Allie in the South of Spain

My birthday is this Friday, April 8th. I will be turning 30, whaaattt??? Where did the time go? I feel like I just turned 21 yesterday. Some people know this but other may not: I started a list of 30 things I wanted to do before this birthday back in 2013. I have posted below the original list as well as all 6 updates that I wrote about over the last few years. I adjusted my original list a few times in order to keep up with how my life was changing and the goals I wanted to accomplish. I am a bit surprised myself but my last update was over a year ago.  Update 6 Update 5 Update 4 Update 3 Update 2 Update 1 Original list Here is how the 30 before 30 list was left as of my latest update in February of 2015: 1. Go on another cruise. We have been throwing around the idea of going on a cruise with my parents when the girls are a bit older. I think we would have a blast! 2. Learn to cook Indian food . 3. Start a family (read: have a baby).  Trying to accomplish this go...

I shared this on Facebook last week and wanted to come back to the blog to share our good news here as well: WE ARE PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yeah, and we are having twins. After about three years of trying we are finally on our way to expanding our family. Of course we are incredibly excited and are trying to wrap our minds around the fact that this spring we will have not only one, but two little ones (if all goes well of course).  Right around this time last year I wrote a blog about my struggles with PCOS for PCOS Awareness month in September (read it here ). I had hoped and prayed that within a year I would be able to share some good news. And here it is! In fact, one of my goals on my 30 before 30 list was to have children and it looks like this is in reach as well. I won't say that getting here was easy. We had to have a lot of patience and positivity when those were in short supply. We luckily found an amazing group of doctors to give us the boost that we needed. It ...

Things have been quiet here on the blog for the last few months but let me explain why. Besides the fact that Jose and I haven't been on any big trips since our last one to Istanbul, life here in the south of Spain has been a routine of work, studying and trying to get through the winter (which is admittedly much milder than what the folks back home have been suffering). When you get right down to it, we have been boring lately, in a bit of a rut. Why you might ask? First because since October I have been completing the CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) offered by Cambridge University. A bit of background: English is very important to people here in Spain. It seems like everyone wants or needs to show their English level whether for job prospects, for University or even as a young learner in primary school. Most people study and prepare some kind of exam and official Cambridge exams are incredibly popular. In any case, native English speaker...

Here is the latest in my 30 before 30 updates. In April I turn 29 which gives me just over a year to try to cross off a whole lot of things from my list but I still feel like things are going well. So far I have completed 17 items and am working on a few more. Who knows, in a few months I might adjust my list again to include different goals or things I want to accomplish. I'll keep you updated! 1. Go on another cruise.  2. Learn to cook Indian food . 3. Start a family (read: have a baby). We are still plugging away at this. Keep us in your prayers. 4.  Find a job in which I am happy with what I do, feel accomplished and appreciated.  5. Visit Morocco. 6. Spend Christmas in Michigan. 7. Walk at least a part of the Camino de Santiago. 8. Drive comfortably here in Spain. 9. Go to (and enjoy) a soccer game. 10.  Find a list of books every person should read, and read them.  11. Visit Ireland.  12. Cook a Thanksgiving dinner solo.    13...

Jose and I had been planning our trip to Istanbul for months, ever since we discovered the low cost airline, Pegasus, which has flights from Madrid. We flew out in the afternoon, arriving in the evening after a looooong four hour flight. Since the company we used was low cost we of course got inexpensive tickets but also had no in-flight entertainment which made the four hours drag. When we got to Istanbul we arrived to the Sabiha Gokcen airport which is about an hour outside of the city itself. We took a transfer to our hotel which was located in the old city center known as Sultanhamet.  We went to check in only to find that we were taken away from the main hotel to a sketchy hostal-like set up complete with rickety staircase, stained pillow cases and disgusting floor. Seriously, Jose and I have stayed in some questionable places (youth hostels) in the past but they were at least clean. This place had been advertised as a hotel and was completely not what was shown online....

