2014: A Crazy Good Year In Review

Another year has gone by…flown by I should say. I guess when you have big life events, time just seems to coast right on through. I’m ok with that and more importantly I’m really looking forward to 2015 being a pretty low key year. More time for acclimating! 🙂

Before I give myself fully to 2015 I wanted to give a proper salute to 2014 by reviewing my favorite memories of the year! I’ve shared many great times between two different countries and strangely enough…Toblerone and I are feeling a bit homesick for Germany. It’s been fun going back through my blog and looking at all the pictures and reliving the moments! Can’t wait to go back there for Easter!!

Here’s a look back into my favorite memories of 2014!!!

1. Father-in-law’s 60th Bday Party – nothing like having a party for the half the town to celebrate your bday! 🙂

2. Fasnet in our town – nothing like crazy costumes, drinking, music, and parades to get you in the spirit!!! We are so sad to be missing it this year!

3. Being in two places at once (First trip to Italy) – The absolute most memorable trip (besides my engagement in Ireland!) thus far. What a fantastic country Italy is… and being on the country line between Austria and Italy, I was able to knock off an item on my bucket list!

4. Hiking in the Alps – I say it every year that I won’t go but I’m glad I went this last time. It was a view worth the exhaustion!

5. Wedding in August – Cape Cod, pink wedding dress, lobster bake…whats not to love?!

6. Going Away party in Germany – Bittersweet, but a great excuse to wear my drindl and party with the family! It was a warm send-off!

7. Buying our first American home – We were lucky to find it so quickly and seal the deal a week and a half later! BAM!

8. Thanksgiving with the family – We loved having Toblerone’s mom and my parents with us on our first hosted Thanksgiving in the US. I just hope we can host many many more!

9. Christmas Market in Chicago – Hands down my FAVORITE city! The Christmas market gave us that little bit of that special German Christmas magic we were missing!

10. New Years bowling with the parents – Great end to the year! We decided last minute to do a little NYE bowling while my baby sis lay sick in bed with some kind of crud. We were home by 10:30 and relaxed while watching the ball drop. Was really low key and I didn’t have a hangover the next day! WIN!

2015 has a lot to live up to and I’m hoping it brings a lot of great changes for us! I’ll be taking my Placement test this coming week for school! Can’t believe I’m really going back!!! Of course we still have hopes for a baby just like every year for the past 6 year. Lets see what miracles will happen!

Wishing you all a wonderful start to the new year! Take a moment to reflect on all the wonderful memories that you made and make a plan to make more this year! Travel, meet up with old friends, make goals, make bucket lists, take a cooking class, join a choir! Do something outside of your box. I think you’ll find a great memory just waiting to be made!

Until next time, Readers!!!! xoxoxoxoxoxo

Resolutions Schmesolutions…

Every new year gives us the open invitation to begin again. Usually, we start something new and then by mid-February we’ve lost that motivated push and we go back to how we’ve lived every year before. But, I like trendy things usually so I’m jumping on the new year resolution wagon once again but doing things a bit different. Tangible goals. So I suppose sharing them with you here will make them more solid and will hold me accountable!

1. Read more books!
Time to put down the electronics now and then. Flying home for Xmas I bought a book and I’m really into it. Almost forgot how much I loved reading. I want to attempt to read a book in German too. That may be a bit difficult but worth a shot!

2. Eat better and count calories!
Wedding time is just around the corner and I want to feel and look my best for the big day. But besides that, I think its just time to start paying attention more to what I’m eating. I want to change my eating habits so they stick! So counting calories has been helping with that. I write everything down and have been trying to drink 9 cups of water a day. Tough, but so far so good!

3. Live in the “Now”!
Big things are happening this year and I just need to have a healthy balance of looking forward to things and living in the moment. I have a bad habit of looking forward and not coming back! I focus on what is to come instead of making each minute count until I get to that point in the future. So, My goal this year is to live it up, in the here and now!

4. SAVE!SAVE!SAVE!
As I mentioned above, big things are happening this year (you’ll hear about it later :-)) and I really need to get a better savings plan in place for us. Doesn’t hurt to save the pennies. Last year I started a wedding fund and it was basically all loose change goes into the jar. That will be used to buy decorations or whatever for the wedding. Besides all that, I just want a good chunk of money saved in the bank in case anything ever happened or for that rainy day when we need a vacation!

Wish me luck! Starting with these 4 and really hope to turn them into good habits that never go away!

What are you resolutions this year? We are 13 days in, are you still going strong? Have any motivational tips to share? Write them in the comments below!

