Our European Vacation

We are back from the most amazing vacation!  My in-laws, Steve and Nancy, took our family on an unbelievable trip to Paris and then a 7 day cruise around France and Italy.  Albeit exhausting, we had a great time and I can not wait to share all of our pictures and memories with you!

We left Houston on Wednesday, June 12th, and arrived in Paris on Thursday, June 13th.  We were in Paris for three days and left Sunday, June 16th, and flew to Barcelona where we got on our cruise ship.  We were on the Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas.  We stopped in Toulon, France; Villefranche, France; Cinque Terre, Italy; Citavecchia, Italy; Naples, Italy and then had one day at sea.  Stephen and I flew home Sunday, June 23rd, while the rest of the family stayed in Barcelona and flew home Monday, June 24th.  Stephen had to be at work Monday morning so we had to come home Sunday.  It was a miserable day of travel for us.  We spent 21 hours in airports or on an airplane.  We have never been so happy to be home and see our beds!

There were 11 of us that went on the trip.  Steve, Nancy, Shelley, Mike, Taylor, Cameron, Mary, Gary, Michael, Stephen, and I.  It would have been too hard of a trip for the babies, so Stephen didn't go and neither did Brook and Izzy.  We missed all three of them, but it would have just been too hard for the little ones to travel that far.  It was a hard trip on all of us, I can only imagine how hard it would be for them.

My parents kept Stephen for us and it was a long 13 days without seeing our boy!  My parents spoiled him rotten (as all grandparents should) and sent us pictures and videos every day.  Technology is amazing!  It was so wonderful to see him and how happy he was.  They brought him back to our house Monday and getting to hold my baby and hug and kiss him was amazing!  We missed him SO much!!

Thank you so much Mom and Dad for taking such good care of Stephen!  While we missed him, we knew he was in great hands.  He sleeps so well at their house (even better than he does at our house) and we knew he was having a blast!

I'm working on getting pictures edited and uploaded and will start updating day by day.  I may even have to break the days out by events.  We saw so much and I took almost 3,000 pictures.  Crazy!!  So be patient and know that I will get pictures and stories up in between recovering from jet lag and loving on my sweet boy!