Weekend Snapshots

Weekend snapshots 1

Weekend snapshots 2

Weekend snapshots 3

Weekend snapshots 4

IMG_9706


Hey hey, I haven’t posted much in a while… Guess I had some great weekends 🙂 Two weekends ago I went shopping with one of my best friends Abigail. This weekend was my husband Geoffrey his birthday weekend! We had a lovely latin night in Mercado Antwerp, birthday cakes at home and restaurant lunch today. A weekend filled with eating, food, families & friends! I feel very happy! By the way, my mother in law has two Chihuahua puppies right now: Fleur & Féline. Welcome to the Chihuahua family 😉 Enjoy the pics!  Xoxo

Continue Reading

New Year’s Resolutions

fullsizeoutput_2e

ny3

ny4


Find balance in your life. Work hard but don’t let work take over your life, you will lose yourself. Love, but love for the right reasons. Life is too short for anything mediocre. Know who you are and know that you are worthy of reaching your dreams and that it is never too late to start creating that life you have always dreamed of. Do not compare yourself to others, that’s just deadly. No two souls are the same. You are your own person, you are beautiful and you are unique. Put your trust in the universe. Some things are just meant to happen, and some are not. Let go of whatever is stealing your happiness, it’s hard but it is worth it. Embrace change. Embrace life. Everything happens for a reason, sometimes you just need to breath, trust and let go.

Briefly: What if you simply devoted this year to loving yourself more?

P.S.: this was are dining table for New Years eve with my parents & godmother. The first day of 2017, my godchild read her letter to. I was really proud because it was her first letter she actually read. The other years she knew it by heart. I’ve been lazy to post blogs because I’ve been so busy at work. It’s the most busy time of the year for us with the car exposition coming up next Thursday in Brussels.

Continue Reading

In between Christmas food coma’s

kerst-4

kerst-1

kerst-6

kerst-5


Merry Christmas to everyone! In between family dinners we had time to sleep. We woke up at 10:30, had breakfast and jumped on the couch again. I love the holidays but the food comas make me feel so buh. Yesterday we had dinner at my husband’s auntie’s place. It was really cosy even though we don’t see each other that often. After this post I’ going to get ready for dinner at my mom and dad’s place.

As promised before, here are some photos from our Christmas tree.

Merry Christmas & a happy always! Don’t forget to unplug from social media when together with your precious beloved ones. Cease the moment.

Continue Reading

Cosy Evenings with Friends

img_9586-small

img_9606-small

img_9604-small

img_9602-small

Ho ho ho, oh not yet! Last weekend we’ve spent the evening with our friends Abigail & Jan. It has been a while that we spoke to each other so we had a lot to catch up on. There is nothing more cosy to do on winter evenings then to sit around the table with some great food & company.

Continue Reading

China calling

china-7-small

I have to apologize so badly for not writing anything about our vacation to China. I was planning to make a vlog about it, but since I left only one month after China to Mexico I didn’t find the courage to start editing. Now I have to edit footage from two holidays into vlogs. HELP!

My husband and I planned a year ago to go back to China. It has been 3 years since my internship in Shanghai? And I started missing the Asian culture again. We planned a trip to the capital Beijing, stayed for 4 days, took a flight to Hongkong, stayed for 4 days and flew further to Hainan, Sanya, a southern island of China and stayed for one week to relax after two intense city trips.

First of all, I like flying with Hainan Airlines to China, but it doesn’t give you time to adapt to the Chinese mentality. The flights are full of Asian people and immediately you get confronted that you will be a minority as being a Western in China.

Arriving in Beijing, we stepped right into a tourist trap by taking an illegal taxi. I got so angry as they wanted to rip us off and my Mandarin Chinese got back fluently! I did not speak any Chinese since my studies 3 years ago!

Beijing is crowded and traffic can be hard sometimes. We decided to navigate ourselves through Beijing by taking the metro. I am not going to tell stories about all the things we visited because it was so much, but I will give you an overview: Forbidden City, Tiananmen,  Temple of Heaven, the different Hutongs, the Silk Market, Lama Temple, Summer Palace, Olympic Sites. The greatest thing was that we went to The Great Wall (Badaling) & The Ming Tombs.

Beijing is a very friendly and it is ruled by a familial atmosphere. The food is delicious as we randomly stepped into local restaurants and ordered plenty of food by a menu existing out of pictures.

