Halloween Weekend

This weekend has been really fun. It started with a halloween party at the studio, which was SO much fun. It was great to see everyone in their costumes. We were batman and catwoman. I think our costumes turned out great, especially since they were SO cheap, my mom made travis' costume and mailed it to us and my costume just came out of my closet. After the party we went bowling with a bunch of friends from the studio and we had a blast. It was great to just relax and have a good time with friends.

Saturday travis and i had fun making cupcakes for our ward party that night. I think they turned out pretty cute. everyone seemed to really like them, but the best part was spending the day making them together.

Today is my Dad's birthday so we had fun calling him and wishing him a happy birthday. Its hard to not be there to help celebrate, but at least we are happy with things here, so that makes it easier to be away from family.

life...

we are really happy with everything since we've moved. we absolutely LOVE working at the studio, everyone has been so nice and welcoming to us AND we get to practice every day!!

Also, our new ward is great. they've been so friendly, which is helpful. overall We feel so blessed, things really couldn't be better. We are so lucky to have such great jobs and for both of us to be working during this time when it can be so hard for new graduates to find jobs. But as of right now we are happy as can be.

We live about 25 minutes from Manhattan, so if anyone would like to come visit we would LOVE to see friends.

Journey to the mysterious beyond....

Well, its official, we've left paradise and we are back to real life, and real food. (i will definitely miss the filet mignon every night) but hopefully we will be back on the ship within the next year. We had a great time, but we are really excited for the next adventure. After coming home we spent about a week with each of our families before heading back and packing up our things and beginning the great trek to New Jersey.

Once we were back in utah, Travis and i each visited the dentist, which was a disaster, but ended up being a huge blessing. I was cavity free like usual, but what should have been a quick cleaning and exam for travis turned into an all day experience. First the dentist said he had 5 cavities, then when he opened one up he found out that the root canal travis had about 8 months ago was FULL of decay, so we had to go back to our previous dentist and have him check it out. well we found out travis is unusual in that most people only have 1 root in this given tooth, but travis had 2. so when the dentist filled it the first time he only took care of 1 root. he ended up having oral surgery and lots of stuff to get it fixed, however, since the dentist had made the error, luckily the procedure was free (HUGE relief). but it still made for a long day.

the next morning we packed up the uhaul, said our goodbyes and drove off into the sunrise. it was a bittersweet moment. the drive in total took us 3 LONG days but luckily nothing major happened. there were alot of close calls such as almost running out of gas, almost hitting deer, and almost falling asleep at the wheel. but luckily we survived and so did the car. But the time we arrived at our new home the third night we fell into bed and PASSED out.

Probably the highlight of the trip was visiting mount rushmore. i have always wanted to see it, but its located in the middle of nowhere, so i was happy to finally have an occasion to see the grand structure. and grand it was!!!

We are so happy we were able make it safely. We feel so blessed.

Barcelona, Spain

This was our last stop before heading home. However, we enjoyed our last day to the fullest and definitely shopped til we dropped. we walked ALL over the city and by the time we got back to the ship it was SO hard to motivate ourselves to pack because our feet hurt so bad. But we did see some great things. we saw 3 of Gaudi's most famous structures (really cool and very unique) and we also got to take a stroll down Las Ramblas, which was such an interesting street. it was full of street performers and live statues. some of them were not very impressive, but others i really had to look twice, sometimes even three times to make sure they were people. all in all it was a really fun place to end the trip. we are sad to go home, but ready for the adventures ahead of us. We've had a really great time and hopefully crystal will as us to come back and do more.

Monte Carlo, Monacco

WOW! all i can say is i love this place. it is such a great city, so clean, really expensive, but clean with a beautiful view. we had a nice relaxing day of looking around the city and checking out the palace. once again, it was just a heavenly day with perfect weather in a beautiful city. This cruise has been INCREDIBLE.

St. Tropez, France

St Tropez, famous for nude beaches, and that’s about it. We were so excited, because when we woke up we were able to see that the French Riviera was very beautiful and we were ready to see what St Tropez had to offer. But, as we got off to take a look around we soon found that there wasn’t a whole lot to do. The shopping was way too high priced and the views in town were not too great. Maybe we were just a little tired from a new town every day; we just didn’t have the patience for discovering anything. We decided to head back to the boat and lay out by the pool some more. After a few hours by the pool we had ourselves a great dinner of filet mignon and then off to bed.

