2018 – Page 6 – Building The Blancas

Best Designer Dupes at Target

Sharing a few of my favorite designer dupes at Target for summer 2018.

Today has been such a great Sunday fun day! I was finally able to use my Mother’s Day spa gift this morning, thanks hunny! I feel so relaxed, I wish I could get massages and pedis every day. It’s also my sisters birthday so the whole family went to Carrabba’s for dinner, my mouth is still watering from that meal! Omg you guys, if you haven’t tried their lobster ravioli you are missing out, its to die for!! I hope you are all having a nice weekend, I know I’m not ready for it to end. Our pool is finally open and all I want to do is go outside and play with Beckham.

In today’s post I wanted to share a few of my favorite designer dupes from Target. These items are seriously cute and more than half the price of the designer item. Target for the win!!!

I love these slides from Target, they are so comfortable and easy to just throw on with any outfit. I’ve been wearing them nonstop since I purchased them a few weeks ago and for $12.99 I may just go back for the brown pair as well. They are such a great dupe for the Steve Madden brand. I wore them to dinner tonight, you can see the pic on my Instagram. I’ve linked them both for you, click here for Target slides and here for Steve madden slides.

I have been dying to get my hands on a pair of the Mark Fisher Espadrilles but honestly the thought of spending $150.00 on a pair of shoes that I can only wear a few months out of the year in Ohio just isn’t worth it to me. I found this super comparable pair of espadrilles at Target and could not resist purchasing them! I love a good wedge shoe and for less than 1/4 of the price of the designer brand I just couldn’t pass it up. I ordered these online this past week and am still waiting for them to arrive in the mail. I will do a review once they are here and let you know if they are as cute as they look online (our store was sold out, so they must be a hot seller!). Again I’ve linked both of these adorable shoes for you, click here for Target style and here for Mark Fisher Style.

Straw bags are all the rage this year and I have been digging this trend! Target has great straw bags for sale and they are all listed at affordable prices. I just love the distressed look of this straw bag for only $21.99 from Target. It’s similar in style to the bag listed on Madewell.com by Folk Fortune which is adorable but list price is $128.00. If you are looking for a cute straw bag you can click here for the Target round bag and here for the Folk Fortune bag.

Have a great week friends!

Maui Family Vacation

Highlights from our gorgeous family vacation to Maui in March 2018.

Hello! I am so excited to be getting back into blogging and sharing our family vacation to Maui, Hawaii with all of you. This vacation was such a blast, I can’t even count how many times I told Shane that I never wanted to leave, it was just TOO PRETTY!! I wanted to share a few of my favorite memories from this vacation… except I am having a really hard time picking my favorites so I may overshare. Honestly, they were all so great! The scenery was incredible, the food was delicious and the memories we were able to make as a family if three have been some of my favorites so far. Hope you enjoy!

On our first morning on the Maui we walked down to the beach to catch the sunrise, umm can you say SPECTACULAR! I knew from that moment on that we were going to be loving Hawaii. The beach directly across from our condo was called Kamaole Beach and was our favorite spot to visit each day. If you are looking to spot a few sea turtles swimming around this is the place to go!

Haleakala Crater was another phenomenal site we were able to visit while on the island. Warning, if you get motion sickness easily this may not be the trip to take for you. My husband and I both got sick on this drive, there are so many twists and turns as you go up the mountain. Makes me sick just thinking about it. Honestly, it was worth the trip though, I mean just look at these views…

My FAVORITE day from the whole vacation was the day we drove the Road to Hana. The trip was a full day adventure with many stops along the way (yep, we took Beckham and he did so well in the car all day!) The road to Hana is incredibly gorgeous, just the scenery along the drive itself is enough to take your breath away. Three of the stops we made are definitely worth recommending.

One of the very first stops we made was the Maui Garden of Eden Arboretum. It felt as if we were walking in the most magical beautiful tropical jungle, it was absolutely stunning. We spent about an hour here just taking in all the beauty. 100% worth the stop!! If you get the chance to visit you will not be disappointed.

