Favorite Things about Living in Monaco

So I started to make a list with all of my favorite things about living in Monaco....

-Dogs are allowed everywhere

-Opera / symphony / ballet / vernissage every single night of the week and weekend!

-The beach and the sea

-Fireworks for every occassion (Easter, Christmas, fireworks competition in July, summer, and more!)

-Cafe on every corner

-Now owning a car...taking the bus and public transportation everywhere!

-Learning to live in a small space (sounds strange, but I LOVE this)

-The mountains! Definitely none of those in Miami!

-Learning to listen.  This too sounds strange, but since I don't speak the language I have to listen more and speak less...it's taught me a lot about myself.  It's also a good tool to have, which I'm happy to have developed!

-Learning to live at a slower pace.  My life was one big rush, from one thing to the next in Miami.  Living in Monaco has taught me to slow down, that much is wasted in the rush.  I have learned to enjoy the small moments, and slower pace of life.

-The way that the French & Monegasque think!  Honestly, they do think differently than Americans, which is very refreshing and insightful.

-Dessert.  In Miami, I never ordered dessert or had coffee after dinner.  Here I nearly always take a coffee or dessert or BOTH. Again, I think this goes hand-in-hand with the slower pace of life.

-Wine and champagne.  These were some of my fave things in Miami as well, but they seem to taste better here :)

-Not making plans!  In Miami I had a habit of jamming my weekend with plans, and here we just go with the flow and rarely make plans.  We seem to enjoy the "spur of the moment" things more so here than we ever did in Miami.

I know that there are a million other things....maybe I will publish a "Part 2" in a few months as I continue to think of more things.

Getting in Shape for Summer!

So as of now...I'm getting back into shape for summer, my 30th and for my pregnancy!

Sunday and Tuesday I went for a 30-40 min run and did the following exercises:
-100 sit ups
-10 v-ups
-:30 side planks (each side)
-25 legs lifts (each leg)
-10 push ups
-200 arm lifts (with extended arms, I make small circles...100 forwards and 100 backwards)

And let me tell you, I am feeling the burn!  It's Thursday and I'm still sore.  My goal is to exercise 2-3 times a week. So my plan is to do another run on Saturday, and do my exercises listed above!  And on Wednesday I'm going to check out Sunshine Yoga!  It's been a few years since I've done yoga, so I hope no one judges my terrible form plus lack of understanding French will make it just that much worse...eek, I'm nervous just thinking about it.

Overall, I'm not trying to lose weight, just tone up and get back to feeling healthy!  This week, I've been in the BEST mood and feeling energized from my work outs earlier in the week. Here's to feeling good and hopefully...eventually looking GREAT :)

I'll leave you with some fitness inspiration:

16 Ways To Not Blow My Marriage

So as you all know, I'm obsessed with Pinterest...and I found this gem there today and got to thinking about my own life and my own relationship.

And I realized that some of the things on here, my hubs and I are totally guilty of. Shame on us, and with the wonderful season of lent upon us...I think we will not only work on our relationship with God, but our relationship with eachother!

So in response to Dan's 16 ways be blew his marriage...here are 16 ways that I will try to avoid blowing mine.

1. Don't stop holding hands....ok, check this one we do and do often!

2. Don't stop trying to be attractive. I admit, with the cold and gross weather when I'm home I don't always get myself put together. But this is an easy one that I can fix!!

3. Don't always point out weaknesses. Hmmm, this will be a hard one since David's weakness of procrastination may be impeding our future.  But I guess I can try...

4. Don't stop cooking for eachother...ok, check.  We still do this one as well.

5. Don't yell at your spouse.  Hollering for another cookie from the couch is bad manners, ugh...even with a 50m2 apartment I totally find myself doing this. Having grown up with a younger brother, his job was to do all my dirty work while I lounged languidly (alliteration...yay me) on the couch. I guess I shouldn't make my poor hubs be the slave I made my bro be.  Ok, David, you're getting an upgrade. From now on, I will drag my sorry ass off the couch to get whatever I need**.

**Unless one of the dogs are sitting on my lap, it would be absolutely terrible to disrupt them!!

6. Don't call names. I must sound like a mah-jor bitch because I am constantly nagging on poor David....but I guess I will try to curb that.  But again, I can't help it if he's impossible to deal with sometimes.

7. Don't be stingy with money.  Ok, check...we already do that.  We have our budget and mostly stick to it.  So here we are good!

8. Don't argue in front of kids.  Our fur babies don't understand english, ok that's a lie....they totally do, but they don't mind if we argue. SO we're good here! And hopefully soon, when the stork finally decides to make it all the way to MONACO to drop off our baby, we will definitely NOT argue in front of her.  You hear that Mr. Stork...we will be the best, most amazing, most deserving parents ever.  So how's about you pay us a visit, ok??

9. Don't encourage one anther to skip working out. Check and check...this we totally do not do.  Normally we are trying to encourage one another TO work out.

10. Don't poop with the bathroom door open.  Ok, I'm not even going there...Done and DONE....

11. Don't stop kissing.  Check and check....we smooch everywhere we go. Restaurants, trains, planes, automobiles. HELLO I married a Brazilian, he's totally into the PDA thing!! YAY for moi!

12. Don't pressure one another.  Oh, you mean my expectations of David supporting me fully after having our baby is pressure?  Ok, sorry...I will stop doing that.

13. Don't stop having fun together. Not gonna lie, we're in a rut....it's pretty bad.  I mostly blame it on the weather.  Oh and the fact that we just took a 1 month vacay to the US and Brazil, so funds are pretty tight.  But I'm telling you, if we don't do "something fun" to get out of the house next weekend, I may commit suicide (please all of you serious ppl out there, this is a joke, I value my life WAyyyyyy too much to do something as silly as that). But yea, seriously, we need to do something fun and SOON!

14. Don't label eachother with negative labels.  Ah, that sounds easy enough, even if David is a lazy idiot.  I totally can handle this(again, joking ppl!!)!

15. Don't skip out on things that are important to him. Ok, I won't, wait....what's important to him that I might skip out on?? Hmm, dunno so I'm not going to worry about it!

16. Don't emotionally distance yourself after a fight.  Naw, not us....when we fight big we make up big.  No distance between us here :)

Now that I have my personal business all out there....how's ur relationship measure up to all these things?  Are there some things you should fix?  Not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of my relationship.  Not that it's 100% perfect, there's always more work to be put in.  So why not start today?

Long Time No See

I know, I know....I haven't posted in quite some time. But I'm back and here's an update:

End of December, the hubs and I flew to Miami for a long awaited (year-long to be exact) vacay! We spent an amazing week and a half with my parents at their condo in the Keys...Islamorada to be exact. During that time David's parents flew in for 3 days from Kansas to spend some q time with their son...whom they hadn't seen in over 2 years.
Then, on Jan 4 we flew to Brazil for a 10 day visit.  We staying 2 nights in Rio, 5 nights in Buzios and then 3 nights in Sao Paulo.  David's from Brazil, and hadn't been back home in over 10 years.  Mainly because we keep planning out major trips for other amazing places. But FINALLY I was able to see where he was from. Let me tell you...Rio is an amazing city with a vibe that just can not be described.  In Rio we stayed in the area named Santa Teresa, and it was just perfect in every way.  Nice shops, restaurants and bars in the area, plus we felt super safe which is not the case in all of Rio. We did the touristy things like, visited Ipanema and Leblon beaches.
After that we were off to Buzios, which is where I fell in love. The people, the beaches, the weather...everything was just perfect.  It felt like the first time in many years, that I could really breathe.  I didn't have a care in the world, just relaxed and had a romantic getaway with David.
Our final stop in Brazil was Sao Paulo, David's birth place.  Here we stayed at a friends place, and David got to visit with all of his long lost buddies. The city of SP is just so big, and overwhelming we didn't really know what to do, but luckily we had David's friends to show us around. After being away for 10 years David didn't really know what to do, or where to go. The weather took a turn, and was much colder and rainier than I was expecting so we mainly went to the mall, and had coffee breaks...which was nice and gave us a chance to hang and chat with David's friends.
After SP, we flew back to Miami for our last few days to spend with my parents and relax a bit more.

Now that I'm back in Monaco I'm having a bit of a hard time adjusting.  I'm missing my friends and family, and the winter weather here has me kind of down. It's so bad that I just looked up flights to go back home.

To be perfectly honest, I think it's a combination of uncertainty at work, struggles getting pregnant and being all alone. I mean, obviously I have David...but sometimes you need more. I'm basically crying as I write this, and sometimes things are hard because then otherwise you wouldn't appreciate the good times but I'm majorly questioning this entire journey.
-Why am I here?
-What is God trying to teach me?
-How am I becoming a better person by going through these difficulties?

Its funny because Monaco and Monte Carlo sounds so glamorous, and I'm sure if I were to tell any stranger that I was unhappy with my move to Monaco they would probably laugh in my face.  People think that Monaco is this wonderland, full of fun and joy and beauty....but the truth is it's full of expats looking for the next best thing, crooks trying to hide money, or billionaires spending loads of money on pathetic material goods that make them even more lonely and more pathetic than they were to start off.

My goal for the day...stop being so negative, and know that everything happens for a reason. I hope I can maintain my sanity in the meantime and not buy this plane ticket home, admitting defeat. Wish me luck....