Baby Cam

I finally got to hold Cameron Daly today. He was born on August 5th, a month early. We had trouble breathing on our own so we are at Children's Mercy. He is so tiny and so perfect. It is truly incredible when one of your friends brings new life into the world. I love being an auntie.

Celebrating Independence

Tomorrow is the 4th of July and if you are American then it means you are spending the day in the sunshine celebrating our independence from England by blowing shit up. Personally I rather be part of the UK. Then I could go be with my people. Scotland owns my heart for sure. I got sparklers and smoke bombs and big loud M-60s to blow up! Gonna get my white trash on. Have a good day tomorrow and try to keep all 10 fingers and all 10 toes XOXO

a break from gypsy life

Well guess who has been a bad girl. Well of course its me. I have a very valid excuse this time. I got a job! I was in Kansas City for less than a week and found somebody to take away my #expatdeadbeat status, pretty sad about giving up my gypsy ways for a bit. Anyway, I am now a guest services agent at four points by sheraton, that is a fancy way of saying front desk. I am meeting all different species of people, and occasionally some nonamericans who make me miss my expat life. Lol. Just living the big girl life, more adventures to come of course. In 100 days I will be at a wedding in Glasgow, Scotland. Can't wait M & L

Lots of Love to my peeps Missing A LOT of people right now XOXO

hammock sitting in the sunshine

May the sunshine warm your heart when you feel like your world is failling apart.
May the wind refresh your face when you have to stand in one place.
May the earth revive your soul and help make you feel whole.
May the water from your tears only be happy ones.

Living the life of a #deadbeatexpat

So it is day 3 of living back in Kansas City. I have a 5 year old roomate and for the last 3 mornings I have woken up to Cars with eyeballs, the Cars names are Ramon and Doc. Not creepy at all. Today is the last day I am waking up to those fellas. Among the other decorations and such in my room is a lifelike naked baby doll with a chewed off foot. Needless to say when my brother goes to school dolly is going in the trash. Just a little redecorating. Lol. My first night home after being waaaaay jetlagged the bro and I ended up going to bed at the same time. Well he watches cartoons before he goes to sleep so in our shared bedroom I fell asleep to SpongeBob Squarepants. Only I didn't really get to fall asleep because little homeboy keeps asking me why I am going to sleep instead of watching SB SqPants. In what universe would somebody rather sleep than watch cartoons? Mine kid. I am so happy to be back with him though, missed my CocoBear somethin feirce.

Really missing my Frenchy Family like A LOT. My lovely american ladies bubble girl and tanker paws and my scottish lady McG XoXo
AND my favorite scottish lasses Amanda, Cheryl and Aneta ;-*
So happy to be back home with all my sexy Midwest Lovers!!!

Adventures in Scotland

I have officially been introduced to Scotland. I flew into Edinburgh on Tuesday and was met with a stolen/borrowed BFF and her Giggity. I was treated to my first pub experience and met all of my Frenchy Scottish Girlfriend's pals. The next day I had the best tour guide ever and I saw 5 castles. Yes count that 5 CASTLES! I drove by hundreds of sheep and baby lambs and I wanted to snatch them all up. I saw my very first Highland Cow. Oh My God!! If I I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it!! They are crazy hairy! There will be photos in a blog coming soon. The next thing I saw in Scotland blows my mind.. a dry ski run. What the fuck is this you ask? It is the side of a huge hill covered in white carpet that people ski and snowboard down. There is no snow!! I mean. There was NO snow. They said that this is common and thy have them in the states. Not sure if I was being trolled. Lol.

My next day in Scotland my lovely host and tour guide took me to the amazing Kelvin Grove Museum. It was AWESOME!! After that we went for a pint in Tennets an fabulous pub. While enjoying my very first pint of Guinness in a pub in the UK we smelled smoke. Sure enough looking out the window there is debris falling from the building because a flat above the pub is on fire. We went outside for obvious reasons and this flat is majorly on fire. Huge like I have never seen. The hilariously part is we were some of the only ones to leave the pub. The hardcore old Scotsman had to finish their pints. Lol. Memorable way to enjoy my first UK Guinness.

Tomorrow I am going on a sub crawl which is when you get on the tube and get off on every stop and walk to the nearest pub for an alcoholic beverage. Then proceed to the next stop on the train for another and another. There are 15 stops let's pray I can hang. More adventures to follow....