Another stop that I loved was the red sand beach. This beach was one of my favorites because it is extremely secluded, we asked a few locals how to get to the beach and we were told that the police were telling all the locals not to tell tourists how to get there because it is such a dangerous. Not going to lie this made us want to find it even more, haha! The walk down to the beach was pretty difficult terrain, I would recommend wearing closed toe shoes and not taking small children (thank goodness Shane’s dad stayed back in the car with Beckham). Once we got down there we were actually surprised to find some people laying out at the beach… butt naked!!! LOL! Apparently the beach is a nudist beach, FYI! We all had a good laugh when we got back to the car. If you can find this beach it is worth it to take the hike down there. The sand and water are so so pretty.

The black sand beach was another one of my favorite stops. This one is a lot easier to find and is full of tourists. I found it hard to even get a good picture because there were so many people every where! I’m glad we stopped and got to see the sand/rocks that make up such a gorgeous and popular beach. There was a lot more site seeing to do at this stop however we left quickly to get back on the road home.

Here are some other pictures that I just loved from this vacation. Beckham was such a water baby, we could never get him out!

Okay, after writing this I am so ready to go back!!!

New Year, New Me

My 2018 new years resolutions.

Happy New Year friends! Wow, I can not believe that it is 2018 already. Time has really flown by these past few years, probably because I am constantly busy. I don’t know about you, but for me 2017 was an extremely hard year. Besides celebrating my son’s first birthday, I felt like most of the year was a struggle. I was more than happy to leave 2017 in the past and move on to a new (and hopefully) more exciting year for me and my family. Today’s post will be a quick one discussing some of my new years resolutions. I have a good feeling about 2018, this may just be my year!!!

A brand new, fresh year just brings so much hope and joy. I feel more motivated, excited, happy, and a willingness to get my life in order. My motto for 2018 is new year, new me. I have set a few personal resolutions I would like to accomplish during the year. The first thing I plan to do is work more on Casa Blanca. I was so ecstatic when I started writing this blog and then, well, life just got in the way and I put it on hold. One of my major goals for this year is to get it going again and this post is step number one. If you are a consistent follower (which I hope you are!), then you will be happy to know I plan on posting new content every Wednesday and Sunday, so keep your eyes peeled! I am so excited to have my own blog site and share my favorite things with all of you 🙂

A second resolution I set for 2018 is to get in shape. Boyyyyyy do I need some help this department. I know this will be hard for me to do, i’m pretty sure there is no one on earth worse at keeping a consistent work out schedule than me. I will start and stop over and over again, which makes me feel like I’m accomplishing nothing. In order to accomplish this goal I have downloaded the Bikini Body Guide App on my phone, the app is called Sweat if you are interested in downloading it as well. I have heard a ton of great things about BBG and I can not wait to get started. Rachel Parcell, one of my all time favorite bloggers, recently posted a before and after picture of her progress with the BBG program and she looks incredible. Rachel’s blog posts about the program have given me a lot of motivation to get started. The plan is to start on the program this weekend. Here’s to hoping that I can actually stick to a workout routine, wish me luck guys I need it! LOL

The third and final resolution I have set for 2018 is to become more financially stable by investing. My husband and I recently started looking to purchase our first rental property, woohoo! Also, we have an offer in on a house right now to purchase and flip. Hopefully, we get it so I can feel like Joanna Gaines flipping my first house. Flipping houses has been a dream of mine since I started watching HGTV at least 10+ years ago. Who else is in love with Chip and Joanna, like seriously, they are the cutest!! Anyway, I feel like we are at a place in our lives where we are able to start investing and do more than just work our day jobs for income. This is a process I would also love to share with my blog readers once we can get it started. I know investing is scary for a lot of people (us included), which is why I will be sharing our stories on how we got started and what works for us and what doesn’t. I am sure mistakes will be made along the way, but I am a true believer that you have to spend money to make money. If you have invested in real estate I would love to hear your stories!

Well, that wraps up my new years resolutions. I would love to hear what all of you have planned for this new year as well. I know its only day 3 of 365 but have a feeling that great things will happen in 2018. I’m going to end this post with a quote I recently heard on the movie Boss Baby (yes the kids movie – my son is obsessed) that really resonates with me, “aim from failure and you’ll always succeed”. Hope everyone has a blessed year! xoxo