meantime follow along instagram here.

on another note, what do you think about instagram changing it’s feed? hopefully it will be good for the community and make users interact more with one another, what do you say?

our new home in berkeley

new-berkeley-home-by-myseastory-5it;s ovine weekend, finally, and i couldn’t be more excited about it. we’ve been living in an hotel for the past month or so. we’ve had a grew time and feel lucky about it, but believe me, the glamour of staying in an hotel fades away after the first few days.

finding a place in berkeley / oakland turned out to be way harder than i expected, there is a lot of demand, few places available and very few have updated looks. most places are small, have only one bathroom for two bedrooms (this is somewhat deal breaker for us) and many have shared laundry areas. i normally go for the house / apartment with character, walking distance to a park, grocery store and coffee shops. but often these places come with maintenance problems. so this time i’m trying a brand new apartment, not much character in it, but showering where no one’s ever showered before? that’s a good feeling :)

these are the 4 things i like about it – 1) the light that comes in to every room 2) the brand new kitchen, not as dark as most apartments we’ve seen 3) the bathroom tiles and floors 4) the two balconies where i can see myself chilling during julia’s naps. the common areas in the building are pretty cool too and the rooftop can be used for bbq’s, there’s lot’s of sofas and comfy pillows (will show you this some other time).

i managed to sneak in our apartment before all the boxes arrived, and snapped a few pictures if you would like to see.

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ps – when we moved to our new home in new orleans

on instagram lately / 13

december-instagram-by-myseastorydecember went by too fast, actually the whole year did, time seems to fly when you’re a mum!! we finally got our boxes from turks & caicos, but these arrived a few days before flying to lisbon for our christmas vacation, so i just let them be…real proof that we don’t actually need as much stuff as we think we do.

our vacations in lisbon always evolve around family get togethers, eating as much delicious food as we can and trying to meet up with old friends. i love seeing julia spending time with the family and playing with my friends’ kids, and it breaks my heart that this can’t be part of our daily life. but every time we visit, it’s really special, and we’ll treasure these moments forever.

happy 2016 from our family to yours

julia nyefarewell 2015, you were good to me, i am so thankful for my health, my family, old and new friends – but mostly for this little girl of mine, who has taught me so much, but above all, to live a happy life, even in the hardest moments.

tonight we’re spending new year’s eve at home with our family, over an amazing meal orchestrated by my mum, raisins for the new year’s countdown and lot’s of bubbly around the fireplace.

wishing you and your loved ones a great start to 2016, filled with love, happiness and always with lot’s of laughter!

♡♡

ps – happy new year in 2015 and 2014

merry christmas to you all

merry-christmas

merry christmas to all of you who celebrate – we have a weekend full of family events ahead. i always wonder how people around the world celebrate christmas in different ways.

on christmas eve we usually have cod fish for dinner, it’s a portuguese tradition, we’re meeting  my mom’s side of the family and then head over to mass at midnight. on christmas day we eat roast beef for lunch for my dad’s family get together. there’s also tons of desserts, mostly traditional portuguese made with egg yolks and sugar (i know, very heavy but so good) and always chocolate mousse too! we’ll sing christmas songs, light up the fireplace and gather around to open our gifts.

we’re specially excited this year, because it’s julia’s 1st christmas with our family, and although she has still no expectations, she is pretty stoked about the christmas tree and the holiday mood overall ♡

ps – christmas last year in turks & caicos