Livorno, Italy

Livorno, we wish we had more to say about Livorno, but sadly it was a very uneventful day. From Livorno you can get to Pisa or Florence. We were really excited to see the leaning tour and Michael Angelo’s David, but when we got to town in Livorno they let us know that the trains were on strike, so traveling to Florence would be impossible, and the buses do not run on Sunday, so we would not be able to reach Pisa. We decided to walk around Livorno for a while, but because it was Sunday everything was closed and there was really nothing to see. So, we decided to go back to the ship. The rest of the day was spent resting; we laid out by the pool for a while, had a nice dinner, went dancing and went to bed.

ROME

The ship docked in Civitavecchia today, which is about an hour train ride away from Rome. The day was very hectic because we couldn’t leave the ship until 8:00 am and we had to be back by 4:00 pm. Travis had lesson with a lady by the name of Anne Rockwell and we had a tech rehearsal at 4:45 because they informed us the day before that we would be performing our foxtrot to open the show at 9:30. So, we had to be up fairly early to get ready and have a good breakfast to be off the ship by 8:00. We went to the train station immediately, which was a fifteen minute walk. After an hour train ride, we arrived in Rome. It was the first time for either of us and it was incredible. We both agreed that Rome might be one of the most beautiful “large” cities that we’ve ever been to. The architecture was picturesque; remnants of an ancient civilization are prevalent in a newer, slightly more modern city. Beyond the incredible sights, the air was clean and the sky was very, very blue. We knew that we wouldn’t have much time to see the city and in order to be able to see all the sights we decided to take an open air bus tour. It was probably the best decision we could have made because we really made the most of our time. On the bus tour were able to see the colosseum, Vatican city, Trevi fountain, and a ton of other amazing sites. It’s really hard to put into words how incredible it was. At 2:39 we had to catch the train back to Civitavecchia to get back to the boat. Right when we got back we had some lunch and Travis had his lesson with Anne. Later that night we had our performance in the stardust. We opened the show with our foxtrot that we did while we were on team. It seems that it went over very well, we received many compliments the rest of the cruise.

Sorrento, Italy

Today we visited Sorrento, Italy. All I can say is that I am in love! It is such a beautiful city raised up on cliffs overlooking the sea. Although we weren’t able to visit Pompeii or Positano it was really fun to just wander the city. Unfortunately our wandering took us to visit some great little shops and we were able to find some amazing items. For me we bought a coat (to die for), two blouses and a jacket. For Travis we bought a jacket, sweater and some really great shoes (we found them in a bin outside a shop and they were the only ones and they happened to fit Travis perfectly, what luck!) We also enjoyed some delicious gelato. After wandering the city for a few hours we headed back to the boat, had a delicious dinner of filet mignon followed crème broule. After dinner we went back to our room to watch a movie. Great day!

Santorini, Greece

Today we arrived in Santorini, Greece. It was a nice and relaxing day because we really didn’t have a lot to do. We were able to sleep in till about 9:00 and we went to breakfast which was delicious as always on Crystal Serenity. Breakfast was especially nice because we were able to sit out on the open deck which gave us an incredible view of the island of Santorini and its neighboring islands; it’s hard to put into words how beautiful it was. The water was a deep blue shade, bluer than the sky. The islands themselves were breathtaking; there was only a small port of entry to the island, because they went straight out of the water up to a high plateau. The entire town was built on top of the cliffs. There were only two ways, from the side we entered the town, to get up; one was a recently built lift system that cost 3 euro and took only a few minutes to get to the top. The other means to the top was a winding, paved donkey trail, literally. You could pay 3 euro to take a donkey to the top, which looked like a lot of fun, but we decided to walk and it took us 30 to 40 minutes and the walk was actually a bit shorter than the donkey ride. Once we got to the top we just to a walk around a small part of the island. Mostly we just walked around where the shops were, which was fun because the town was very quaint with narrow little streets and alleys filled with shops and boutiques. We really didn’t feel like taking too big of an adventure so we decided to head back to the ship after only about 2 hours of wandering. We went back to the ship and laid out by the pool for a couple of hours and then pretty much relaxed for the rest of the evening.