• Metabolism Booster workout giveaway

    Please note: This giveaway has ended. For my second giveaway, I’m switching gears and giving away a one-month subscription to a daily workout program called the 12-minute metabolism booster! And I will tell you all about the subscription and workouts, but first I need to tell you about the woman who designed them. Katie Hart […]

  • Lilly Pulitzer giveaway

    lilly pulitzer giveaway

    Please note: This giveaway has ended, but there are others still going on! It’s my birthday, and I’m going to give YOU presents! I know, it’s weird. But I thought giving some of my favorite things to you guys was a great way to celebrate my birthday. I hope you agree. And don’t worry, after […]

  • How to make your own 3-shaped cake

    3-shaped cake

    When our Bahrain BFFs asked me to make a 3-shaped cake for their adorable son’s third birthday party, I had some ideas but wasn’t quite sure of the best way to build it. We had both seen 3-shaped cakes on Pinterest, of course, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of tutorials out there. […]

  • Long weekend in Goa

    Goa surf rescue

    I had been obsessed with visiting India for almost 20 years by the time I moved to Bahrain, so obviously it was at the top of our “to go” list from the beginning. The country is so vast and magical that you definitely need more than a few days to even get a feel for […]

  • Packing for summer in Spain

    packing for summer in Spain

    I have never been very good at packing light, and packing for summer in Spain last year seemed particularly daunting, since I knew I was going to have to haul my own suitcases through hotels and train stations in Barcelona and Valencia before heading to the US (with those same suitcases)! Plus, since I was […]

  • The best pecan pie

    best pecan pie

    To really understand how important pecan pie is in my life, I need to tell you a story about the first time I went to Afghanistan, in 2008. As soon as I got off the plane at Kandahar Air Field, my friend Kelly (who was the public affairs officer for the unit I was embedding […]

  • Road trip in southern Spain

    alhambra spain

    Last year, my friend Patty and I decided to take a free military flight to Europe and do a girls’ road trip in Southern Spain for about five days. We visited Sevilla, Cordoba, Granada and Rota before heading home, and it was an awesome trip! Because we weren’t 100 percent sure we’d even get on […]

  • SUP yoga in Bahrain

    sup yoga in bahrain

    I have been wanting to try SUP yoga for years, but no one would ever do it with me in California or DC. So imagine my surprise when we moved to Bahrain and my first (and best) friend there turned out to be a certified SUP yoga instructor! Haunani is an awesome yoga instructor on land AND […]

  • Off the shoulder in Barcelona

    travel style off the shoulder dress

    I wasn’t really on board with the off-the-shoulder look when it first started trending. I never thought it looked bad (although some stuff can be weird if it’s not made correctly). It’s just that I thought it was annoying to not be able to lift my arms and to have to wear a strapless bra. […]

  • 9 best date night restaurants in Bahrain

    cut bahrain steakhouse

    One of the things we weren’t expecting when we moved to Bahrain was an amazing restaurant scene, with everything from roadside shawarma stalls to cool, upscale restaurants that made us feel like we were in New York or L.A. Today, I wanted to share a few of our favorite Bahrain date night* restaurants that combine […]