My least favorite Christmas photo shoot ever!

 

Shelby and Audry refused to go along with our fun. We compromised and let them be Zombie hunters.

Even Zombies like to slide!

What an adorable little Zombie!

All you Walking Dead fans should recognize this pic.  Our Sophia!

Matt loves Zombies!  He waits all week for The Walking Dead to come on.  Every year he suffers through a family picture for our Christmas card.  He hates it.  This year I gave in and we did it his way.  Im sure the neighbors think we have lost our minds!  Here are a couple more pics that didn't make it on the card, but we still liked.

"I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse"

After another fun day at sea, playing more ping pong, shuffle board, doing karaoke, watching a dance show in the theater, seeing a comedy show, and eating a lot, we docked in Messina on the island of Sicily in Italy.

We heard that there was nothing to do in Messina so we took a bus to Taormina.  I got so motion sick on the bus ride, I was seriously making a plan for where I was going to puke.  Taormina is a neat town up at the top of a cliff.  It has gorgeous views of the sea.  Taormina is known for their Marzapan and also Canoli's.  Yum!

The movie the Godfather was filmed in Taormina, but we opted out of the Godfather tour since neither of us has ever seen an entire Godfather film.  We just walked around, bought some motion sickness gum which made our mouths numb and made us light headed, and we had lunch. 

Dubrovnik-Favorite port!

We had a fun day onboard the ship as we headed South through the Adriatic Sea to Croatia.  I had no idea what to expect when we got to Croatia, but it was beautiful.  So amazingly pretty.  We decided to spend the day in Dubrovnik with our ship friends.  We started out with a bus ride to the old walled city.  We opted out of walking the city walls, and just walked through the old town.  We found an Irish pub with free wifi so we decided to hang out there for lunch.  It was called Karaka Irish Pub. 

We saw a tree near the walls of the old city, we picked what we thought was a lime (turns out it was an unripe orange) and carried it around with us the rest of the trip taking its picture everywhere and even naming it. (Lenny Lime Karaka).....maybe we were missing our kids.  He has his own Facebook page if you would like to friend him and see his travel photos. 

 

Venice

Venice was beautiful.  It was like we were in a really elaborate Vegas Casino.  Ha ha ha.  It is just unreal, especially with the fog.  It was so foggy we could not see across the Grand Canal.  We saw St. Marks squre and some of the other top tourist sites.  We did a gondolla ride and had some more pasta. 

The Bridge of Sighs

Romeo, Romeo, Wherefore art Thou Romeo

"Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.  From forth the fatal loins of these two foes a pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; whole misadventured piteous overthrows do with their death bury their parents' strife." (William Shakespeare)

We spent the first Venice day doing a day trip to Verona.  I am so glad we chose to do this.  It was a beautiful drive through the countryside and Verona was a beautiful city.  We did a walking tour of the city and then had some time on our own to explore and buy souvenirs. 

This is Juliette's balcony.  We were able to see both the Capulet and Montague houses.  They were actuall families that lived in Verona.  The Montague house is private property so you can't go inside.  We chose not to go inside the Capulet  house either.  It was crazy crowded. 

The teenage boys rub the statue of Juliette.  There is also a gate filled with locks.  You write your name and the name of your love on the lock then lock it onto the gate.  You are then supposed to be together forever.  Matt didn't want to do it.  :)  Hmmm what should I think about that?  JK 

This colosseum in Verona is even older than the one in Rome.  It is amazingly well preserved.  We had the best gelato in Verona.  I had blueberry and Matt had pistachio.  Mmmmm Delicious!

 

Project Moses

Pulling into Venice was amazing.... It was a very foggy day, I don't know if you can truly understand what I mean by foggy unless you have experienced Venice in the fog. 

We were standing on the prow of the ship for about an hour trying to see anything.  Very slowly things began to appear out of the fog.  Venice has a unique problem, there are no streets only cannals.  During very high tides the entire city floods.  The city is slowly sinking into the Lagoon. 

This is the old customs house.  The windows are barely peeking up abouve the water.  The Venetians and the Italian government are building under water gates that can be raised and lowered depending on the tides.  This is called project Moses.  They are hoping in this way to preserve the city.

 

We had to have two tug boats guide us into port.  This is to insure that our gigantic cruise ship didn't cause any damage to the city. 

 

Limoncello

Our next stop was Naples.  When we woke up in the morning we were in port, the view from the ship was amazing!  Mt Vesuvius across the bay, Capri off in the distance, the city of Naples all around us. 

The city of Naples is busy, crowded, and dirty.  Like any big port town really.  We spent the morning walking around the city just exploring on our own.  We took our life into our hands when we tried to cross the street to get back to the ship.

 

 

In the afternoon, we caught a tour bus to Pompeii. This is the city that was completely covered in ash when Mt Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. It was amazing. The town is very well preserved. I would reccomend it to anyone going to Italy. It is worth seeing. I wish we had time to go to the Museum in Naples where a lot of the artifacts are kept, but just seeing the buildings was amazing.

While we were in Pompeii, we also toured a Cameo factory and I got a pretty bracelet.  It was fascinating to see all the different Cameos they made.  After the Cameo tour we all got a free sample of Limoncello.  WOW

When in Rome...

We had just been to Rome with the girls so there wasn't anything we really needed to see. We decided to just walk around.  We never even got on the subway.  We probably walked 5 or 6 miles.  We saw all the standard Rome sites. 

Trevi Fountain- one of the most crowded places in all of Rome, and they were doing work on the fountain so part of it was covered in scaffolding.  It is beautiful though.

 

The Pantheon.  This used to be a pagan temple filled with statues, now it is a Catholic church.  It has a hole in the top of the dome to let in the sun.  It is a really neat building, I just wish the Roman statues were still in it.

Piazza Navona.  This is where we had gelatto and also Tartufo.  Both delicious Italian ice cream treats.

Matt and some Roman ruins.

The Colosseum

The Spanish Steps.

Under the Tuscan Rain...

We docked in Livorno, Italy, but took a bus into Florence. It was such a cute little Tuscan town.  It was rainy off and on all day, but we still had a great time.

 

This is a picture of the facade of the Florence Cathedral in Piazza Del Duomo.  It was designed by Brunelleschi in the 1400s.  It was all done in green, pink and white marble.

This is Ponte Vecchio, or Old Bridge.  It is a medieval stone bridge.  It is completely closed in and filled with jewelry shops.  I think it was my favorite part of Florence.  It was just so neat with the little shops built right into the bridge.

Michelangelo's David....or at least a copy of it.  The real one was moved to  the Academia Gallery in Florence but we didn't have a chance to see it.

This is the flag of Florence...Love it!

I love all the detail they put into their buildings.  This was just a door on a normal building, not even a famous one.

MMMMM the best pasta of the whole trip! 

 

After Florence we got back on the bus and headed to Pissa. It wasn't a very long drive, but it was so rainy.  It was really neat to walk around the corner and see the leaning tower of Pisa.  It really is leaning quite a bit and it leans even more every year.

 

 

So I thought I'd do my part to help hold it up!