Travel

Honeymoon Blues: Milan, Italy

Today, we decided it was time to start a small series called, “Honeymoon Blues” Down here in sunny south florida, were in the midst of summer, a very HOT summer as usual! This heat had me just reminiscing on the cool, chilly weather we got to experience on our honeymoon this past December. Can I just tell you guys, it was one of the best experiences my hubby and I have gotten to share together in our travels?! Seriously it was so memorable and probably one that we will forever remember. It was romantic, busy, yet relaxing and one that had us in awe. I remember us just thinking to ourselves, “these are places we only see in the movies!!” To say the least, we enjoyed the places so much that we decided it was only right to walk you through our honeymoon and then you may understand why we reminisce on our honeymoon so much! It was literally our dream honeymoon!

To give you a little insight into our honeymoon adventure and whats to come on the blog.. All in all, we visited 5 of the major cities in Italy and we wandered out a little further north out of Italy. For those other two cities ,you will just have to stay tuned for to find out where else we went!

Tip #1: If you don’t mind a little cold weather for a couple of days or even a couple of weeks, travel to Europe in the winter months! Flights are way less expensive and the tourist lines are much shorter! Plus, if you’re from south florida, you’ll finally be able to wear those winter boots!

Where we stayed: Hotel Mini Tiziano
Piazza Del Duomo

Milan’s Cathedral: Duomo of Milan
Up the Duomo we went!

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

A must, STOP! Panzerotti: Luini

Most delicious baked filled goods!

Castello Sforzesco

Arco della Pace: Porta Sempione

Until our next Stop!

-Jen ❤

*all images are property of Grace Fulfilling Life*

Recap: Colombia Trip & Family Love

Last month, hubby and I headed on vacation to my first home, Colombia! It was an exciting time for us for many reasons. One being that although most of my family still lives there, I hadn’t been in over 10 years! It was especially exciting for me to show my husband the place where I initially grew up as a child, where I first lived and called a place a “home.” Essentially, it was moving and exciting showing him such a big part of what makes me, ME, and the other part of what has made me the person I am today. We got to see my father’s side of the family, which my husband had never met and that was such a special moment. I felt like it showed him the other side of what makes me Jennifer, gestures, my sense of humor and other little things we just bypass on a daily basis, that I get from my father’s side. Of course, we spend lots of time with my mom’s side too, and that was special in itself because we have so many memories together, that the list goes on. It was fun, it was humbling and it was a great time with family. I think that part of this trips success was how much we enjoyed all my family and how we spend such good quality time with them . They’re good people, they are grateful and live a simple life. They have a passion in them to appreciate and love with all their hearts, that maybe as a small child I did not know how to appreciate because I was far too young to even know what that meant. They showed Xavier and I so much love that we will forever hold close to our hearts until the next time we see them.

This trip meant a lot to us, the time we spend was needed in our hearts and minds. It was good for us to leave our reality for a little while, and see things we don’t get to see here in Florida. There is something about seeing greenery all around you, tall green luscious mountains, horses by the rivers, herds of cattle in the fields, natures fresh air and the small town folk sitting around tables enjoying small talk and the more simple things in life. It was definitely a breath of fresh air after some storms that had been thrown at us. It was good for the soul. It was a good reminder for us that family is with us, that in the midst of whatever trials are thrown our way, we are blessed. We are blessed with the opportunity to have had the chance to travel and travel safely, see family and have family, to love and be oh so loved by all our sweet family, that whether it’s here or in Colombia, we have loved ones that surround us and embrace us, and that even through sorrows we still have a happiness that is much much greater!

Psalm 23:1-3, The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.

Hope you guys enjoy our photos and the scenery. Pictures don’t do this beautiful country justice.

how handsome does my hubby look in the Colombian jersey?!

OUR JOURNEY IN THE BIG APPLE: DAY THREE

Our Journey in the big apple, is way past due! But after almost a year of putting it off, I have decided to give it a try once again! For those of you who are not aware of these previous “Journey in the big apple” post, you can check them out here and here. Last October we made a trip to New York City and it was an unforgettable trip, experience and a true trip to cherish, especially since it was the trip where we got engaged. With the engagement put aside, the trip in all honesty was an amazing trip. A trip where we experienced so much of the city on our own that we were so proud of ourselves. I don’t think there’s a week we don’t go without reminiscing on our trip. With the warm weather already paying a visit to us down here in sunny south florida, I can’t help but to think back on that cool, chilly weather we experienced on our trip. It was such a pleasant change for us Floridian’s who really never get to see the change in seasons.