The short time we’ve been here and the so many things that you can visit, got us knocked out every evening and we slept like a baby.

china-5-small

After four days in the capital we took our flight to Hong Kong. This is New York in China, like Shanghai with the skyscrapers, many restaurants, shops and long streets. What really stroke me was the different kind of climate there is in Hong Kong. So warm and humid. Everyone uses an airconditioning with temperatures going down more than 10° outside. Every time you came out of a building the heat just knocked you down. An overview of all visited places: The Peak, The Ladies Market, Clock Tower, Tsim Tsa Shui street, Lan Kwai Fong, Mong Kong…

china-10-small

Last but not least we flew to Hainan, beautiful Sanya. This island is not very known to Western people although a lot of Asian people spend their family holidays in this paradise. We found ourselves relaxing in a beautiful tropical hotel. Next to the many hotels that they are building here, you can’t find a lot yet. It’s all nature and open fields, palm trees and tropical vegetation. The beach here is also very nice and the waves are convenient for surfing. As we visited enough the past weeks, we didn’t visit anything in here.

china-6-small

We planned this trip all ourselves and I must say that I am very proud we did so well. People can book this kind of holidays with a guided organization spending so much more money than they ever should, but we managed to visit all by ourselves. It is handy that I speak Chinese. Otherwise you are lost in this country or easily ripped off.

China had my heart for some reason. Although there are not a lot of people who feel connected with Chinese culture & habits, I feel like I could fit in here. It is bustling and you do need your personal space to survive here, but there is so much to do in beautiful China. For now we visited Shanghai, Beijing, Hongkong and Hainan, Sanya, it’s enough to have an overall impression about China, but I hope to get more opportunities to visit the more rural parts too.

In case you are prepping a visit to one of the places we did and you feel in need of our knowledge or information. Please feel free to contact me and I will provide you with all the information that I Have.

Xoxo

china-8-small

Continue Reading

Víva Mexico – My hips don’t lie, Baila !

mexico-1-small

It has been one week since I returned from magical Mexico, Playa del Carmen, Riviera Maya and I’m still longing to go back.

I already miss the warm sun on my skin, the soft breeze through the palm trees and the tropical climate that has been so good for my body, skin & mood.

First day we arrived it was pouring rain & since it’s the hurricane season in Mexico, I have to admit that I was a little bit scared that is was going to be a not so sunny holiday, BUT Mexico was happy that we arrived and gave us splendid weather for the entire 16 days.

I hear y’all thinking … Oh my God 16 days for a beach holiday, that’s a long time. My friend Ellen, the kids & I really took the time to repose ourselves and listen to what we needed. We did plenty of activities in the hotel since the animation team was one of the best entertainment that I have ever experienced. Daily we did the aqua gym and salsa lessons, playing basketball, water polo, iron man, Olympic games, Mexican games. We had such a blast. All the fun & laughter got us mentally in such a good place.

The food was delicious in the hotel. We had different themed restaurants and we switched every night to taste the great food of all of them. Surprisingly, I didn’t put on weight because I ate nutritious fruits & veggies varied with the comfort food you could find during lunch.

After a day at the pool/beach, we did a short 45 minute workout and I gained so much confidence because I was seeing so much results. I couldn’t be more happy until I got on a scale and saw that I lost around 5 kg!

We were lucky to have a lagoon nearby the hotel with clear water, such a beautiful scenery! After all this, I did not even mention all of the animals that we saw in the hotel. A real zoo: coati’s, raccoons, gigantic grass hoppers, bambi, crabs, crocodile, iguanas…

mexico-2

During these two weeks we did 2 excursions, namely Xel-ha and the Cozumel Snorkel Tour. Both excursions were in the water. The first one was e natural water park with mangroves, snorkeling, cliff jumping, cenotes, tropical woods, biking … An amazing day for the boys, but Ellen and I we had such a great time too! And I loved it because we did everything barefoot, in bikini, life jackets, flipper & goggles. The second excursion we went by ferry to Cozumel and hopped on a catamaran boat. We sailed to 2 coral riffs and went snorkeling open seas. We saw a turtle, lobster and plenty colorful fish. After that we navigated to Playa Cielo (Heaven). I fell in love with this place. Here I realized that I am a beach & ocean person. Amazing turquoise blue water and white sand made it possible to admire the beautiful starfish while we were floating on the clouds of heaven.

We took a taxi twice to the city Playa del Carmen, one time during the day and the last evening in the evening. Such a convivial town with lots of souvenir shops & local bars. I get why people here are constantly in this latin party mood. I restored my confidence to dance and shake again, just let go on the reaggeaton rhythms.

I think it’s clear to see that we had an unforgettable time in Mexico-land and we are feeling home sick to this time not worrying about anything. Unfortunately, holidays do come to an end, but hey Mexico, nosotros regresso pronto!  Los quiere! XOXO

mexico-3-small

 

Continue Reading