Europe Trip - Barcelona (Day 6-7)

We finally made it to our final destination, Barcelona! This city was so huge that it didn't feel like we had anytime at all here. We took a bus tour around the city on the first day and we picked out a couple of the things that we really wanted to see. We were exhausted by this time so we wanted to take it easy. Here are some pictures of our last days on our trip:

This was our first stop, Parque Guell which is this amazing park designed by Antoni Gaudi. He is the featured artist of Barcelona and almost everywhere you go, you see things that he has done. This is one of the sections of the park, very interesting!
I took a picture of this because for all of you fans of America's Next Top Model, this is where Melrose and Caridee had their final showdown runway show!

This was as close as we got to the beach in Barcelona. Our one regret from the trip is not making it into the water in spain. We just couldn't fit it in. :(
This is a really cool street that has a ton of shopping and it is so pretty with all of the trees that line the roads. It reminded me a lot of the Champs Elysees in Paris except the stores weren't as nice. It is called Las Ramblas.

Now this is one of the most interesting churches that you will ever see! It is called La Sagrada Familia and it has been in construction for over 150 years! It was also designed by Antoni Gaudi who didn't even get to live to see it finish. It should be done in like 2040 or something. We absolutely loved this so we took lots of pictures!

Here we are at the entrance. As you can see, they are still working on it.

We went back the next day after we stopped briefly on our city tour and we got to go inside. It was massive!

Scaffolding was everywhere, I kept wondering if I needed to wear a hard hat. Not really a sacred church like feel but it is definitely awe-inspiring when you think about all the work that has gone into building this. It is only privately funded and in order to finish they need to tear some buildings down next door!

Here we are at the top. It was so high up and Travis was totally freaking out. There was absolutely nothing there to prevent us from falling! Travis kept saying, "They added these bars as an afterthought!"

As we were walking down, they had all these enclaves that you could walk out on and they didn't feel secure at all. I wanted a picture and even though I am smiling, I am secretly freaking out!

In order to get down, we had to walk down this spiraling staircase. It only had a handrail on the one side. Again, can't you just hear Travis saying, "They added these bars as an afterthought!" Silly!

We had some time to kill before we had to meet the kids so we got off the metro and started walking. We found this other amazing street called Passeig de Gracias which reminded me of 5th ave in New York. This was where all the posh stores were. On this street, we found this really cool apartment building which was designed by...you guessed it, Antoni Gaudi!

This is our final picture! Our trip was over! Overall, we had so much fun with every minute we were alone and we are also so glad that we have at least 16 years until our kids are teenagers. Everyone arrived home safely and thats all the matters. :)

Thanks everyone for dealing with hearing about our trip. I had fun reliving all the good times, so it was as much for me as it was for you. Now travis and I will go back to our boring lives and we will try to keep you updated on that!

Until next year..... yeah right!

Europe Trip - Pont du Gard (Day 5)

continued on again......

On our long bus trip from Cannes to Barcelona we made one stop to this amazing Roman aquaduct called Pont du Gard built in 19 b.c. It was one of the coolest things that we had seen on this trip so far. Check it out!

Here I am on the path that leads up to the Pont du Gard. As you can see, it is massive!
Aparently, this tree is over 1000 years old!
This was used to carry water to the nearby city of Nimes which almost became the Vatican City.
So happy to see something so amazing!
This is us on the bridge that was built alongside the aquaduct. It was such a pretty setting and the river that ran underneath was so blue!
You can see that this thing was so big.

That was a nice little side trip on our way to Barcelona. The final leg of our trip is coming up!

Stay tuned!

Europe Trip - France (Day 4)

continued on from Day 3....

So, our hotel in France was in the city Cannes and was right on the beach, which was very nice. Cannes seemed like a pretty interesting city but our tour led us over to another city called Nice, which aparently is better. :) We had this amazing bus tour that took us around the entire city with this really nice lady as our tour guide. The rest of the day we just had free time where, of course, the kids created all sorts of mayhem but Travis and I had lots of fun. Here are some pictures:

Right smack dab in the middle of this French city is this beautiful Russian Cathedral. Totally random and out of place, but it was incredible looking.

Travis in front of one of many churches that we saw on this trip. This one was very cool because it had so much art on the walls and ceiling. And it was also right in the middle of some Roman ruins and a bunch of olive trees.

Right behind the same church from above was an old monastery. They had some beautiful gardens and it was set right on the top of a very large hill. The view was so pretty and I wish that this picture did it justice!

Here is an awesome view of the Nice coastline. At this point we were very close to where Elton John has a house, this is his view!

Travis and I never missed out on a great photo op!

This is our tour guide that led us around Nice. I think her name was Jacqueline.

Apparently, this place had the best gelato in all of Nice. Here Travis is enjoying some with the other two chaperones in our group, Silvano and Yolanda Villa. They were really nice and we would tour around with them whenever we could.

On our free time we visited the Museum of Contempory Art. We were so exhausted by the time we got there that all we wanted to do was sit and relax. So, we enjoyed the art but we really enjoyed this moment right here, just resting our feet.

Our tour guide told us this was the dark spot in all of Nice because of how ugly this building is behind Travis. They call it the "Blockhead" which is exactly what it is. This holds all of the offices for their city library. Definitely one of the strangest things I have ever seen.

