Another Year Down

I cannot believe we are wrapping up 2012 and heading into another year.  Each year truly goes by faster by than the last and the older I get, the more I realize how short and fragile this life is.  We have been truly blessed again and sometimes I just cannot wrap my head around it all.  We have such incredibly amazing families.  We truly couldn't ask for better role models, friends, supporters, babysitters, and FUN people to be my family.  We are so lucky to have such great relationships with our friends.  Childhood friends, neighbors, sorority friends, work friends, and even internet friends...we are so lucky to be surrounded with such incredible people.  I truly cherish these relationships.

2012 was a great year for us.  We were able to travel to some great places!  In March, we spent a weekend in New York for Mike to do a photoshoot.  (I took this pic from my friend's apartment.  Nice view, huh?)

 We celebrated my 29th birthday in Mexico with great childhood friends.

 We even got to cruise around Alaska in July with Mike's family.  It was beautiful!

We celebrated Ethan's 1st birthday with a cute carnival at our local park.

We sold our first, sweet home and moved into our new house in December. We celebrated the holidays in our new home and have started redecorating!

What a wonderful year 2012 has been.  I am always hopefully for the next year and I pray that 2013 is equally blessed for our family and for all of you.  Happy New Year!

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Traveling and Cruising with a Toddler

We just got home from a week-long Alaskan cruise with Ethan.  I'll admit, it wasn't the most relaxing trip of our lives, but we came prepared and were able to enjoy the trip and the beautiful scenery.  That being said, I'll never do that again.

When my mother-in-law mentioned that she wanted us to go on a cruise with them and WITH ETHAN, I was a bit skeptical.  I knew that traveling with a 14 month old would be a bit tricky and I knew that cruise wasn't exactly the place for a toddler.  But the more I started talking to people, the more excited I became with the idea and since we love to travel, we figured we could survive.  There would be 4 adults and only one Ethan so we had pretty good odds in our favor.

Before the trip, I scoured the internet for the best traveling tips and toys that I could find.  Hopefully this post can help others too!  Here is what worked for us while traveling and cruising with a toddler:

 1.  Fisher Price Apptivity Case-  Ethan loves to push the off button on our phones and iPad when we try to  use apps so we bought this case hoping it would prevent that and it did.  I downloaded all of the Fisher Price free apps and he really liked them.  He also liked these: "I Here Ewe", "SoundTchLite", "Bubbles", "Shapes", "Match it Up" and "Doodle Buddy". 

2.  Sock Money Nesting Dolls- These were great for dinners on the boat.  We would put little snacks or pieces of bread in each one that he could find as he opened each doll.  He really loves opening and closing them so that gave us a nice 20 minutes of "relaxation" one night.  (We left the smallest 2 dolls at home because they are a chocking hazard.)

3. Travel Magna Doodle- We ended up throwing away the magnets because the kept falling off and were a chocking hazard.  Ethan isn't really old enough to draw yet but he liked erasing whatever was on the screen so that kept him busy for a bit.

4. Earth's Best Food Pouches- Luckily, Babies R Us has a 20 of $20 sale on these right before we left.  Ethan hasn't had "baby food" in a very long time but I knew these would be great for snacks on the boat or while we were docked.  I am SO glad I had these.  Ethan decided to be a picky eater some days on the trip and it was nice to know he was getting SOME kind of nutrition for the day.  There are tons of great flavors and they are organic too! 

5. B. Hellophone- Ethan LOVES cell phones and this was a birthday gift from my brother.  We saved it for the trip and it was his favorite!  You can record your voice and there are cute little songs.  We didn't use it on the plane because it's pretty loud but it was great for time in the room on the boat.

6. Annie's Organic Bunnies- I heard about these from another mommy and she was right...baby crack.  Ethan adores these...he smiles and laughs when he sees the box.  I brought a box of cheddar and a variety box of cookies.  These things saved our lives too many times.  I hate that I was shoving these things down his throat but they were really the only thing that would keep him occupied during dinners, flights, and any other meltdowns.  (These were the reason I needed to bring the baby food pouches.)  For some reason I started calling these things "bun buns" and when Ethan eats them he says "mama" in the sweetest voice you have ever heard.

7. First Years Jet Stroller- We needed an umbrella stroller and I heard about this from another mommy.  It was AWESOME.  I love this thing!  Great quality, easy to use, light, and perfect for travel.  AND...I got it on sale randomly on Amazon (I think it was $25 for some reason).  It comes in a bunch of cute colors too...of course, we just got black!

8.  Snackgrabber- This was another necessity for the "bun buns".  Ethan was able to feed himself and it occupied him to have to go in for his snack.  We also got creative and put other things in there during dinners (spoons, makeup mirrors, bread, pacifiers...anything that would fit).