Okay so the last time I checked in with my 30 before 30 list I had changed and updated a few things from the original list I had made. It's a bit crazy that I have been working on these goals for about a year and a half now and that I have about as long left until the big birthday. To get you all caught up here are the posts I have written thus far about my 30 before 30 journey: The original post in May 2013 The first up-date in September 2013 The second up-date in November 2012 The third up-date in January 2014 A revision of the list in June 2014 And now without further ado, on to the latest and greatest things that I have crossed off my 30 before 30 list. 1. Go on another cruise.  2. Learn to cook Indian food . 3. Start a family (read: have a baby).  This is something we are still working on. I wrote a post in September about PCOS and how difficult things can be but we are optimistic that everything will work out for us. 4. Find a job in which I am happy with...

Here in the south of Spain there isn't much of a tradition of throwing showers (neither for weddings or for babies) but when my good friend, Cristina, announced that she was going to have a baby I decided to organize a party in her honor. Cristina is a wonderful person, who cares about and cares for all creatures great and small. She and I worked together in the past and our husbands work closely on the English team at their school. We share a love of animals and have teamed up to rescue a few in the past. I am very happy to be able to call her my friend and am excited that she will soon be welcoming a baby girl (named Blanca) into her family (which includes 5 rescue kitties). Keeping in mind that I wanted to bring this tradition to Spain, I took advantage and did a bit of shopping for decorations while at home this summer. This party was by no means one of those fantastically put together showers that you find on Pinterest but I think it came together well. We ended up havi...

Lots of people close to me know this and then again I am sure a lot don't. Because it is such a personal, often times uncomfortable subject to bring up I have put a lot of thought into whether or not to write this post. However, since September marks PCOS awareness month , I am coming out. I was diagnosed a while ago with polycystic ovary syndrome aka PCOS. Everyone knows that the best way to get medical info is just to google it, so I will leave you to that to get all the dirty details about physiologically why women with this syndrome have irregular periods, easily gain weight (especially in their stomachs), have problems with hair growth and probably most tragically and frustrating, often suffer from fertility problems among other super great symptoms. If you are curious, 2 articles for a quick overview of PCOS can be found here  and here .  My thoughts on PCOS and fertility problems in general: Why the whole thing sucks PCOS is a real bitch. Besides all of the visi...

We have had an amazing summer here in the USA!!! I am sad to leave and say goodbye to all our friends and family but I can honestly say that we took advantage of almost every moment we've been home. You can read about some of our specific summer adventures in these posts: Our girls-only weekend trip to the Big Apple Hanging out around the great state of Michigan Family GAGME trip to Washington D.C . Climbing Mount Pleasant As if all that weren't enough, we also went up to visit our good friends in Mount Pleasant (though I blanked and didn't take any pictures) for a few days last week. We walked around the campus and saw how much everything has changed since I graduated from CMU. Talk about expansion and new buildings! We also got to see Erica and Ernie's new house and have dinner where they had their wedding reception. Jose and I are excited that they are planning a visit to Spain in December. It'll be a great way to start the new year! Wedding weekend ...

The bald and the beautiful You may have noticed in some of the pictures I have posted this summer of my niece, Daphne. She doesn't have any hair on her cute little head. No, she is not sick in the traditional sense of the word; she isn't suffering from pain, no chemo, no cancer. (Not that I want to downplay her condition because being bald and being a girl will not be easy). Daphne suffers from alopecia which has caused her hair loss. Basically it is an autoimmune disease in which her body fights her hair. It could grow back or not. The whole situation sucks the big one. For Daphne. For her mom. For all people who don't have hair (except maybe Walter White). The long and short of it My sister Chrissie and I have been growing our hair out for some time in order to donate it to a charity that makes wigs for children. We decided to use Children with Hair Loss  ( www.childrenwithhairloss.us ). It is an amazing group that change the lives of kids who need a self esteem...

The other day I read a really good blog post about bucket lists and how if they are really to serve the purpose of helping guide your life towards goals they should be flexible, changing over time. (Read it here ). It got me thinking. I first wrote my 30 before 30 list a little over a year ago and figure it's about time to re-evaluate the things I decided I wanted to do before the big 3-0 in 2016. So far I have accomplished 12 things with a 13th in the works for next January (a trip to Turkey we have already booked). Priorities change, life throws you curve balls and some things just don't seem as important as before. That being said, I have decided to make some alterations to my original list. The things that I have completed are crossed off. Some things I have left the same, some I have explained a bit more, some will change thus eliminating others. Here goes the new and improved 30 before 30 list: 1. Go on another cruise. We are still checking into the possibilities of an...