Blast from the Past-- Cinque Terre, Italy

Good morning friends! Today's post is another installment of "today in my mind I'm in _______". Devin and I were sitting on the beach yesterday as we are wrapping up our trip and were talking about our next big trip... Italy. We have plans to go in 2021, but honestly, who knows if that will end up happening?? It started a little trip down memory lane and I remembered that years ago I posted several posts from our trip to Italy but never got around to posting our 3 days in Cinque Terre. 

Blast From the Past... Our Honeymoon

Good morning friends and happy Monday! Recently my hairdresser, who is a big world traveler, has been posting pictures from her many travels and saying "today in my mind I'm in ________" and it has been such a fun breath of fresh air to see her pictures from her travels and also have a little daydream vacation. 

Weekend Highlights Part 1

Happy Easter Monday everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and were able to spend some good quality time with your families. We had a wonderful weekend and I am so happy to share it with you!

Our weekend actually began on Wednesday with the start of my spring break (finally!!). Our school does a half day on the Wednesday before Easter and then we have off through the following week. So this year we are off the afternoon of 4/17 and don't return to school until 4/29. We will come back and have just a little over a month before summer break begins! 

Our Trip to Bali Part 2

Hi There! It is time to continue the recap of our Bali trip-- woohoo! If you haven't already read my first post, check here. I'm telling you, it is a brisk 37 degrees outside right now as I type this and looking at these pictures is a liiiiiiiitle bittersweet right about now. It's a little hard to imagine that just two weeks ago we were lounging by the pool in our swimsuits...

 Anyway, let's get started...

Our Trip to Bali Part 1

Good Morning and happy Friday! Today I am recapping the first half of our trip to Bali so settle in with a cup of coffee and get ready for a LOT of pictures. It took us 36 hours to get there, including 29 hours of flying time. Needless to say, if it took us THAT long to get there, it better have been worth it... and it WAS! In many ways Bali reminded me of Hawaii. It has volcanoes, the volcanic black soil, beaches, surfers, and lush green vegetation everywhere. That being said, it is very different from Hawaii in many ways too, and it was definitely worth the extra hours of getting there to experience how unique this island is. 

Our first stop in Bali was in the town of Ubud. Ubud is a town in the center of the island and feels like it is in a rainforest. The AirB&B we stayed in was absolutely stunning, and our only complaint was that we didn't get to stay there longer. For anyone considering traveling to Bali I highly recommend this place. 

4 Day Itinerary to Amsterdam/Bruges

Amsterdam Part 2

Hello again! If you haven't already read part 1 of our Amsterdam trip, you'll probably want to go back here and read that first. Today I am picking up where I left off and finishing the rest of our trip.

Amsterdam Part 1

Good Morning! I am sitting here sipping my coffee in bed flipping through our pictures from Amsterdam and wishing we were still there... that trip was exactly what we needed! Life has been nonstop around here since the beginning of August and it was so nice to have a weekend away where we did what we wanted, when we wanted to. I love traveling with Lily Grace and I am all for family vacations with kids, but having the ability to sleep in and go out to dinner in peace was a dream come true!!

What I Packed for Our Long Weekend in Europe

Our trip is finally here! As you read this post I am currently joining Devin on his work trip to Amsterdam!! For those of you who have Instagram I would love for you to follow along with us on our trip! My username is lcdarrell. 

So I have been obsessively checking the weather for this trip every day for the past few weeks (I know our forecast wasn't up yet, but I wanted to get a feel for what the weather might be like when I was out shopping). It turns out our weather is going to be in the 50's and 60's and sunny (heck yeah!). I was so pumped to get a little taste of fall weather because it is STILL in the mid 80's here EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

This is what I packed for our trip:

This will be my outfit for the plane. I LOVE this faux Burberry plaid blanket wrap for traveling because it's like having a wearable blanket on those cold flights. I got mine for Christmas 2 years ago, but here is a very similar one. The pants are super stretchy high waisted black jeans, and if I'm being real.. my Tory Burch flats are fake. I have a girlfriend who lives in Shanghai who brings me fake stuff when she comes home for Christmas and I had her bring me these one year (thanks Sam!). If you can afford the real ones, more power to ya! The link to the real shoes is here. Sorry I can't give you a link to the $10 version... surprisingly there is no website for that ;)

Florence and Tuscany

Good Morning! Thanks for stopping by our Italy recap. If you are just now joining us you can see our other Italy posts here:

Pompeii
Capri
Rome
Easter at the Vatican

And our posts about how we travel inexpensively here:
Part 1
Part 2

Anyway, onto Florence!

So we got to Florence, and to be honest we were very underwhelmed. We had been told that Florence would be our favorite city by far and that it was much prettier and cleaner than Rome, but we actually found the opposite to be true. In fact, it was the dirtiest city we had visited by far. Has anyone else had a similar experience to this?? I'm hoping this was just a fluke. 

Easter Sunday at the Vatican

Ah, Easter Sunday at the Vatican. A truly once in a lifetime experience. Everything we read about Easter Mass at the Vatican talked about the importance of getting tickets and getting there hours ahead of Mass, but we didn't follow those suggestions and instead did our own thing-- I am so happy we did!

Can you see the Pope??

Italy-- The island of Capri and Welcome to Rome!

Thanks for stopping by! Today I am recapping our trip to Italy with our stop in Capri and then heading to Rome. If you missed our first Italy post, click here. 

Okay, onto day two! So according to our itinerary we were supposed to go to Capri on our first full day in Italy, but the weather was supposed to be cloudy and cold. We decided we wanted to be able to appreciate the beautiful views in Capri and switched the two days. Before walking to the port to catch the ferry to Capri, we snuck up to the roof of our hotel and took a few pictures of the view.

Isn't that beautiful? We loved the view of the harbor, the castle (Il Castel Nuovo), and Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

Italy-- Pompeii in a Day

Where is your favorite place on Earth to travel? Do you have any of those places that you could go back to over and over again and wouldn't think twice about it? For me, that's such an easy question. Dev and I have been to 8 countries together, but I've been to well over a dozen in total and my favorite HANDS DOWN is Italy. What's not to love? The food, the incredibly friendly people, the history, the beautiful natural landscape... I mean, it has everything. 

Dev and I went to Italy in the spring of 2016 and I have been itching to go back ever since. We did not get to see/do everything on our list... we didn't even come close. But I figure that just gives us a reason to go back again to see the rest. :)

I'll attach our itinerary for anyone who is curious what our 10 day trip looked like.

This is a quick recap of the beginning of our trip.

Turks and Caicos

Good Morning! I'm sitting here sipping my coffee in bed looking back through pictures from our Turks and Caicos trip and wishing we were still there... ahh it was SO BEAUTIFUL!! 

So whenever we get back from a trip I go through vacation withdrawals and immediately start planning our next one. Anyone else do this? We are currently trying to figure out what would be the perfect destination for Babymoon #2-- any recommendations? And would you bring your first child with you? We can't decide that either! I'd love for you to share any opinions about Babymoons down below!