9. Pack and Play Sheet- Man, I had no clue that a cruise wouldn't provide a pack and play sheet!  Seriously...they give you the nasty 1980's PnP WITHOUT a sheet.  Thankfully I read a bunch of blogs that told me to bring mine along.

Luckily, the flights went really well.  We had layovers on the way there and the way back.  We also had a 5 hour redeye flight back which was really stressful.  Ethan ended up sleeping that entire flight but we didn't.  Every time he fussed and tried to change positions, we scurried to get him comfortable. 

My sweet, little baby turned into a toddler on this trip.  We got our first taste of Ethan's "naughty" side and now it's time to learn how to actually parent.  Unfortunately, we reinforced Ethan's behavior the entire trip because we couldn't just let him scream all day.  He quickly learned that if he screams, then he gets what he wants REALLY fast.  Poor kid is in for a rude awakening that that isn't going to work at home.  Let the fun begin!

I'll definitely do a separate blog post about the trip after pictures are downloaded.  Here's one of my instagram pictures and one from Mike.  :)

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School's out of summer!

Sometimes, I think that teachers look forward to summer break more than the students.  I've always lived for summer break but, of course, this year is different.  Last summer was extremely overwhelming as a new mom, trying to get the hang of this parenting thing, recovering and healing, and battling the extreme heat and humidity that kept us inside. 

I feel like this is Ethan's first real summer.  A summer that is going to include lots of trips to the Zoo, the pool, and everything that St. Louis has to offer.  I.am.so.excited.

Summer started off with a trip down to Mexico to celebrate my 29th birthday, my first successful year as a working mom, and quality time with our close friends.  It was EXACTLY what I needed.

I was worried about how I would do without Ethan for a long weekend but we all survived just fine.  I truly believe that having a relaxing weekend away every once in a while is best for me, my marriage, and my role as a mom. 

We flew first class for the first time because we had miles and boy, was it wonderful.  I understand why people say that you won't go back after that.  Unlimited drinks, plenty of room to get comfy, and really good food.  I was in heaven.  (Bloody Marys and mimosas aren't a bad way to start off your birthday.)

I would definitely recommend our resort, Excellence Riviera Cancun.  It was wonderful.

We have only been back for 5 days but already enjoying summer to the fullest.  Today, we set up the little man's water table and baby pool.

Next step is making a calendar of all of the fun stuff to do in the St. Louis area.  I live in a city that offers tons of fun things to do (with and without kids) and I plan to take full advantage of it for the next 9 weeks.  (Ugh, why is summer so short?)

Happy summer to all!

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Cinque Terre=Heaven

We woke up early on Wednesday and hopped on our new train to Monterosso. See, our original train reservation was going to take us up to Pisa then over to Monterosso. That would have been a 5 hour trip and of course, I didn't realize how the train system worked when I reserved that trip from home. We were able to go to the train station the day before and buy a new reservation for a shorter trip to Pisa and then Monterosso (only 2 hours! much better!).

We stepped off of the train and were in heaven. Seriously. This picture was at the train station!

Let me explain how Cinque Terre is laid out. Cinque Terre means the "five lands" and therefore it consists of 5 little towns along the coast. We stayed in Monterosso (the northernmost town) but hiked to all 5 towns (you will see each one shortly).

Monterosso is the youngest, hippest, and most like a beach resort which is exactly why we decided to stay here. I was SO happy with our choice...especially after visiting all of the other towns. If you ever come to Cinque Terre, I would definitely reccommend staying in Monterosso (Vernazza seemed pretty cool too!).

OK, on our first day in Monterosso, we dropped off our bags at our AMAZING bed and breakfast, put on our swimsuits, and headed to the beach and grab lunch. Caprese salad for me and prosciutto and meloni for Mike.

The beach in Monterosso is a pebble beach and it was pretty painful to get to the water and walk around. We spent most of the day just laying out and enjoying the atmosphere. Cinque Terre is kind of like the Ozarks of Italy. People from around the area come for weekend get-aways. Apparently, it gets so crowded at some times during the summer that the police barricade the streets that enter the cities and only allow people in with hotel reservations.

We showered up and headed to our first of many delicious meals in Monterosso. Cinque Terre is known for amazing seafood since it is on the coast. It is also home to pesto so we had to make sure to eat both everyday. Dinner was amazing...swordfish for Mike and pesto pasta for me!

After dinner we walked down to the water to take some pictures on the rocks. We ended the night with wine on our B&B's terrace.

Our second day in Cinque Terre was the best. We decided to take the 6-hour hike through all 5 towns. We started in our town of Monterosso and took the 1.5 hour hike to Vernazza.

Not going to lie...it was pretty tough. A LOT of up and down! But check out the views. This is looking back at our town of Monterosso...

After exactly 1 hour and 30 minutes, we got a sight of the BEAUTIFUL town of Vernazza. This was my favorite view on the entire hike.

