It is no surprise to anyone that knows me that I am a city girl with a splash of hopeless beach bum. My life has mostly consisted of concrete sidewalks and sandy beaches (except for my 2 years in Michigan). I never had a lot of greenery around me (minus during my travels) and I was not one to want many animals either. I avoided animals mainly because I am a clean freak and figured they would create more work for me. Now I find myself looking up farms online! I can only assume that I am going through a mid-youth crises. Think about it. Why else would I be so interested in us buying a farm to live in?

So much has changed! Now that we live in Miami Beach, we feel as if we were on an extended honeymoon. Every morning we take a long walk with the dog and enjoy the ocean breeze. It has been so great for us to have such amazing scenery to start our day with. We get to talk about the day ahead of us while watching boat after boat pass us by. It’s a dream come true! Whenever we are finally too hungry to hold it in anymore, we go inside to have breakfast. We prepare completely opposite foods. While Matthew has pancakes, eggs, English muffins, etc, I have my Cinch meal replacement shakes. They helped me lose weight for the wedding and now they are helping me lose weight for Miami Beach.

I love our puppy Bentley so much! He is so cute and loveable. Some of my friends even say that he doesn’t look real because he resembles a stuffed animal so much. However, I found my poor and loveable puppy to be more of a pest than pet lately. Let me explain. We are still looking for a condo to live in Miami Beach. One of the hardest things to find in Miami Beach is parking- even if you are a resident. We asked our kind realtor to find us something with parking. She found us a great place within our price range that had parking and an OCEAN view. I could not believe it! Not only could we sit in the balcony and have a meal or hang out while looking out onto the water but we could see the water and boats passing by from the pool. Let me not forget to mention the great closet space the place had! We were so excited and put in an offer immediately!

Recently, our home was plagued by sadness due to the death of a dear friend and sister in Christ Esperanza Alvarez Muniz. There are times when I feel numb and go about my routine trying to make sense of it all. Then there are times when it hurts more than a physical wound. I feel like I have been going on about my day like a zombie just going through the motions- eating, sleeping, etc. How do you deal with such a tremendous loss and then proceed to move forward? It’s different for everyone but I would like to share what it has been like for Matthew and me.

Being the first one in my family (in my generation) to get married in the United States has put me in a position where I, along with my husband, have to set an example. My husband’s parents are a beautiful couple with a wonderful relationship but my parents are divorced. It might be a great thing that he knows what to do in a marriage and I know exactly what not to do. He is from South Africa and I come from a Cuban background. We are still learning about each other’s cultures and how they impact us in our daily lives. I love our differences and embrace the fact that those very same differences help us grow and daily with each other & individually.