Here I am on the beach in Nice. As you can see there is absolutely no sand, just large rocks!! It was a very windy day and so it was dangerous to get in the water but I really wanted to feel the water so I tried to get close with my bare feet. It took me five minutes just to walk over to the water, it hurt so bad to walk on the rocks!! I don't know how anyone enjoys to go to the beach in Nice!

So, that was pretty much our day. We were exhausted when we got home and we were definitely looking forward to spending all the next day driving in the bus. We had to travel from Cannes to Barcelona which was about 8 hours. Our feet needed some rest!

stay tuned for more......

Europe Trip - Monaco (Day 3)

Continued on from day 2.....

So, on our way to France, we stopped by the country of Monaco. This was the highlight of Travis' trip! This was the one thing he wanted to see. So here are some pictures from that great day:

Here we are looking over the harbor in Monte-Carlo, the capital city of Monaco. It was absolutely gorgeous! It is hard to see, but the city is so crowded with people that it looks that every builiding is built right on top of each other.

These are most of the kids in our group. I wanted to show you a picture of them so now you can put a face to the little terrors we had to deal with!

Here is Travis in front of the palace where the King of Monaco resides. The flag means that the king is in town. (A little history lesson: King Rainier of Monaco is the one that married the actress Grace Kelly. She is buried in the cathedral nearby the castle. Their son is now the king)

I just thought this was a great picture. I didn't know that I had become such a giant!!

Travis and I walked pretty much the entire city. This is overlooking the other side of the harbour. The castle is in the background. This is what Monaco is known for, their fancy casino! Black tie only and of course, only the high rollers. We saw so many expensive cars just sitting right out front. Apparently, Monaco was able to abolish all taxes in the late 1800s because of the sucess of the casino! The builing was so amazing. One of the most beautiful buildings we had ever seen.

Here we are in front of the casino! We thought this was the same one from the new James Bond movie, but we were mistaken. That was filmed in Montenegro, not Monte Carlo. But it is the same idea, if you saw that movie.

This is Travis in the back of the casino. He was loving every moment of this!

This is what the casino over looks on the cliff. It has a beautiful view of the Mediterranean Sea. It was definitely one of the most pretty sights we had seen yet!

I honestly believe we were surrounded by some of the richest people in the world. These are just a few of the yachts that lined the harbour. That one in the middle actually does has a helicopter on the back of it!

So, Monaco is a country that I think is owned by France, kinda of, but is still its own principality (something like that). But it is only .8 square miles large! So, it order to make more room, they are actually trying to fill the harbour with land. We just thought this was amazing so we took a picture of this crane actually dumping sand into the ocean! Every inch of that space is filled to the brim so of course, there next thought is to just create land. Hmm, maybe they should just accept the fact that they are full!

Well, after this we continued on to our next stop, Cannes, France (where they have the film festival). On the way there we stopped at this perfume factory called Fragonard where they make the most amazing perfume! We learned an amazing fact which we don't think very many people know. They actually have schools where you can become a "nose." It takes about seven years where you learn to distinguish between 3000 different smells! There are fewer than 150 "noses" and hardley any woman are "noses." They make about 50,000 dollars a month! Where do we sign up!?

sorry, i didn't get any pictures from this :(

to be continued.....

Europe Trip - Italy (Day 1-2)

So, I haven't quite figured out how I am going to do this, we have over 200 pictures from our Europe trip that we want to share with everyone. I figured I would just post some new pics every day and tell you a little bit about our trip. So, it might take awhile, but just be patient with me. I will try and post some everyday, unless I can figure something better out.


We left out of LAX here in Los Angeles and flew to Munich and then to Milan, Italy where we met out tour guide Luiz and our bus driver Fiorenzo. Travis and I and two other chaperones were in charge of about 35 kids; however, the whole group totaled 118 kids. They were split into three seperate groups. From Milan, we drove to this little town on the Italian coast called La Spezia. We spent two nights there. On our full day there we took a train ride to this place called Cinque Terre which had five of the most adorable Italian Coastal cities that Travis and I just fell in love with. Here are a couple pictures from there:

This is a picture from the train of the coast line.
It was honestly the most beautiful thing we had ever seen, this picture just doesn't do it justice.

This was our first stop, a city called Montarazzo. It was right on the water, absolutely beautiful!

This is overlooking the beach in Montarazzo. The water was so clear!

Travis relaxing on the beach! We were able to get as far away from the kids as we could, it was like having our own private beach. The water was very salty though, very different from anything we had swam in before.

This was just a perfect picture moment!

This is another one of the cities, Vernazzo, where we ate pizza and sat on the dock.

This is looking out over the bay from the other direction. They had all these cool little boats for rent. I tried to get Travis to take me out, but he was too nervous that we would get stuck out in the middle of the sea! Knowing us, we probably would have too!

That is the city up there on those cliffs! It was amazing! (oh and yes, that is one of our kids with the really cool blue and orange backpacks. travis and I did have ones to match! :) )

These cities were just amazing! We just couldn't believe that people actually lived here. It was just how I imagined a little Italian village would look like.

They had this trail that you could walk or bike that went from one city to the other. It is called "The Walk of Love." The scenery was absolutely amazing!

Well, that is just a few of our pictures from our first day in Europe. All in all, it was a fabulous day! To be continued......