We stopped for a bottle of water and piece of foccacia bread and hit the trail on the way to Corniglia. Another hour and a half of up and down. I was definitely getting tired of the steps.

Corniglia is the only town in Cinque Terre that is not on the water.

We didn't stop in Corniglia...it didn't seem like there was too much to see. We kept on going and started our 45 minute hike to Manarola. This hike was much shorter and much flatter. It was great being able to see the town in the distance. This part of the hike was BEAUTIFUL. Manarola boasts about having the best deep-sea swimming in Cinque Terre. The water was gorgeous!

This is Manarola...


With only one hike left, we decided to stop for a bite to eat. The final walk from Manarola to Riomaggiore is called the Via dell' Amore, "Pathway of Love". The short hike was created as a shortcut for lovers from the two town to meet. Throughout the years, couple put locks along the path as a sign of their love. Cute.


We stopped at Bar Amore, a cliff-hugging cafe, to enjoy a couple of beers and a great view.

We had an hour to kill in Riomaggiore before hopping on a boat and heading back to Monterosso. Goodbye Riomaggiore!


I wish I knew how to make a collage on the computer because I don't want to post 5 pictures of our dinner. I'll just post the most amazing pesto gnocchi that I have ever dreamed of. Oh man, what I would do for food right now...

Our third day in Cinque Terre started off great! We enjoyed a delicious breakfast at our B&B and decided to spend the entire day at the beach in Old Town Monterosso.

I was so happy. Relaxed. Breathing in life and loving it. Ahhhh...

Mistake/Lesson #8- Don't wear rings into the ocean. Don't get too nervous, I didn't bring my wedding rings to Italy. But my darling husband did. Here is the last picture of his wedding ring...

I cried. No, it wasn't expensive but I was really sad. It was the ring that was blessed on our wedding day, the ring that I put on his finger in front of our friends, family, and G-d, and I cried. But there was NOTHING I could do about it. It slipped off when a wave hit him and it would be impossible to find it among the millions of pebbles that were changing every few seconds. I vowed that I wouldn't let it ruin the rest of my trip. I didn't really like that ring anyway and it even mentioned it HERE!
It was time to let the ring go and get over it (which took me a few hours) and get do our last amazing dinner in Cinque Terre. I don't even eat seafood and I thought this was pretty amazing. (I didn't eat the crayfish things but I thought the shrimp and rice were delish.)



We walked around for the rest of the evening and enjoyed our final night in Monterosso. I love this picture and how you can see all 5 towns lit up at night.


We absolutely LOVE Cinque Terre and although I thought I would never want to go back to Italy, I would definitely come back here.

Where did we stay? The fantastic Locanda il Maestrale. If you go to Cinque Terre, I couldn't recommend this B&B enough. We adored this place. Our suite had 2 levels...a seating area and bathroom downstairs and bed upstairs.



Outdoor terrace where we read, ate breakfast, and drank wine at night.







Our Cinque Terre itinerary didn't really include much. Ahhh...so relaxing!
Wednesday, June 9th
-lunch and layout at the beach
-dinner at Ristorante Belvedere
Thursday, June 10th
-hike the 5 towns (6 hours)
Friday, June 11th
-Beach day
-Dinner at Il Casello

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Florence (plus Siena and Pisa)

We woke up early on June 5th, walked to the station and experienced our first train adventure in Europe. We arrived early and looked up at the signs to see which dock our train to Florence would be. We started freaking out a bit when we realized that Florence was not on the departure list.

Mistake/Lesson #5- We didn't understand how the train schedule works. They have wonderful, yellow schedule boards but we didn't study them and know what everything meant. We couldn't find our train on the board because it was listed by it's final destination, which was NOT Florence. The train would stop in Florence to let us off but that was not the final destination. Ah ha. Rick Steve's has a lot of information about the train (which we did not read before our trip) but I am sure this would have helped us.

I can't really give advice on the most cost effective way to travel through Italy. We pre-bought a railpass that allowed us to travel by train 6 times. You are also able to buy the tickets that day at the station but you take the risk of the train being full. I'm not sure how many times we were on a full train. Probably never. I feel like we didn't get the best deal on our train pass because we bought the first-class, 6-day and then reserved seats. I don't really get this whole process but that's what we did. We pre-purchased our tickets through EuroRail.

Day 1 in Florence, we dropped off our luggage at our hotel and hit the city. We started at the Medici Chapel. Have you heard of the Medici family? They were the richest and most powerful family in Florence, ruled the city, commissioned artists to make things for their homes, etc. The Medici Chapel houses the granite tombs of 6 of the heads of the family. Of course, we couldn't take pictures of this place was pretty cool. The tombs were HUGE and the room was full of granite. I kept thinking about how expensive it would have been for a slab of granite in our kitchen. Haha...