Day one and two consisted of our arrival day and day two included our engagement day in Brooklyn. Well day three, we decided to head on over to the west side and visit Chelsea. Here we made a couple stops during our day! After breakfast we made it over to the Chelsea Market, walked the streets of Chelsea and made our way over to The Highline Park. Other stops also included The Frying Pan NYC at Pier 66a, Hudson River Park Pier 66a, and Madison Square Garden at night for a music event we had originally planned on attending. If you’re wondering if any of these are worth visiting, I hope our pictures can convince you of a big YES!

::First Stop after our breakfast at Friedman’s Lunch, was: Chelsea Market and district::

It was fall time on our trip and Halloween preparations were in effect

How NEW YORK is this? Fashion shoots in the city.

:: Second Stop: The Highline Park, a railway line converted into a trendy park full of activity and art::

::Third Stop: Pier 66 Maritime Bar & Cafe along with The Frying Pan NYC, a historic rail float barge with the Frying Pan historic lightship permanently docked, who becomes a local favorite bar and hangout spot in the city.

::Fourth stop: Hudson River Park Pier 66a::

::Fifth Stop: Madison Square Garden::

Stay tuned for our last two days in the Big apple! More exciting places to share!

-Jen ❤

*all images are property of La Vida, life as it comes

OUR JOURNEY IN THE BIG APPLE: DAY ONE & TWO

Our Journey in the big apple has been a journey in the works as far as sharing it with you all! But as promised, within the next two weeks I will share the exciting places we got to experience in our trip to New York, day by day that we were there. We have way too many pictures to share of each specific day, that each day deserves its own post! Hope you all are as excited as me! Again, like mentioned in our previous nyc post, it will be our daily adventures.. so please bare with me throughout the next two weeks. Our first post was dedicated to some tips while we were there and what we found helped us save some money while there. Now you will be able to see all we saw and did while there. Like our previous post mentioned.. we were definitely on a reminiscing mood when we wrote about our tips. Now that another post is ahead of us, i can’t help but to get excited each time I look at our pictures. I hope you all enjoy them as much as Xavier and I do, and we hope you visit some of these lovely places in your future travels, if you haven’t already of course. Here are our adventures through day one and two of our stay. I decided to bunch these two days together only because day one was pretty short, since it was our arrival day. Well… here it is! Our journey begins! Enjoy.

.::DAY ONE::

A wait in the airport, a tour of our hotel, and a stroll around 59th St and 5th ave. Followed by a quick stop to time square.This line at the airport for a cab, was crazy!

.::DAY TWO::.

First stop East Village, Tompkins Square Park, near by where we had breakfast.

From there we headed down towards the Financial District and made a stop at the World trade center.

This lovely day, was also the day we made our way to the Brooklyn Bridge (where we got Engaged!) and of course headed over to Brooklyn. In Brooklyn we made a stop at Brooklyn Heights where we walked over to the Brooklyn bridge Park and Fulton Ferry.. they’re pretty much all in the same area!

And being in 'awe' by the view was sufficient enough to keep me blinded as to what was going to happen next...a Proposal! — And being in ‘awe’ by the view was sufficient enough to keep me blinded as to what was going to happen next…a Proposal!

Here we celebrated our engagement with some Brooklyn pizza and ice cream! yum!

The night was young, and after our Brooklyn adventure was done, we headed over to the city to see the view from up above! Empire State Building was waiting for us, a chance to take in the view, our day and our future ahead.. oh and did I mention the freezing cold air?? Yeah it was a quick view from up above. lol

Well… there you have it! Day one & two in a nutshell… sort of lol. Lots of pictures huh? I wanted to make sure you all got a great idea of our day, our adventure and wonderful journey through the city those two days. Now that I have shared these two days with you all, I can’t wait to share the rest of our days! I want to go back to NY already!? Whose with me?

I hope you all stay tuned for the upcoming post! They’re going to be exciting and full of more pictures and our adventures. Would you like to visit any of these places or already have?? We would love to hear all about them and which are your favorites!