Until next time, Readers!!! xoxoxoxoxo

Our Christmas Break In The US

We’ve made it back to Germany after spending 2 weeks in the US with family. It was INCREDIBLE! I don’t know what was so different this time but for some reason I was way more relaxed and not so stressed out. I was feeling like I had seen everyone enough and wasn’t rushing around trying to get things done like I usually am. I sort of just let it all happen the way it should. Maybe that is my queue to stop being such a organized snob and live a little bit more spontaneous like I used to do many moons ago!

Our trip was packed full of fun things! Even a surprise bridal shower for me!!! Naturally, I didn’t know about it so I didn’t bring the camera. Sadly, I don’t have many pictures to document it but I promise, it really happened!! It was great to have a few of my favorite people in one place. I felt like a princess!

Christmas is for me the best when I am at home with my mom. I never want to have Christmas anywhere else. She just makes everything feel so homey and she’s the best gift giver!!

Christmas morning…or…afternoon actually!

My stocking contents! Santa knows me well!

Tobes got Cape Cod Beer Tap Markers!

Hanging out in my penguin onesie!

Entering nostalgia land, we went to see the Lights on the Lake (bunch of Christmas lights set up on a drive through portion of a park. Beautiful!) And it’s still as exciting as it was when I was a little girl.

And mom got us all tickets to see DISNEY ON ICE!!!!! Freak out moment! I was so excited I wanted to curl up and cry! I used to LOVE going to see the Ice Capades when I was a little girl and I got to go again!

We spent New Years at home drinking adult Rootbeer floats and playing monopoly which ended up being a great idea!

And Toblerone got to hang out in the jacuzzi (just like home) and played soccer where the dude literally was smiling non-stop for 2 hours. Something I have never seen him do when he plays soccer in Germany. It was so sweet!

All in all, we had a blast! We made a pact that we would fill each day with things to do no matter how minor and we did just that! I hope you all had a great Holiday season and your New Year is off to a great start 🙂

Until next time, Readers!!! xoxoxoxoxoxo

A Spicy New Year

Hello again, my lovelies! I’m back after some time off and ready for the new year to begin! I had such a wonderful time with my family for Christmas. It was great to finally show them around and give them a taste of the European world I live in. I’ll blog about our adventures later this week 🙂

I’m closing in on my one year mark since I moved to Germany and it doesn’t even feel real. I’ve been working on staying busy and I’ve added quite a few new students to my schedule to help them with English and all but while doing this I realized something. What exactly am I doing for me? I’m in another country and shouldn’t just be living the day to day. I need to get out and see more! We could easily pack up and go back to my home country any day if we so choose and I would regret not experiencing things more here. So, with that being said…I made a little bucket/new years resolution list to get my butt in gear in many ways to better myself.

1. Don’t be such a debbie downer! I’ve been moody and homesick quite a bit lately and really need to work on my attitude and get myself going every day.

2. Write it out! Of course this means blog more and the like but I mentioned before that I was writing a book. I sat down the other night and slammed out a few chapters and it felt awesome. MUST COMPLETE THIS!

3. Healthy is as Healthy does! After the medical catastrophe I went through – aka menopause at the age of 26 – I decided that I needed to get my mind, body, and well..body back to what it was. I lost 12lbs (a lot more to go, obvi!)  and now the weight is falling off since the medicine is out of my system but that’s not good enough. Going to the gym is great but also not good enough. I’ve decided to start making us healthier meals which I will post as I go along to you guys but I really think it’s going to work! Better choices is the way to go!

4. Explore, Explore, Explore! This goes without saying that I need to really experience my surroundings. Going to the grocery store and to school only opened my mind the first time I tried it. Now, I’m more interested in seeing the land I walk on, visiting the world’s largest cuckoo clock (did it and will blog it later!), or taking a little weekend getaway to the surrounding countries (and/or directly to Ireland!)

5. Snail Mail! I love the element of surprise when a letter comes in the mail. Email isn’t exciting anymore and I’ve decided I want to send more letters to people. So, those of you that gave me your address before I left, keep your eyes peeled for little random acts of snail mail!

I’m starting with these and I’m not going to say so much that they are resolutions…those never work out for anyone! These will be more of my long term/short term goals.  Who else is feeling inspired this year to change things around? What are some of your goals you made for yourself?? After all….it’s possibly the end of the world as we know it!

I’ll be posting more this week with recipes, adventures, and other such blabberings!

Happy New Year to you all! Until next time, Readers!!! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo