Trip of a Lifetime

Almost a year ago, my parents were visiting us in Page and my mom was talking about a trip that some of her friends were going to be taking the following year. They were planning a cruise that would go around Italy. My mom was so sad that my dad was not willing to go with her as it is one of the places that she has always wanted to go. I half jokingly said I would go with her. She instantly lit up and asked if I was serious. Would I really go? I thought, why not? I would love to see Italy, and my mom really wanted to go. So for the next nine months or so, we planned.

As the time got closer to when Drake would get his mission call, I got worried that the trip might interfere with his departure. Fortunately, he was called to enter the MTC a few weeks after we would be back from the cruise. With that major worry out of the way, we were in business.

I drove to Salt Lake where we then flew to New York City and then transferred for our flight to Barcelona, Spain. The following day we borded the ship where we had dinner, got settled and then headed out on our adventure. We toured the cities of Nice and Eze France, Pisa, Florence, Rome, the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, Venice, Montenegro, and Barcelona, Spain. We ate delicious Italian food, shopped in skinny little side streets, waded in the Mediterranean, lounged by the pool, and ate gelato and more gelato. What an amazing adventure. I think the thing that amazed me the most was how old yet well preserved everything was. It is one thing to see the Sistine Chapel in a picture in a book. It is another thing entirely to gaze up at it from inside the walls of the Vatican. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the cliche "they don't make em like they used to". It was breathtaking at every turn!
So glad I got to share this with my mom!