We have made it through one of the rainiest seasons in Portugal (and much of Europe) in decades. Thankfully we didn’t have any water related problems of note, but it did mean we spent a lot of time indoors January and early February. Back in Medford our house had, over the years, slowly gained specific spots for monthly decor which Michelle could flip out quickly. We are slowly finding where those spots will be in our new home and much of this post will be pictures of that decor.

February is in the top half of my favorite month list for seasonal decor, it would be higher but it’s hard to compete with December (Christmas), September (our wedding anniversary), October (Halloween), or January (snowmen). But, overall you can’t go wrong having a houseful of loving memories.

Part of our decor is almost always a few associated books.

And of course every month has a cross stitch that Michelle made!

We went on a lovely date for Valentine’s day. We walked into town and started things off with a spendy Aperol Spritz in a hotel lounge associated with a high end restaurant. I have never been a fan of Aperol Spritz, and the version of this drink converted me.

The drinks were totally worth the price and reminded us of one of our very first dates. We were on a trip to Alaska and went to a dive bar. I decided to go crazy and order Long Island Iced Teas and the waitress kept apologizing because they cost ten dollars apiece. The same price these much higher quality drinks cost many, many years later. We continued on memory lane during dinner as we shared a bottle of Syrah, one of our favorite varieties of wine while we were in Oregon.

We had picked the restaurant, Casa Amarela, because they served two dishes we ate almost every week in Olhão. Our good friend Alzira regularly made both duck rice and creamy cod with potatoes at Café Bianca. The rain must have had us in sentimental moods.

We agreed that, in trying to upscale both dishes, the food didn’t have the same yummy bite of the more traditional versions that we love. The duck could have been dark turkey meat and the creamy cod was not nearly creamy enough. The stuffed mushrooms we started with ended up being the highlight food-wise.

After eating too much we got our dessert to go and would enjoy an excellent chocolate mousse the next day. The thirty minute walk home was perfect to burn off all that heavy food. It was very nice to get home to our love filled house.

We’ll have more to share about how we spent January in a future post. Now that the sun is out we are excited to start stretching our legs some more.

We have been watching figure skating and hockey for the past week as the Olympics run their course. The upcoming final game between USA and Canada should be exciting.

We also introduced some more friends to Ark Nova and it continues to be one of our favorites. Hopefully we can get some board game days at our house scheduled soon, the dining room is perfect to play in when the sun is shining in.

Thanks for joining me on this quick walk around our house. One of the decoration photos I posted isn’t part of our February decor, it’s just an everyday thing in our house – make a guess in the comments if you think you know which thing that is!

I hope everyone is having a lovely February!