What a difference a year makes vol. IV

I love writing these kind of posts. Some days I go back to read about a certain phase in my life and I amaze myself in the way I was able to express those moments and experiences. I can definitely see the growth within me over the years. I can see how blessed I have been even through the worse of the storms. And this year has been no different. 

2019 was such an amazing year. Life was the best ever and I didn’t think life could get any better. I felt accomplished in some many areas. Simply put, I felt so blessed. 

Then 2020 came. Many unfortunate events happened over the year. Month after month it was one thing after the other. But nothing was worse than my career being put on hold. Right as we entered a pandemic y’all! Not to mention, it was the career I had struggled so much to obtain. The career I desperately wanted and felt I deserved. The career I worked so hard on to achieve 😔. 

I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to talk about the reasons behind such drastic change. But know that it was so hard to come to term with. Nonetheless the year passed. I stayed home with my boys. I was still being blessed even with not having what I thought I desperately wanted. We had health. Our finances were unbothered. We had some great moments with our family and some friends. We completed some home renovations. We were able to take several trips towards the end of the year. Hubby work picked up so well. I have no doubt God’s hands were at work between all of this. I don’t know why things happened the way they did. But I do know that God wants me, us, to trust him. To let him act and do things his way. He wants us to have faith that He will work all things for good according to His will. 

I know it wasn’t like this for everyone. Some people suffered with health. Some with finances. Some with relationships. And some loss their life. But those people are in my prayers. And I pray God bless them in many ways and gives them peace and rest. 

I don’t know what tomorrow holds. I can’t say that I will always be this blessed. But I vow to live a joyful intentional life and to always have faith that His plans are better than mine. 

Formal Living Room Reveal

Hi friends! 

 

Here is it, our formal living space. When we first moved in I had no idea what I wanted to do with this room. It would obviously be used as a formal living area but if I'm being honest I was so overwhelmed by everything else we had going on that we did't give this room a second thought. At that moment this room was not a priority and definitively not on the budget as we knew we wanted to make some changes. Even the one window to the left used to bother us. I have noticed that I like a symmetrical look and this room was driving me crazy. Hubby and I talked about making another window on the other side and having the fireplace in the middle but alas, this look has grown on us. For now.

 

       

   

After we started to furnish the dinning room hubby decided that he wanted to work on this room. We have two entrances and no matter how hard we tried getting everyone to use the family's room entrance some people would use the front main entrance and this room was such an eye sore. And so we agreed on revamping the fireplace, painting the walls, and changing the moldings. Something simple. 

I don't have many before pictures but this room only had a white fireplace and very ugly moldings. The original fireplace was so blah. I really didn't like it at all so when I pitched that we should do a shiplap fireplace and showed hubby some pictures he was on board. We had already done an accent shiplap wall in the dinning room and we loved the look. I personally was obsessed! If hubby would let me I would shiplap our entire house :)

 

   

   

There was no going back after this room started to look presentable. I started to gather ideas on how I wanted to dress this room and I found the most inspiring picture on Pinterest. It actually had a black shiplap wall with a seating area similar to this one. I fell in love instantly and based this entire room on that picture. Except I wanted to keep it as light as possible and give it a modern farmhouse-ish rustic industrial look. That seems to be the trend when dressing up any room around here lately. One would say that I am undecided but I love how the pieces go so well together. From the ceiling fan and light fixture, to the fireplace and stone accents, to the armchairs and wall decor. I love it all!

Talking about wall decor, I have an Etsy order coming soon that will complete wall decor in this room. I've also been in search of a tall floor mirror to go in a corner right before the dinning room. I have not found anything I love yet and the one I did find was way too short. I think it was 57" tall and it just didn't look right but it looks beautiful in our master bedroom ;) So there will be a follow up update post to this room sometime in the future. 

   

 

So yeah, this is our formal living space. I call it Mommy's time out area. This room has beautiful lighting in the mornings and evenings. I love to come here to drink my morning coffee, read a book, or simply breastfeed CJ as I admire the work we've done. Some Friday nights hubby and I sit here with the fire going and just talk over a drink. Some days the kids join us and it makes for really nice family time. I love all that this room represents. It's for sure my favorite room thus far. 

 

  

This is what this room looked like prior to us buying. These pictures are from the listing when we found the house.