Differences

So I am in Scotland right now. It's wonderful! They have the funniest looking taxi cabs. I can't wait to post pictures! When I got into the car at the airport the steering wheel was on the wrong side. Now this shouldn't be such a big deal but my goofy as found this fascinating. The cars driving on the opposite isn't a huge deal, and then you get to a round about. Oh my. Like I said I am a goofball. But everything is opposite! Even the trains go the opposite way.

I had my first Tennament pint. I am gonna get me some fish and chips and I will get my ultimate UK experience. Stay tuned this I only after the first day...

Social Networking

Today I had to de douche my Facebook, as my best friend calls it. It is incredible how many buttons you have to click to delete one person, it's 4! Four freaking clicks just to delete someone who probably wouldn't say hi to you in public but wants to stalk you on the Internet. Sorry not happening. I have been trying to convert my friends to Twitter for awhile now. I feel my nonsense is accepted more on there than on my Facebook. Not everybody wants to know what I am doing where I am doing it and why but sometimes I tell my tweeple. I like to inform my followers of the outrageous things I see on an everyday basis and I like to think they appreciate my humor. I don't know what drives me to write a blog exactly I just like to put my thoughts into words that others can read. One of my friends who blogs as well wondered if she was being annoying by blogging everyday. I told her no way. If people don't wanna read your blog they don't have to and they can't really complain about you being annoying if they are going out of their way to cyber stalk you. Lol. So I hope my blog isn't annoying but if it is don't read it! This annoyingness is what leads me to de douche my social networks. If you don't know me in real life why do you want to know about me on my Internet life? How do you guys feel about people who wouldn't come up to you on the street being privy to your private information on social networking sites?

Friendship

They say people are in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. I also believe things happen in your life to bring you to certain people. I have wonderful friends in Kansas City but I have made so many wonderful friends around the world too. When I moved to California I met some great people in Chico. When I moved to the bay I found one of my greatest friends. She and I share the same birthday and mostly share the same personality as well, I would say she is a bit nicer than me. We met through someone she used to date and I firmly believe they dated until I could meet her and that was the reason he was in her life. Now I am living in France and I have 3 amazing women I get to call good friends. The 3 of them were already friends when I moved here but accepted me into their group so lovingly. And we all just click. We all talk about everything from raising kids to all the ways to make kids, we can be slightly perverted. We give each other advice and opinions and have the best time doing it. I am leaving my group of 3 in a week and I am so sad that I will be so far away from them. But I truly think I came here for a reason, to meet these women and I only stayed for a season but they will be cherished by me for a lifetime.

Stupid Airlines

So what I don't get is how airlines justify the outrageous fees when you want to change a flight. If the flight cost the same amount of money they aren't losing money. But no they rather charge you an ungodly amount of money and make you mad. Then they charge you like a million bucks just cuz you want to bring luggage with you on your trip. I mean who do you know that doesn't need to bring clothes to wear on a trip. I am pretty sure they frown upon being naked on airplanes. Should make going through security easier, no places to hide anything, well almost no place. Lol. I have half a mind to pull a Joey from friends and just wear everything I own on the flight, that is probably frowned upon too. Anyway the silver lining about all the stress I went through to change flight times is that I get to see Scotland. I am super excited and will be seeing the lovely country in 2 weeks and I will inform you all of my adventures there, trust me they will be epic.

So much for that resolution...

So I have been bad. Obviously I have not been keeping up with my blog. Pure laziness really. I have been having some adventures. Last weekend I went to Paris with a group of my girlfriends. We had a blast. Got in late Friday night and went to a bar that had a flying pig in its decor. We stayed in the eleventh which has lots of hip little bars. Saturday morning we got up and went to lunch at Café Constant which was amazing. If you are ever in Paris you must go there and get the pumpkin soup I would sell my soul to eat it everyday. It's right by the Eiffel Tower so after lunch we had a very romantic walk to the landmark of the city of love. I proposed to a very lovely lady friend of mine with a borrowed wedding ring. We are soulmates. We walked down the Seine River and saw the sites. There was this awesome bridge that had chain links on both sides covered in padlocks. A couple takes the lock makes a wish and throws the key into the river. Very romantical. Saturday night we celebrates my petite friends birthday and had an amazing time. Danced the night away and ended the night in a fight with drunk teenage guys. I love France but I hate their drunk teenage punks with a passion. Woke up Sunday morning and had brunch before leaving the wonderful city. It was a much needed girls trip and I loved the bonding that happened. Sometimes there is nothing better than being silly with your girls. I will try to be better about my blogging. I mean it's March for cryin out loud Alexis!