-Jen ❤

*all images are property of La Vida, life as it comes

REMINISCING ON OUR NYC TRIP & SOME TIPS

Today, we’re reminiscing on our NYC trip last month. Ive been slacking a little with my blog post lately due to much time spent searching for “wedding stuff” and have postponed much of my blogging! Sorry in advance y’all! But today, I decided that it would be the perfect day to blog about our trip to New York, which was exactly one month ago. Mainly for three main reasons.. One, both Xavier and I woke up ‘missing NYC.’ Two, exactly one month ago, we woke up in the big city ready to take on all it threw our way. Least but not least…Today marks exactly one month that we have been engaged!!! eek! Isn’t this the perfect day to blog about or trip?? i think so! We really felt that this was one of the most successful trips Xavier and I have taken together. We had a budget before we left home and we did amazing sticking to our budget. Well, I won’t ramble too much about our trip! I will try to get to the point. Mainly because we’re so excited to share a lot of our pictures with you all. We already shared our eating adventures with you here on Eating in the Big Apple, and now we’re excited to share the places we visited! This trip was not only fun, exciting and a big adventure, but one of the most memorable that Xavier and I will share in our lives! We truly are so blessed to have been able to have such great experiences in NY and just the opportunity to take a trip like we did! I hope you all enjoy our memories as much as we did. Since there are sooo many pictures that we would love to share with you, we are going to have to break down our adventure. The way I will be doing this, is by breaking our days spent in New york, day by day. In a way we will have a series of our NYC reminiscing throughout the next two weeks (give or take guys.) Each post will be dedicated to that day we spent in NY and what fun adventures we ran into that day. So please stay tuned! We are very excited to share them with you!

Before we move on to the good stuff.. We wanted to share some of our little insider tips that helped us throughout our adventure there. Here are our NYC tips before we share our lovely pictures with you all. Most of these helped us stay on budget! I hope they are helpful and I hope you put them to use if you plan on making a trip there soon!

::TIPS::

-One thing that I highly recommend if you’re going to be in the city for a couple of days and want to go the more touristy areas is purchasing The New York Pass. They have over 80 city attractions that can be visited by just showing the New York city pass. By the time you add them all up at regular price you’ll probably end up spending more than you would if you were to just purchase the pass! This of course is as long as you make sure to visit it enough places so that the pass pays for itself or more, you’ll pretty much have a win win situation!

– One of our biggest tips when visiting the city is also to bunch together the different places you want to visit by districts or at least their near by neighbors. It’ll save you a lot of walking and the hassle of going from a far place to another far place! Trust me, if you’re on limited time, you’ll appreciate this!

-Another tip for anyone traveling to the city and on a budget, skip the taxi fares from place to place.. (they’ll add up) Instead purchase the 7 day unlimited subway pass! This metro card will come in most handy! It’s $30.00 pp, but so worth the buy. The subway can get tricky, and not every time you swipe will the subway entries open..what it will take is your money! So instead, the unlimited pass will let you swipe till the gate opens and it will last up to 7 days, as many rides as you’d like! Score!

-Lastly, Download the HopStop app for your iPhone (if you have one) if you’re a risk taker like us and want to get around the city ‘subway style’! Once we got the hang of it, and read the instructions, lol, it was super easy! It will tell you the near by stations and where to get on and off! Easy breezy! It will take you to your destination by the nearest subway station close to it and give you directions from there on. Sweet!

Hope those come in handy, and just like our previous NYC post, We would love to take you all on our journey in the city day by day! So stay tuned for the upcoming posts.. Only this time, ‘day by day’ will be ‘one blog at a time’ so that each day gets the attention it deserves,lol. ;O

So don’t go anywhere and stay tuned! I look forward to sharing with you all such a sweet experience for us.

..oh..and…

..happy one month of engagement to us..

..love you babe..

Jen<3

THE PROPOSAL!

The proposal! Yes, our proposal! It was simply perfect. Xavier and I are officially engaged and we could not be more excited! Not only are we excited but we are so remarkably blessed! Our relationship has been a blessing in disguise from the very beginning. Xavier and I met in Nursing school and to many’s surprise, he and I were not even friends in the beginning. I was a little apprehensive to start a friendship with Xavier, mostly because of his “I’m a stud and I know it” kinda walk he had, lol. According to him, he always just “wanted my attention.” I didn’t give him my attention until some semesters after in school where we actually had to be in clinical’s together. We got to know each other some more and we actually became great friends. Towards the end of nursing school our good friend Anita, aka cupid, started stirring things up for us and long behold the truth came out! We actually liked each other and we both were okay with it. Our last semester in nursing school, Xavier and I were pretty much inseparable and he asked me to be his girlfriend! That moment alone was unforgettable… picnic by the bay, asking me to be his girlfriend and dolphins swimming right by the water. No seriously, that’s exactly how it went! Just lovely. We also have been so blessed to share graduation together, passing our boards together and being hired as Nurses weeks apart! Some months into working we even got our own place! So many memories.. and to think that we have so many more in our future together fills my heart with so much love. God has truly been watching over us and for that we are grateful.