New Year in Puerto Rico

 

 Back in December, the hubby and I decided to take a last minute trip to Puerto Rico. We were already going to be locked in for New Year's Eve and we really couldn't do anything special for Adrian's birthday so we took a leap of faith and booked flights and resort for a week in the Caribbean. Puerto Rico was also on lockdown, beaches were closed, there was a curfew (even at the hotel), restaurants were operating at 30% capacity, and on Sundays everything shut down. Literally everything! But we chose to welcome the new year in warm climate and in a pool as it was better than the cold weather in the States and being locked inside our home which we had been doing all year long. Every day was a pool day with the exception of visiting Old San Juan one day and booking a private family snorkeling session another day.

 

   

We had never experienced Puerto Rico this way. We usually travel to visit family and travel around the island to different towns and beaches. This time we didn't rent a car, we stayed at a resort our entire stay, we did no beach day, and we didn't visit family. We did however walked everywhere, mostly up and down Ashford Ave checking out the cutest restaurants and coffee shops and different beach entrances. 

 

         

We booked at room at the San Juan Marriott Resort and Stellaris Casino which is located about 15minutes from San Juan airport in the Condado neighborhood. It was walking distance from many restaurants and pharmacies/markets were we were able to get the necessities and even beer and alcohol to drink in the room after the curfew. This resort had a pretty nice size pool with a slide which the boys loved, even CJ. The beach, although closed to the public, was literally our backyard just steps away from the pool. We were able to go to the beach side wet our feet and even get in for a little while but we were not allowed to lounge on the beach or set camp for the day. The waves were pretty strong as well so we only went over to the beach side a couple of times and for an hour or so during our stay there.  

          

 

   

We had only been to PR once over new year and we flew back home at 3am on the 1st. So we never really experienced a "real" New Year's Eve there. And this time was no different as we were to be in our rooms by 9pm. However we had an amazing view of this part of the island from the 20th floor. On the night of NYE hubby got us some champagne to pop at midnight, except that PR was an hour ahead so we "debated" on what time to use to pop the champagne. I mean we were on island time so why not celebrate the New Year on island time right? In either case around 10pm I sat in the balcony as the boys slept and watched the most amazing celebrations happening all around us. I don't know what was happening exactly out in the towns but there were fireworks going off for two hours straight! It was awesome to watch with people cheering and welcome the new year. Definitively a moment to remember and the best way to spend this time of year in comparison to what we had planned at home. 

 

 

 The next day we headed to Old San Juan and did some kite flying in El Morro. We had never done that before on prior trips so this was so cool to do with the boys. It wasn't as packed as it normally is so there was good distance between people around. We walked through the little narrow streets and found ourselves in a different part than were we normally walk through. I wanted to spend all day there and have dinner as an early birthday celebration for Adrian but the boys were begging to go back to the resort to get in the pool. They were pretty hot after being under the sun so long with the kite, it was too early for dinner and we had a heavy and late breakfast. There was no winning that battle for me so back we went. CJ slept most of our time there so I was bummed I didn't get any nice pictures of him running on the grass or walking through the streets. Next time.

 

   

   

On Sunday, Adrian's birthday, he asked to spend all day at the pool. We were literally there all day! Again. And of course out of all the days today was the day we got ready for dinner later than normal. Did I mention that everything shuts down on Sundays? Yeah well even restaurants shut down. Some opened for a few hours for phone orders only but of course we missed that memo and the timing. So we were stuck with no dinner. Parent fail moment for sure ha! Even the restaurants at our resort were closed! There was only one open, a gourmet pizza spot and they had run out of dough for the day. Just our luck. The chef was going to make more dough for the next day so they offered to make us some pizza for the birthday boy. For sure a birthday to remember, we celebrated with pizza and gelatos in the resort lobby area. All that matter is that our sweet boy had a great day and went to bed happy with a full and content belly :)

 

   

   

We had booked an early snorkeling session for our last day in PR. Our flight was late in the evening and we had late checkout so we made the best out of our last day there. Although we weren't impressed with the excursion. We've done snorkeling in DR, Jamaica, Mexico, and Costa Rica so we knew what to expect and this was not it. We saw really cool turtles and fishes but not worth the money. He did work with us being that we had the baby and he was very nice and knowledgable but again not worth it. Even Adrian said  "you mean that wack snorkeling we did? Yeah that was crappy" during a conversation we had at home days later. I laugh thinking about it because if our 8 years old wasn't fooled you know it was bad hahaha. 

So yeah, experiencing Puerto Rico this way was different for us. Specially during a pandemic. The food didn't disappoint at all and the memories we created made it all worth it.