10th Anniv Trip - Jan 21 & 22 Italy

To celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, Adam and I went on a 10 day vacation alone which included a 7 day Western Mediterranean Cruise!!

We didn't abandon our three girls, we left them with a 'team' of family members. The girls were separated on the weekends (Meg with Uncle Andrew, Aunt Wynter & cousin Azlin; Katie with Aunt April; and Peyton with Aunt Atalie & Uncle Randy) and then during the week all three were at our home with Aunt April acting as their surrogate mommy, that way the girls still had their normal routines of going to school/pre-school and sleeping in their own beds. We are so grateful for everyone's help. As a parent it's comforting to know that your kids are in good hands while you're gone, but sad because they end of having so much fun they hardly miss you.

Friday Jan 21, 2011 - we left Southern California out of the John Wayne Airport (Santa Ana) and flew to Newark Airport (New Jersey), then onto Lisbon Portugal, then to Rome Italy. The flights were long but relaxing. We both watched lots of movies and slept. The flights took all night.

Saturday Jan 22, 2011 - From the Rome Airport we boarded a train that took us straight to the marina in the Italian city of Civitavecchia! Taking the train was the easiest and cheapest way, I believe our train tickets were 12 euros each, but a taxi would have been over 120 euros.

There we checked in to our cruise aboard the Costa Magica! We settled into our room and then explored the ship and had some lunch. This ship was huge compared to the Costa Victoria which we went on a Caribbean Cruise on our honeymoon ten years ago. We attended the 'welcome on board' meeting and then hit the buffet!! We were hungry and tired from our flights.

That night we had our first dinner (5 courses: appetizer, soup, salad, main entree & dessert) which was casual. After dinner we wondered around the ship and took this pic in one of the lounge areas.