Holy Week and the beach with babies

Ok I am going to preface this post by warning that it is going to be full of pictures, more than usual since we had a pretty chock-full week of photo-worthy moments.

We kicked off Holy Week (which you probably know is a big deal around these parts) with an Easter egg hunt hosted by the American Women's Club of Seville which I have belonged to for several years. It is a club for English speakers from around the world which organizes all kinds of events throughout with year and though I think maybe Laura and Vera were a bit young for this last party, I had a good time with them looking for eggs and meeting a few new moms.


Domingo de Ramos or Palm Sunday is sort of the official start to Holy Week. It is customary for people to wear a new outfit on this day as they go out to see the processions taking place all over. Vera and Laura were no different, they wore new dresses and looked adorable. We went to see the procession in Jose's hometown and the weather was beautiful.


Later on in the week we headed to Portugal to go to the beach. The girls had been before but when they were too little to enjoy it. This time they had a blast. The weather was nice and we got to use our new wagon to haul both babies and gear out onto the sand. We had the whole beach to ourselves, the way I like it. We spent most of the time trying to keep Laura and Vera from eating shells and other beachy and apparently yummy finds. 






We visited our favorite Indian restaurant and dive bar as always while we were there for a few days. I guess you would call Jose and I creatures of habit. We have found these two places we love and make it a point of going there whenever we are visiting. It's nice because the owners of both bar and restaurant now know and recognize us. They all think the girls are cuties, and I wouldn't say they are wrong.

After being at the beach for a few days we headed home to partake in more Holy Week celebrations. We took the girls to see another procession in Jose's hometown with his parents and then had lunch with them. Vera and Laura wore new outfits of course. This time they were dresses made by my mother-in-law.





We also went to see Jose's whole family one day to celebrate his cousin's daughter's birthday. We first went and visited one set of Jose's grandparents before heading to the party. I have mentioned before that basically all of Jose's family lives in the same village or pueblo. We try to visit the pueblo at least once a month so that everyone can see the girls. Visiting the pueblo usually involved traveling from house to house and eating a lot. This time was a bit different since there was a birthday party and we had a great time. There was a bouncy house and a ball pit which the girls absolutely loved. We were all exhausted at the end of the day.






Jose went back to work this week but not soon after his sister, partner and my niece arrived from France for a visit. So what did we do? We headed back to Portugal last weekend and took all three girls to the beach. But I will post more on that later because I can hear the telltale giggling of two babies up from their naps.


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