Trip of a lifetime!

Kent and I were fortunate enough to celebrate our 10th anniversary in a BIG way!  Thanks to our Moms for taking care of the kids, we were able to take a 2 week Mediterranean cruise.  We started in Barcelona, Monaco, Pisa/Florence (we went to Cinque Terre), Rome, Croatia, Venice, Olbia, Sicily and back to Barcelona.  It was a dream come true!  As a side note, traveling in September/October is when most retired and old folks travel.  Which isn't a big deal, unless you are on an excursion with lots of peeps with canes.  We learned our lesson early and did most of the ports on our own!  :)

We were on the new Carnival Breeze, which was AMAZING!  They have their on pub with their own trademark beer, not too exciting to us, since I still don't like beer, but still pretty cool.  They also had a burger joint that serves Guy Feuri's burgers and fries and a Mexican Cantina, along with a million other places.  Shockingly enough, I actually lost 5 pounds on this trip, I guess that's what happens when you walk 8-10 hours a day in a port. 

Our first port was in Monaco, but we took the train to Nice, France.  It was a great way to start the vacay, a wonderful, relaxing beach day!

The next stop was Florence/Pisa, but we took an excursion to Cinque Terre.  I was so excited to share this wonderful place of 5 little villages with Kent.  It was one of my favorite places when I backpacked with my friend, Kym, 12 years ago.  My, how times change.  It wasn't quite the same quaint little place it used to be.  I guess that's what happens when you have cruise ships and word of mouth after 12 years.  It was still beautiful, but not quite the same.

One thing that still exceeded my expectations was their pesto!  LOVE it!

After the quaint little towns we went to Rome.  A little bit different.  We had a 12 hours excursion for this city.  I think we saw everything that was possible in that short amount of time.  This was also the day that our alarm clock didn't go off.  We had to meet our group at 6:30 am.  Kent happened to wake up at 6:15.  Therefore, we had a LONG 12 hour day without showers or breakfast.  Luckily we had snacks in our backpack, but we were still stinky.  :)

The Colosseum

In front of Trevi fountain.

A total tourist in one of the squares, waiting for our tour guide.

The Vatican Museum.  It was amazing, but something I will never do again.  They have 12-14,000 people go through it everyday.  We were literally sardines being funneled through.  Not my favorite.  It was hard to truly appreciate anything with someone right up on you the whole time.

One of my favs: Dubrovnik, Croatia.  I was pleasantly surprised, this city was amazing!  We walked through Old Town, then hiked around the gorgeous wall that surrounds the city for miles.  We then took a cable car to the top of Mr. Srd and enjoyed a wonderful view.  We ended our day with a long stroll to St. Jakob beach.  It was a perfect day.

Venice, Italy.  We had an overnight in this port, which was nice because we could enjoy the city during the day and night.  We walked and got lost over and over for hours then sat and had dinner along a canal at dusk.  It was so fun to just sit and watch the locals and take everything in.

Hanging by the pool.  The funny thing about this, was a young newlywed couple sat down next to us.  There was probably a total of 30 young couples ( I still think of us as young) out of the 4,000 guests on the ship.  We found out that they are from Coeur d' Alene!  It was crazy, and the girl had taken law classes from my friend's husband at Gonzaga.  How small is this world?

The sky course on the ship, it was pretty amazing!

In Sicily on Mt. Etna.  We took a bus to the top of this volcano.  We were not impressed.  Mt. St. Helens puts this place to shame.  It was kind of a disappointment, but luckily it was a somewhat short trip, so we got back to the ship and got to enjoy some final hours of ship life!

It was so wonderful to be able to hang with my best friend for 2 solid weeks without craziness surrounding us.  It's always nice to remember why you love your husband so much and why you married him.  We had such a good time laughing, relaxing and talking.   I am so lucky to have him, we sure missed our babies though. We were more than ready for squeezes and to return to our lives of chaos.