Love for the Mom and Pop

There are many things that are different in Europe than in the states but I think the biggest thing is the lack of super stores. At first I hated that I couldn't go to one store such as Target or WalMart for everything I needed. Now I am beginning to love the different places you can buy food. When I got to France I instantly fell in love with the bakery around the corner from our flat. Who wouldn't love fresh baked bread and pastries a hop, skip, and a jump away? Ya, nobody. This week I had my first butchers experience. Like a real butcher that only sells meat. Now I love me some meat so it didn't gross me out in any way but alot of you would probably disagree. It was just so cool so buy fresh meat from a butcher. I don't even know where to find a butcher in the states. The closest thing would be the back of the grocery store, just not as cool. Today I had my first experience with a tea house. I am in love. It is just a little place that is decorated like a cottage in the English countryside. There were a dozen little tables with mismatching table clothes and beautiful little knick knacks. An enormous table filled with any dessert you can imagine, fat kid heaven. Our tea came out in little pots with little tea cups, all mismatching. It was so quaint I just loved it. Why don't we have those in the states? I love to drink tea and having a fun little place to drink tea would be amazing. We have the equivalent of the coffee houses here so why don't we have other fabulous things too. Don't get me wrong the convenience of super stores is wonderful but having that personal touch just makes things better. I now see that having the mom and pop stores is extremely necessary to keep America humble. We need to work on giving them our business and not the convenient satan super stores. And trust me on this tea houses and bakeries are the best way to live a happy life.

The Joys of International Travel

So as most of you might know I am somewhat of a gypsy. My boyfriend of 6 years plays professional volleyball so when he goes overseas to play I follow along. I went home to Kansas City for Christmas this year and left the warmth of the south of France behind. I had a pretty good time back home but couldn't wait to get back. You would think since I was so excited to come back to France I would know what day I was supposed to leave. Not so. On Sunday I went to my dad's house to see some family and friends before I left. I get a call that night from my boyfriend telling me I leave the next morning at 6 am NOT Tuesday morning at 6 am. You know in cartoons when they levitate off the ground and their eyes pop out of their head? Ya that happened. I rushed home, drunk I might add, to pack all my stuff for my flight that was leaving in less than 10 hours. I highly recommend to everyone that they know the dates of traveling and double check so they avoid this happening to them. Everything worked out in the end and I even got upgraded on my overseas flight.

Since I am already talking about traveling I am going to go off on a tangent about what you can and cannot bring on an airplane. I have had everything from a perfume bottle to deodorant to tweezers taken away from me at security. Fine. Whatever. I don't really have the desire to get blown up so do what you gotta do. Now I am sitting on my flight this past time from Chicago to Amsterdam and the girl across the aisle from me is knitting. She is using her knitting needles to make a really pretty scarf. Obviously she isn't a terrorist but I can't help but be annoyed that she can bring those on the plane and I can't bring my tweezers. She can shank someone, stab something that contains explosive gas, or hold somebody hostage with those things. What was I going to do with my tweezers? Over pluck someone's eyebrows? I understand that TSA has to chose their battles but I think someone needs a reality check on what is dangerous and what is not.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone! We all know how people like to make resolutions at the first of the year, that they never keep. Well I thought I would try and keep mine simple this year, just too maybe help myself out. Be Better. That’s it, be better. Be a better friend, a better lover, be a better sister and daughter. Do better at the little things like smiling and making other people laugh. Be better at cooking and cleaning so my man doesn’t give up on me and trade me in. JK. Be better at managing my time. There are so many things I could be better at and this year I want to explore how much better of a person I can be. Case in point my new blog. I absolutely loved my Austria blog but what do you know?! I got bored and quit. I promise I won’t leave anyone hanging this time.

So I rang in the New Year in Kansas City, with 2 other couples(not saying I didn’t love every minute of it BUT get real I wanted my handsome man). Yes I was a fifth wheel for the first part of 2012 and I still haven’t picked up my other wheel. Heading back to France in less than a week and I couldn’t be happier. I sit on the fence about whether I love the States or Europe more. I am getting closer and closer to that expat title. Being in your hometown for the holidays is always wonderful because it brings up happy memories. But as the place stays the same people change, some for the better, some for the worse, and some people leave your life all together.  So many people travel everywhere to spend time with family and loved ones during this season, and oh man is that stressful. I saw and talked to more people on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day than I had in a year. Granted I have an enormous family whom I love dearly but holy shite that is a whole lot of convo for my non social self.

I will be in France next week so I will be way more entertaining very soon. The troubles I can get into with my French friends are amazing and you will be jealous. Cheers to the New Year! Good Luck with the “resolutions.”

XOXO