We went to the San Marco Museum (ehhh) and had the best pasta of the trip. Go there- Pasticceria Robiglio. Homemade, dense, garlicy, pesto-y. Hello pasta goodness.

The amazingness of the day continued at Accademia where we saw Mr. David.

That evening, we had another amazing dinner at Buca Mario. Another place that I would highly recommend! It was downstairs...so cool!


The next morning, we got up bright and early to catch a train to Siena. The consierge told us that trains leave every 30 minutes to Siena so we didn't need to worry about when we got to the station. We got there at about 9:40ish, which leads to...
Mistake/Lesson #6- The train schedule isn't the same on Sundays. Duh, right? We had just missed the 9:30 train and the next train wasn't leaving until 11:30. We thought there was a 10:30 train but no, it was Sunday. I wasn't thrilled sitting at the train station for 2 hours.

But finally, after our 2nd train station ordeal, we arrived in Siena! If you go to Florence, you HAVE to go to Siena. Remember when I was trying to figure out what to do between Siena and Pisa...we made the right choice. Siena is such a cool city. It is a city full of up and down roads and burnt, orange buildings. We explored Il Campo (the town square), the Duomo, and the Church of San Domenico.

I loved the Duomo in Siena! It was white with black stripes throughout and was just beautiful!

Look at all of the pope heads around the nave.

As we were walking around the city, the sound of drums can rolling down the street. See, Siena has 17 different neighborhoods that compete each year in a horse race in Il Campo. The Palio de Siena is pretty much the coolest thing I have ever seen (pictures of) and if I ever go back to Siena, it will be during this race. Read about it HERE! So a parade of men and boys in tights came down the street and I loved every second of this experience. They were of the giraffe clan (they have had 33 race victories!). GO GIRAFFES!


Check out these hills!


Finally, we had dinner at another Rick Steve recommended spot, Trattorio La Torre, right next to the clock tower at Il Campo. We didn't have menus at all, the owner just brought us his best dishes. I had ravioli and Mike had pesto pasta with mushrooms, lamb, and asparagus. We split a homemade tiramisu that was made in heaven and then hopped a train back to Florence.

Day 3 in Florence started off at the Duomo. We climbed to the top of the dome (another 400 steps) and were welcomed by a stunning view of the city.

Seriously scary mural inside the dome. Yikes!

For lunch, we decided to take the #7 bus to the small town of Fiesole. Fiesole overlooks Florence and is where all of the "rich" people lived...amazing villas are up here! View of Florence...

For dinner, we wandered across the Ponte Vecchio and admired it after sunset.

Next morning, PISA! We ended up having an extra day on our train pass so we decided to wake up early and go see the tower. This time, we were much more comfortable on the train and we didn't have any issues (thank the lord!). Our trip needed to be fast because we had museum reservations at 3. The train ride was 1 hour, then we hopped at 15 minute bus ride and arrive at the Field of Miracles!

The real reason that we came here was so we could do this!

I LOVED seeing the Tower. I just couldn't get enough of it. I wanted to see it from every angle. It really is amazing how much it leans. I was so glad we were able to come see it.


We ended up staying in Pisa for a total of 1.5 hours. Pisa is definitely not a MUST but if you have time and a train pass, it is definitely worth the quick stop. However, if you are going to choose between Siena and Pisa, hands down to the day in Siena. There isn't much to do in Pisa other than see the tower and the Field of Miracles.

Back in Florence, we hit the Uffizi Gallery. Again, you can't take pictures in there but I saw this and this....yes, Botticelli and Da Vinci. WOW!


Mistake/Lesson #7- Don't try to eat healthy food. It will make you sad. Just get over the fact that you will eat pizza, pasta, and gelato every day. Ordering chicken and veggies just doesn't cut it in Italy.

We ended our awesome day with a few beers at an Irish pub.

The next morning, we ate our final breakfast in Florence and headed off to Cinque Terre.

We enjoyed our hotel in Florence but it was hard to top the hotel in Rome. We stayed at Hotel de la Ville.




UP NEXT, Cinque Terre (my favorite place of the entire trip)!!!

Here is our Florence itinerary in case anyone is interested:
Saturday, June 5th
-Medici Chapel
-Museum of San Marco
-Academia (David)
Sunday, June 6th
-Day Trip to Siena
-Duomo, Il Campo, Church of San Domenico
-Dinner in Siena
Monday, June 7th
-Duomo (climb the dome)
-Santa Maria Novella
-Bus #7 to Fiesole (lunch and walk to church-view of Florence)
-San Lorenzo Market
-Ponte Vecchio
Tuesday, June 8th
-Day Trip to Pisa
-Field of Miracles (Leaning Tower of Pisa)
-Uffizi Gallery

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