A Mediterranean Cruise!

This post is dedicated to a friend who encourages me to bring this blog back to life because he doesn't do Facebook!!  So I will let you know what this year has been like and I am going to start with current and work back...why? because it is already a daunting task!!  LOL

A Mediterranean Cruise ~ 2017

 Scott surprised me with a cruise and we decided to spread the joy and invite Dina and her two daughters Ellie and Lily along.  We left July 28, flew to Seattle, boarded British Airways for our trip to London, from there we flew to Rome.  We were in Rome for two and half days.  Scott arranged for a private guide for the two days so we could see as much of Rome as possible  We walked 9 miles the first day and saw so many things my head is still spinning.

      First I have to share the seating in the British Air flight, because this was a big deal for us... the seats lay all the way back and they give you a pillow and blankets, an eye mask, little toothbrush and paste, cream lotion etc.    Our first time flying in business class...the only way to fly long distance!!
the opaque window goes up and down, just in case you are sitting with someone you don't know!                                                                               ROME
                                        

San Giovanni in Laterno (St. John Lateran) is the official cathedral of Rome (not St. Peter's Basilica).  This church is the Seat of the "Pope" and one of the first catholic churches in Rome. This door is huge!  (Did I mention Dina's luggage did not make it to Rome?  For that matter, it NEVER made it to her the whole trip!  It did get to her house the day before we got home!)

 

There are four Papal Basilica Jubilee Doors in Rome.  This is the outside of the door at San Giovanni Lateran.  The Pope stands at this door and knocks on it.  People inside the church stand at the wall where there is a cross and when they hear the knocking, they break down the wall!  Then they build it back up again for the next Jubilee Year (typically every 25 years). 

         

Isn't this door HUGE?  OMG!  Everything about this church was super-sized...the statues inside were all enormous and so impressive.  Every church we went into was like nothing I have seen here in the states.  They really knew how to build them all those years ago, such fine detail in everything they did.    Okay, who was the wise guy that took my phone and did this goofy picture??? MamaMia!                                                           

Throwing a coin into Trevi Fountain is a tradition that ensures the visitor will get a return to Rome!

Of course we had to throw a coin into the fountain.  It is the largest Baroque fountain in the city and the most beautiful in the world. The water comes from an aqueduct originally constructed in 19 BC.

We spent the first day going to Santa Maria Maggiore, the  Ancient City (Pantheon, Palatine Hill), the Jewish Ghetto, famous squares and fountains like the one pictured above.  The second day in Rome was spent visiting Castel Sant'Angelo, Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, the Colosseum and several more churches.     

FLORENCE & PISA 

                                          

           

Our first excursion on our Regents Seven Seas Cruise was a 10.5 hour day that included a trip to Florence where we had a local guide walk us around and give the history and point out the many churches, statues and other magnificent works of art.  From there we went to Pisa pictured above.  Of course we had to do the typical tourist 'forced perspective' photo shoot.  The center photo is Lily holding up the Pisa. (*wink)

                                                    AJACCIO, CORSICA

Our second port was Corsica Island, which is French.  We docked at Ajaccio and had a blast swimming in the Mediterranean Sea.  The girls loved it!  We chose not to do an excursion as we really wanted one day where we could play at the beach!  We walked around that very quaint town, the girls each had a crepe...Lily had strawberry, Ellie had a banana/chocolate crepe.

 CINQUE TERRE

Our third port was La Spezia, and we took a cruise boat to Cinque Terre for our excursion. The picture on the left is from the boat. The picture on the right shows Dina in the foreground taking a picture, Ellie is in the dress to her left and in front of her. All the cities were the same with many storied buildings, people living above the stores with clothing hanging out windows to dry.

MONTE CARLO, MONACO, EZE, NICE 

We are in the French Riviera!!  OMG!!  Our next port was Monte Carlo, Monaco!  We LOVED it, wish we had more time to stay longer.  We took a tour bus up to Eze a charming hilltop town on the Cote d'Azur!  We were told about 2,000 people live there but in the winter months, don't go because everything is shut down! From there we drove down to Nice; had lunch and roamed the city. Then we went to Monaco and visited the church where Grace Kelly was married, saw the houses her daughters own (but don't live full time), the girls had a STARBUCKS!! We didn't go to a casino in Monte Carlo because it would have cost about 17 dollars to get in and the girls wouldn't have been allowed, so we opted out of giving them more of our money!  LOL!!

