Party Like a Rock Star

Someone I know turned 4 on Monday, or was it Sunday?  or Tuesday?  

With all of the parties it was hard to keep track of what day was his actual day of birth.  

September 10, 2009!  How could I ever forget that day & the previous night?  It was hell at the time but looking back it was one of my favorite moments.  A pure miracle!  

Now 4 years later its hard to imagine him at 7lbs 3oz!  We had a great time celebrating him.  We had a family party at my parents over the weekend, then Monday (his actual bday) he picked where we went for dinner and did presents as our family of 4.  Then on Tues was his big friends party at our house.  

Needless to say he had a lot of fun and was feeling super special and grown up.

Having cake at grandpa & grammie's house.  Check out the spit that came with blowing out the candles!!  

Opening presents at home.  Dad got him this special balloon to take to dinner with us.

A BEAVER JERSEY!!  He is in heaven

He picked a bike party for when his friends came over.  We had stuff for all the kids to decorated there bikes &; then we did a parade down the street

Cade's birthday invitations

Now he is already talking about what he wants for the 5 year old party, asking me what he will wear when he is 5 and telling Blake is he SO much bigger than him now!  

It's so cute how important age is when your a kid!! 

Love you Cade!!

Wordless Wednesday

Not so little anymore

Sept 10 my little man turned 4! 

Trip of A Lifetime Part 6

Day 7:  Cannes


On Thursday of our trip we found ourselves in Cannes.  The Beverly Hills of France!  Unbelievable cars, high end shopping, celebrities & home of the Cannes Film Festival.

At this stop there wasn't an actual port for the boat to dock at.  Instead they set anchor out in the ocean and we got to take the life boats in to the little docks.  We had an excursion booked for this day, however we were SO tired and really just wanted to relax on the beach.  So we had a relaxing morning and just took our time getting off the boat.

Once we made it to land we hopped on a bus to a locals beach where we just laid in the sun, swam in the ocean and had a great time relaxing and pretending to be a local :)  After we got got tired of the sun we grabbed some gelato and walked around.

The yachts of the rich

 Life boats

 Our ship from the life boat

 Awesome cars like this everywhere!

Locals beach (don't look to long you may see some topless old ladies)

Fun in the sun

Day 8:

Our final stop was in Marseille.  The stop here was very short as we had to be back on the ship by 3pm to set sail back to Barcelona.  Tyler and I opped to stay on the boat this day.  I don't have any fun pictures :(  we just laid out, went to the spa and took a nap.  It's a vacation right your supposed to do that!

The travel back home was brutal!  With an early morning flight, delays and a 9 hour time difference we  were traveling for a total of 24 hours by the time we made it to my parents house!  So tired but so worth it.

It definitely was a trip of a lifetime and we are so thankful to have gone and seen/experiences the things we did.  It was such a blessing to have my sister as well as my parents to watch our boys.  They did so good while we were gone.  We called every morning & they were usually too busy having fun playing to talk to us!  That made it much easier to be away from them.

I hope you enjoyed the re cap of our trip!!

Spain airport treat (Mc Donals icecream cones come with a kit kat!)

And they have beer!

Trip of A Lifetime Part 5

Day: 6  Cinque Terre

Day 6 our boat ported in Livorno.  We had a lot of great options as far as excursions went in this port city.  Our options were Florence and the Michelangelo's David, Pisa, a Tuscan wine tour, or The Cinque Terre.  When I saw that Cinque Terre was an option I was beyond excited!  I have seen so many fabulous pictures from this amazing place and have always wanted to experience it for myself.  It was a big decision to pick this trip because that meant we would miss out on the Leaning Tower of Pisa & the Michelangelo's David; 2 big spots in Italy.  However we are not one bit regretful of our decision!  It met every expectation I had and more!

Cinque Terre means "5 Villages" and that is just what they are.  5 villages built into the cliffs.  We were able to vist 4 of the 5 villages.  This was another excursion we did through Norwegian Cruise Line.  If we had been more confident and researched it we would have loved to do it on our own but the excursion ended up being a good option.  We took a tour bus from Livorno to one of the villages called Manarola.  

On the bus

 Grapes!

The hills are all terraced and covered with vineyards

 Manarola from the top

From here we walked down into the town until we came to the Via Dell'amore or Pathway of Love.  This pathway connects 2 of the villages and it is super cool.  It goes up and under the cliffs and has graffiti love  messages, bike locks that people have put to "lock in there love", and a lovers bench.  

 

The path connects village of Manarola to the village of Riomaggiore.  Once we reached Riomaggiore we had a few minutes to check out the village and grab a snack.   

Riomaggiore

This village had so many cool old little boats tied up

From this village we hopped on a boat to go to Vernazza.  Here we were again given time to explore and take it all in. Tyler and I were dying to swim in the Mediterranean Sea so we used our time to swim!  It was so much fun, the water was so warm and so clear!  We could see everything in the water around us.

 Loading into the boat.  There was no dock, the ramp was just thrown out onto the rocks for everyone to load in

  

So excited to be swimming!

 

Our last adventure was to the village called Monterosso.  We hopped back on the boat to get there.  

Here Tyler and I had an amazing  Italian lunch and wine, shopped and swam again.  

Hotel built on the cliff

Monterosso

Yummy bruschetta & wine 

 Rocks we climbed to to swim

The beach

When our excursion was over we took a quick 5 min train ride to Levanto (I think thats what it was) where our bus driver was waiting to take up back to Livorno. 

Train tracks built into the cliffs 

We would give anything to go back to Cinque Terre and stay for a week or so.  We loved the small, quaint and slow pace of the villages, not to mention everywhere you look is beautiful.  

If you don't have this destination on your "To do" or "To see" list I highly  recommend adding it!