Busy Summer

I was just looking at my planner and realized that this summer is already shaping up to be equally as busy as the ones in the past....between weddings and work and all that, should be exciting...

May 31/June 1: Cat's shower/bachelorette activities
June 7-8: Gatlinburg for Melinda & Jonathan's weekend
June 14-15: I have to work that Sat.
June 21-22: Cat & Tyler's wedding
June 28-29: Couples party for Dallas & Katherine
July 5-6: Travel somewhere for the 4th...maybe?
July 12-13:
July 19-20: I have to work that Sat.
July 26-27:
Aug 2-3: Kara's baby shower is that Sun.
Aug 9-10: Dallas & Katherine's wedding weekend in SC
Aug 16-17: I have to work that Sat
Aug 23-24:
Aug 30-31:

Something else I also need to do is organize my Europe pictures. This is something I had all intentions of doing this past weekend, especially since it was a long weekend, but I just never got around to it. Guess I need to put that at the top of my list of things to do so I don't forget all of the neat places we saw. I also need to make a photo book online - should be thrilling :)

Let the laundry begin!

I just wanted to write a quick note saying we made it home safely!! Our alarm went off at 4:15 AM in Paris. Our flight left at 9:20 AM and we arrived home in Nashville at 3:00 this afternoon. Needless to say, we are pooped! We have already done 2 loads of laundry and picked Sadie up from Pooch Playhouse (she was SO excited!) and got somewhat settled in. I think I will wait and write about Paris tomorrow when I can put together a complete thought.

Sidenote, we brought back 6 bottles of wine and a bottle of olive oil. The sad news is that 3 of the bottles of wine and the bottle of olive oil broke in the bag and ruined some of Brad's shirts in the process. I guess the upside to that is that 3 of the bottles survived :) And with out luck with luggage, we are just happy our bags made it home! On one of our recent trips, our bags did not make it back with us!! Hooray for Nashville :)

French Riviera

...and having a ball!! We are in Nice right now - and have been for about 3 days or so. We LOVE it!! A new kind of cuisine was definitely welcome...and being on the beach is a definite plus as well! We also had ZERO tours scheduled when we arrived, so we were able to sleep late and fly by the seat of our pants. We did do a 4 hour van tour with a number of stops and opportunities to take pictures - that was great. We got to see a lot of places we would not have seen otherwise - lots of great views with lots of great pictures! The food has been wonderful....I am a big fan of the Nutella Crepes (chocolate of course) - Brad continues to make fun of me because I have had chocolate at least once every single day of our trip. LOVE IT! The croissants have been great - we will both be doing Weight Watchers upon our return!! Oh well, at least we are enjoying things here! My mosquito bites are MUCH better - thank goodness for the Zyrtec and cortisone cream from the drug store!!!!

Tonight we are heading to Paris on another night train. On the night train to here, we had our own car with bunk beds. On this one tonight, we have reclining seats and that is it - I guess we will see how much sleep we actually get! Tomorrow night we are doing a bike tour of Paris which includes ice cream (yum!) and a ride on the Seine River - should be exciting!

Things we have learned that we definitely take for granted: availability of clean & free public bathrooms, air conditioning, lotion in hotel rooms, light food, good service at restaurants (we have had good service MOST places), dependable luggage (my two straps broke already - both in the same place - Brad had to rig them to be able to have straps to wear my pack on my back)....AND WE MISS SADIE!!!! (and family and friends, too, of course! hehe)

Not too much longer til we are home and able to sleep in air conditioning and in our own bed! On to Paris for now though....au revoir!

Mosquitos!!!!!!

Well today is our last day in Florence - it is great. We did our afternoon tour yesterday, which included a visit to the Uffizi Gallery. Lots of wonderful artwork - we did not know what to expect, which is kind of a nice way to go into those type of experiences. Our guide was amazingly knowledgeable, but good grief she was zany! She was yelling at kids to hush up and at people who were taking pictures when they were not allowed...I thoroughly enjoyed it because she was willing to say what I was thinking :) Aggressive Italians...love it. Then we had a FANTASTIC dinner - we were starving and ate pretty much everything in sight. Not to worry - I still had room for gelato though!!

Since the hotel has not turned on the AC, we had to have the windows open, which means...MOSQUITOS. I have an enormous bite on my right hand on top - from my knuckles to my wrist, and it is way swollen!! We are about to head to the pharmacy to get some itch cream.

Today we are going on a tour of the Tuscany region which includes Chianti tour and wine tasting. Should be exciting and so pretty too. Then we are taking a night train to Nice, which leaves around 11:25 tonight and arrives around 8:30 tomorrow morning. We do not have anything scheduled in Nice, so we are kind of excited about that. Maybe a day trip to Cannes? Who knows!

I will try and post again in the next few days - this free internet has been great! Happy Thursday!!

I think I forgot a day...

I forgot to mention that while we were in Rome, we took a day trip to Naples & Pompeii and saw Mt. Vesuvius. It was really neat to see all of the remains that have been found. We were talking about how it was amazing that we could come back even a year from now and see different things because they are constantly excavating parts of it. Naples was a lot bigger than we both had imagined - maybe one day we will go there because it is absolutely gorgeous!

Today we are finishing our tour through Florence (the afternoon part that we had to miss yesterday because of changing hotels). Should be exciting! We have been so lucky to have good weather, especially here in Italy. Clear blue skies and warm!

Take care! XOXO

Oh the excitement...

Well we are in Florence (Firenze) now...SO pretty. It is just so much more layed back and not AS touristy...the people are better looking too :) Well I guess a quick update is in order - Venice was so pretty but we were not too impressed. We were definitely glad to get out of there - it takes forever to get somewhere since it is all by boat. We did have some awesome food while we were there at a little hole in the wall kinda place that was recommended by the hotel staff. After there we went to Rome which was absolutely wonderful. The hotel was so nice and we had the taxi ride of a lifetime. I guess the traffic laws are just suggestions there! But we did make it it one piece to our hotel and then figured out the subway after that so we could get from Point A to Point B for 2 Euro instead of 25. We saw some amazing sites while we were there: Vatican Museums, Vatican Gardens, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, Colisseum, the Roman Forum, Trevi Fountain (which we could see from our hotel while eating breakfast - only like 10 steps away!), Spanish Steps, Piazza Navona, Pantheon (massive!), and so much more! Yesterday we had some free time to walk around and do our own thing before the train left, so that was nice. The people in Rome were friendly and it was just a great time.

Yesterday we came to Florence, which has a wide array of landscapes. It ranges from countryside resembling what you would imagine Tuscany to look like (grapes, grass, hills, etc) to crowded city streets. Last night I was craving American cuisine, so I had a cheeseburger and fries - probably the best cheeseburger I have ever had!!! When we got here, we learned that our hotel had overbooked and they sent us to a different hotel which SUCKED! We had to figure all of that out and tonight we are at a much better hotel. We were supposed to do a full-day tour today, but we had to reschedule the afternoon portion so that we could switch hotels. We did see Michaelangelo's "David" --- it really is as amazing as you would think. It is about 2 to 3 times human size and it is truely a masterpiece. We also went to Michaelangelo's Square and got a panoramic view of Florence (great pictures) filled with church domes and orange shingled roofs. Tomorrow we will do the afternoon portion of the tour and Thursday we will visit the Chianti region and do a wine tour (tastings included, of course).

We are having a blast and going through pictures daily so that we have enough room on the memory card - over 600 pictures so far!!!!!!!! We miss everyone at home but are having a great time!! We will try to do another post before we head to Nice since the Internet is free at this hotel (hard to come by)! Ciao!!