Belize Navidad

In lieu of Christmas presents this year, Nathan and I decided to treat ourselves to a trip. A tradition we hope to carry on for Christmases to come. We knew we wanted to go somewhere warm, and somewhere not too far, since we only had a few days. After a lot of research and deliberation, we landed on San Pedro, Belize. Belize, located in Central America, is an easy 2 hour direct flight from Houston, which makes it ideal for long weekend trips. We stayed on Ambergis Caye, which is where the capital city of San Pedro is located. The island is big enough to explore for 4 days, but small enough that we were able to see most of the main attractions while we were there.

New Season, New Place to Call Home

Same story, second verse: About a month ago, Nathan is contacted by a team in Malta. Never heard of it? Neither had we. Fast forward to 2 weeks later, Nathan is on his way! (I'll spare you the boring details of in between.) Fast forward 3 more weeks, and I am on my way, too!

A Few Updates from Lately

As many of you know, Nathan just underwent foot surgery. Not something you want to do, ever, but especially not as a professional athlete who's career literally depends on your feet. So, initially we were  a little shocked by the news. Nathan has had previous foot injuries. He is a self proclaimed "expert on crutches," and it has always been because of something wrong with his right foot. So when he hurt it playing basketball about a month ago, it wasn't that shocking. We just hoped it was nothing serious. One MRI and one phone call with a very brief explanation later, Nathan was told to schedule a day for surgery after the doctor's two week vacation. You can imagine we had a lot of questions, but they were not going to get answered until the doctor was back in town, which was surgery day. He was the best doctor in Houston, so we trusted him and did our best to patiently wait for our questions to be answered.

Mykonos, Greece, A Dream Come True

Greece has always been near the top, if not at the top, of my most desired places to visit list. Blame it on Uncle Jessie, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, or Niko Niko's, but I am hooked on all things Greek. So when it came time to choose the destination of our annual post season trip, I immediately started pushing for Greece. Luckily, It didn't take too much convincing. It just so happened I had recently introduced Nathan to Greek food. That combined with a quick Pinterest search of "Greek Islands" would be enough to convince anyone to buy a plane ticket. We knew we wanted to go somewhere on the beach. (6 months in Western Europe will make you want to get to the warmest, sunniest place possible.) Based on that, flight schedules, and TripAdvisor reviews, we decided on Mykonos. We had no idea at the time that Mykonos was basically the party capital of the world, but also, we weren't complaining.

As our time here in Europe is coming to an end, we are reflecting on all the things we've lived without for the past few months. Some of these we are proud of, we've broken a lot of bad and unnecessary habits being outside of America. And some of these we are longing for the moment we get back home. Either way, its fun to look back and think about how little things have made our lives over here so different then our lives back home. This is a little game I call, "3 Months Without."

In the last 3 months we have not.....

Gone through a drive thru

Barcelona, Spain: Biking, Beaches, and Bocadillos

In front of the famous Sagrada Familia, that has been under construction for 100+ yrs 

It took all of about a half hour into our trip for both of us to agree that Barcelona was one of our favorite places we've ever visited. The energy there is completely different then any other city we've seen during our time in Europe. Most of our trips have been to landlocked, cold cities with lots of history, but not the friendliest hosts. Barcelona, in contrast, was sunny, colorful, and filled with smiling, friendly faces, active and eager to be outside enjoying the weather. And unlike Luxembourg, where we've been bundled up for the past three months, and the skies are usually grey, we were greeted in Barcelona with sunshine and shorts weather! It was a mild 70 degrees the whole time we were there, which we were told is basically the weather they get year round. Lucky ducks!

April Wrap Up

Hiking in Barcelona 

Well, this is officially the last monthly update we will write from Luxembourg! Our flights are booked back to Texas on May 26th. It happens to be Memorial Day, which is extra exciting since it should be a day filled with family gatherings, being outdoors, and lots of authentic American food. We have many things to look forward to this month, but first a look back at April.