Shaun turns 31

Carter was also tired....

Ellie was a little spent by the end of the long napless day

Jordan and Dad

Shaun was out of town AGAIN for his birthday. We weren't going to let that happen 2 years in a row, so I packed the kids, camping gear, and Kayaks to the car and headed to Greensboro, NC where he was already on business. We got there Wed. night and stayed in the hotel, which is the kids favorite place. we met him for dinner. On Thursday his actual birthday he had to work so i met my cousin Lisa at the outlets to get a few last min birthday present and stay busy. we had fun and met up with Shaun and his boss Kim for dinner. after dinner he came back the hotel decorated with balloons! who doesn't love 31 balloons??? the next day we went camping for the weekend and finished his birthday in style, so we could move on to the next birthday! mine!

Day 1 Key Largo, montego, baby why don't we go....

Shaun took Carter out snorkeling. He took turns taking the kids out on the boogie board. It was an overcast day but perfect weather!

Kailey going snorkeling

Me and Carter and Kailey.

Me and the kiddos

Shaun and his snorkel face on

This picture is just funny. This was our first day adn we stayed on Key Largo. Found the closest beach, which was tiny, it is more of a boating island, but it was fine for us. we packed lunch spent the day at the beach and went home to spend the night playing tennis and at the pool. there was no one there it was great!

On the way to the Keys: day 1 Daytona

We hit the road and headed south for the week. we drove about 6 hrs and stopped at Daytona beach, had some pizza, ice cream and stayed in a hotel. One of the perks of Shauns travel is free hotels every now and then. I feel like we will look like this for the next few years. Tons of little kids, tons of luggage and not enough adults. The kids LOVE hotels. I think they would live in one if they could. i mean there is a pool right there!

Greenville, NC

see we did see Shaun, just at bedtime!

bath time after pool time

"why am I eating food off the floor in a hotel mom?" good question. bad parenting I guess...

Nap time in the hotel

Shaun went to Greenville this week and was supposed to be home on Friday. supposed being the key word. They told him he had to stay until Sunday so on Thursday night the 5 of us headed to Greenville (5 1/2 hr drive) to get some time with him. He was working pretty much all of the time, but we hung out in the hotel and the kids got spoiled. The kids keep asking to go back to the hotel. Friday I took them to Toys r us and told them they can each have 5 dollars. then we went swimming in the pool. and met Shaun for lunch. Saturday Shaun worked again so I told the kids if they all took naps they could stay up as late as they wanted, it worked! We went to TJ Maxx and bought the kids swimming suits because they are all too small, and Kailey some "cozy" skirts. she was in heaven! funny part is she needed them. then we headed to target and i let them each pick something from the $1 isle. they are so easy to please! we did go swimming 2x that day. pool with 4 kids when 3 can't swim, not to easy! Kailey's response "this is the best vacation ever! you are getting us things and we don't even deserve it!" so funny, to be honest they might not have deserved all of it! Sunday we went to the park to enjoy the hot sun, then we got ice cream and saw the WORST movie ever! don't see Rango!!! it was a fun, boring trip! we didn't get to see Shaun much, but we at least we saw him at night.

Day 8: Rome

This was Shaun the day after he drank from the fountain, he didn't feel good. he threw up outside the bus stop, it was funny, to me not him. then he realized he didn't bring his jacket which i told him to bring and he was freezing the whole time, i kinda felt bad, but i warned him not to drink from the fountain and I told him to bring the jacket. he ended up sleeping on the seats while we bus toured all around Rome. he missed 90% of it.

I Love Ellie's smile!

I thought this was a cool picture. on the right side is the Arc of Constantine and he inside the Colosseum. we took a guided tour of the Colosseum, Palentine Hill and the Roman Forum. it was also pretty cool ( I say that a lot) it was pretty cold and by 3 hours we were tired

Inside the Colosseum

Me and Julius Cesar

Day 7: The Vatican, The Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps

Shaun drinking out of the fountain at the bottom of the Spanish Steps

Trevi fountain

Ellie and Dad outside the Vatican

Inside the Sistine Chapel

Yeah! Dad was super excited to wear the Bjorn! i wore it so much i think I pulled my shoulder so he got lucky enough to wear it

talk about a busy day! we woke up and went to the Vatican, of course we were running late, but we made it. Good thing things were so slow this time of year. the Vatican was pretty cool, there was so much art. the Sistine Chapel, St Peters Basilica, it was a little overwhelming! you can't take pictures inside the Sistine Chapel, but we got one and Shaun got in trouble with their God I mean guards. its crazy to think it is all so old!? it really is amazing how similar and different our beliefs are. the grandeur of their buildings, all across Italy are really immaculate, the designs, the details, the age. It puts a lot in perspective but at the same time made me so grateful for our church.

After the Vatican we headed lunch and it went to the Fontana di Trevi, threw a coin in to guarantee we would be back someday, and took the subway to the Spanish steps. For some reason Shaun saw some kid drink from the fountain and thought that meant it was sanitary... lets just say the next day he wasn't feeling to hot.

Day 6: Pisa

These pictures are out of order... our day ended with this site, it was a pretty cool end to a very tiring day
the Colosseum at night, we made it to Rome

we traveled in style

the bridge in Pisa

If you look closely you can see the slope in the steps from how people are forced to walk

the view from the top of the tower. the mountains you see is where they get all the marble for Rome and all the statues that were built in the 1400's and still today

This was in the church near the tower. not my best picture but I'm looking at actual skull and bones. gross. you can also see the marble floors and granite. this style was unique to this church than the others we saw.