For those of you that have followed my blog, you’ll know that Xavier and I had a trip planned to NYC this past week. That trip was ‘supposedly’ meant to be a mini-vacation to NYC and to attend an event in Madison square garden. Little did I know, one of the most important questions in my life would be asked. On that day, Xavier and I woke up to the usual New York city noise and the hustle of the crowd. Little did I know Xavier had been planning this day for some months. Our day started by getting some very delicious breakfast and a walk in the park. After our bellies were full we headed to the world trade center memorial. From there we had plans to meet up with Xavier’s friend and his girlfriend to head to Brooklyn. After some debating on where we were really going to meet them and lots of painful walking, Xavier told me that we would meet them at the Brooklyn bridge, so we could walk across it. Lets jut say I was not a happy camper and my feet were in so much pain that I quickly told him, “I am not walking the bridge!” Well to my surprise, Xavier turned around and gave me a very sturdy and loud “WE ARE WALKING THE BRIDGE!” I was so stunned that I just stayed quiet and agreed,lol. I gave in, sucked up the pain and headed to the bridge in pain but excited to see the great Brooklyn bridge! Little did I know, this was all planned.

THE PROPOSAL: We got to the start of the bridge, Xavier stopped to put his jacket on and get his camera ready so we could take some awesome shots! I quickly followed his steps so that we wouldn’t have to stop in the middle of the bridge and hold up people who were doing the same. ( This was the moment that he very sneakily put the ring in his pocket that he had been carrying in his camera bag!) I was so blinded by the view that I didn’t even notice this! lol. Well, we walked close to the middle of the bridge were we met up with his friend and his girlfriend and we all kept walking together. To my surprise as well, they were in on the plan! Just about midway on the bridge we all stopped to take some shots. Xavier asked to use my camera so he could take a panorama shot while I took a picture of his friend and his girlfriend. ( This was the moment he took a picture of a small piece of paper with some very important words) Once again, I of course did not even notice, lol. Well right after, Xavier asked me to give his camera to his friend so he could take a picture of us on the bridge. The next part, is the best part of this story!!

On October 17, at 3:20 in the afternoon, Xavier and I made one of the best memories in our lives thus far. He asked me to grab my camera and look at the cool shot he had taken with my camera. To my surprise, and it was a very unexpected surprise! It was the most beautiful picture i had ever seen! It was him holding a little piece of paper with the best words on it… “WILL YOU MARRY ME?” The moment was perfect, the timing was perfect and the setting was breathtaking! A this moment all I could do was cry. I literally threw myself on him while he was on one knee and ended up on my knees too! lol. I cried out of excitement and the feeling of love that was rushing through me. It was a feeling like no other and a feeling that I cannot even describe with words. Knowing that you will spend the rest of your life along with the love of your life, your soul mate and your lover is the best feeling ever.

It was a moment that I will cherish for the rest of my life and that when thinking back on it, will always bring a smile to my face. It will be a memory that will be in our hearts forever and a moment that will remind us of our love. Our proposal was perfect for us in every way possible. We were experiencing a new place together, doing something that we enjoy doing as a couple (taking pictures.)Our story thus far has always had ‘unexpected moments’ and this is another that will be added to our list. These ‘unexpected’ moments for Xavier and I have been the best moments and moments that show us our endless blessings.

We are so thrilled for our future ahead. I know that I cannot imagine spending a future without him. He makes me better, he supports me, takes care of me, loves me unconditionally and makes me complete. I know that we will always be there for each other through the good times and the bad. I can only pray that God continues to bless us in our future ahead. We are very excited to share this moment with all our loved ones and with you all. So here are our perfect pictures captured by Mike, Xavier’s friend. THE PROPOSAL.

ps. It was a little windy that day.. lol

love,

Jen and Xavier.