Shaun holding up the tower, isn't the sky crazy blue!?

Me holding up the tower, it was falling!!

we made it! the Leaning tower of Pisa. I read it wasn't worth the trip, it was about 6 hours out of the way, but I figure, when we will ever be back? it was a great beautiful clear day and the tower was well worth it. I've decided I like architecture more than museums. When we tried to climb to the top we found out only kids 8 and older can go up. So Shaun stayed at the bottom with Ellie and went into the baptistery (baptisteries are not worth the money) and I went up. it was a much weirder sensation than i anticipated. it was so obvious it leaned it knocked your equilibrium off balance. the steps were worn from the way you were forced to walk. it was neat and the view was great! i booked it up to the top because we had an hour to go up, down and run to the train, we basically ran too with Ellie in the stroller. it was a busy trip!!!

Day 6: Terrenia

Shaun and Ellie at the beach

It was a beautiful beach. I wouldnt mind going one day when its less windy and a lot warmer!

Today we headed to Rome, along the way we stopped in Pisa and headed to the beach for my sand. Terrenia is about 25 min away from Pisa via bus ride. it was a funny story: we got on the bus and headed to the beach (we had 4 hours in Pisa/terrenia before our train left for Rome) once we got on our free bus, because we forgot to pay, we didnt know where to get off, so when we saw Terrenia we hopped off. the beach was to somewhere near but we didn't exactly know where. we walked down one road that looked hopeful and ended up on a miliary base... it was a little scary so we hurriedly backtracked. when we finally found a beach and got sand it was about an hour and half into our trip. so we waited at the bus stop only to be told the buses were on strike and would no longer be running for the day. AWESOME! so we tried to find a taxi. we did and 50 euros later we were back in Pisa! we had an hour until we had to get on the train. it was the most expensive sand I have collected so far, but worth it since everything worked out.

Day 5: Milan

Ellie and I had an awesome day! we went to see The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci. only 20 or so people can see it at a time, for only 15 min and its so much more amazing than i imagined. It is a whole wall and in the pictures you see it looked like its cracking or something, In reproductions I never been like "oh that is a cool picture" I've always thought, it was OK, neat maybe, but when you see the real thing the cracks and the stucco or stuff its made of is more like texture rather than cracks. needless to say it was cool. Ellie of course decided to start crying when we got in there. The lady explaining the painting had to compete with her. by the way there are NO babies in Italy. almost creepy like. Everyone LOVED her, police would stop and coo and make funny faces, men, tour guides, museum workers, it was crazy. the kid got more attention in this one week than she probably will the rest of her life! (and more bottles, we had to keep feeding her bottles to keep her quiet in all the museums we went to) after The museum we went back to the hotel and took a much needed nap! the go go go of the trip was hard on all of us. when Shaun got back from work we headed to tour around Milan with Francis and to eat the best pizza and cal zone of my life.

This is the Castle Sforzesco

Amanda and I toured this on day 3. it was neat then when we got to see the moat and inside, and night time was cool too. they lit the whole castle up with Christmas lights and it would light up to music. this was at a loud part when the whole thing sparkled. I'd totally live in a castle.

Shauns turn to get good luck

Ellie had to spin on the bulls balls too

Me and Shaun at the Duomo at night

Day 3: Milan Duomo

spinning on the bulls balls
Amanda on the Duomo
Me and Ellie.

Today Amanda and I headed out in the rain and cold to go see the Duomo of Milan and the Bull who grants you good luck if you spin on his balls 3x. there are no longer any balls, but instead deep holes from where people spun and wore it away. it was pretty cold! we went into the Duomo and then went on top for the view, unfortunately it was overcast, but the building itself and architecture was amazing. The work that went into that building is incredible. they say they have been working on it since 1400's and its still not complete. the interior was very catholic. there were a lot of stain glass and pictures of Jesus and his disciples, it was beautiful, but the whole time period of the art inst my style, it isn't very real looking to me. but i guess during this time they "had lost the art of the human body" which is interesting because I never really new what that meant, but i am thinking it meant they drew and made their art very 2 dimensional. I don't know, my theory. i loved the windows and the the architecture. like i said before amazing! it made me wonder how many people died making the spires and the statues that are EVERYwhere in and on top of the building!

Day 2: Lugano, Switzerland

this is Lugano, Switzerland. it was such a cool little town. the only bad thing is we went on a Monday. Note to self: everything closes on Mondays. (at least museums) in the end it was fine, we just shopped at all the stores there and i came away with some leather boots, LOTS of Chocolate and some other goodies. it was pretty cold and overcast but the hot chocolate made up for it.

This was an AWESOME bakery. Best Hot Chocolate ever! Me and Amanda had fun trying to figure out how Euros work in Switzerland. Apparently they have Francs but we didn't realize that until after we got change.

Amanda is my new friend. She came along on the trip with her husband and we got to hang out while the husbands worked. i know, sad for them fun for us. She was awesome to hang out with, I was glad I had a travel buddy, not that Ellie isn't cool and all, but people who talk are a little more entertaining. We had a blast and a new adventure everyday. Hopefully a trip to Italy together mean we get to stay friends :)

Ellie hanging out. DWAI