The view from the bus on our tour up to Eze.  Isn't that water just gorgeous?   The church in Monaco where Princess Grace Kelly was married. And the girls in front of a statue in the courtyard.

 

The girls called the cruise the geriatric cruise! ha ha!!  I must admit there were not a LOT of young people, but some!  After 6pm every night we were not to wear shorts, jeans, flip flops, or athletic shoes and we had to be dressed up for dinner.  So here we are the night we were docked in Monte Carlo.  Scott and I had a room at the 'aft' of the ship with a lovely deck.  And we had our own private 'butler'!!  He brought special plates every late afternoon (I guess a precursor to the dinner) and so we invited the girls to our room to share the food and we got a picture out on our deck!

 

ANTIBES, FRANCE

We went to a glass blowing Factory and watched them blow and manipulate the glass to become a goblet...then we did a little shopping in their store.

 

After the bus tour to the glass blowing we went back to town and roamed a bit, by the harbor there were many of these sculptures on display  Scott is in the background near this bull.

MARSEILLE, FRANCE

 I had to super size this photo so you could see why I took it...look in the background over Lily's shoulder, do you see it?  "Starbucks Coffee". Oh they were so excited to see that store, of course it was the first stop.  Our plan for the day was to do some shopping for Dina as she was borrowing everyone's clothes.  And she could really use some shoes because she only had flip flops on the plane ride.  I did share one sandal with her and Ellie had a pair of Nike's, but she needed something like a sandal, but good for her feet...we do a lot of walking on these excursions!  We were successful in finding tops and dresses and even a pair of UGG sandals!!  I even bought a top in Marseille.

PALAMOS, SPAIN

                  

 

The Costa Brava is one of Spain's most beautiful regions.  Here we are in Tossa de Mar, a beautiful quaint and almost fairy tale type of village.  Again Dina and I would have loved more time to roam and maybe shop??  We climbed quite high to see the sites below and enjoy the view. This is a well-preserved Old Town with a Gothic church and a view from the ancient Roman fortress that overlooks the bay.  It was built in 1187 to defend the town against invaders approaching from the sea.  This Old Town is the only surviving walled city on the Catalan coast.

From here we continued on the tour bus to Lloret de Mar just down the coast.  This too is a beautiful seaside village.  We stopped for a tour of the Santa Clotilde Gardens.  It was designed in the 1920's in the manner of the Italian Renaissance gardens.  NO FLOWERS!!  All IVY!!  The guide kept pointing out all the 'ivy'...notice how the 'ivy' is integrated into the paths, or into the steps, or even into the hedges!  I guess they like 'IVY", unlike here where it is banned because of how invasive a plant it is!!

This town is full of high rises to accommodate all the seasonal visitors (mostly Europeans) on holiday.  The town will grow to over 200,000 people in the summer months.

                                   

PALMA DE MALLORCA, SPAIN

We went to the Caves of Drach (Dragon), a spectacular underground attraction.  The caves contain stalactites and stalagmites reflecting in the clear pools. It has one of the world's largest subterranean lakes and they put on a little show for us with three boats with musicians in them playing music for us and they had down lighting and lights on the boats...very pretty...they kept it dark while the show was going on so we could enjoy the lights from the boats. This is one of those pictures that is hard to capture unless you have a camera that allows you to use different lenses.  The did not allow flash!

 We also visited the Mallorca pearls being made in a factory.  These are faux pearls made from natural marine products; they are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.  Of course we had to buy some pearl earrings and bracelets and Papa even bought Lily a necklace!

The Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma

is often called the Cathedral of Light.

This Catalan Gothic Cathedral was built in 1229 and finished in 1601.

The rose window on the east side of the cathedral is one of the world's largest, it is 40 feet across and constructed with 1,236 pieces of stained glass.

Restoration of this church began in 1851, in 1901 architect Antoni Gaudi took over the project.  Much of his Art Nouveau work can be seen inside this cathedral.  You will see more of Gaudi's work when we get to Barcelona where he took over the construction and design of The Sagrada Familia.  

 

Many of the churches we saw in Rome as well as other cities all had magnificent construction over their altar's.  

I am not standing at the back of the church, but you can still see the stained glass "rose" and the altar with the display above it.  I have so many pictures, but I will not bore you with any more of this church.  I still have Valencia to go to finish our cruise.

VALENCIA, SPAIN

 How fun is this little scene, for a few euro's you can have your picture taken with him...do you see all the bubbles floating down?

 They had a HUGE indoor market filled with vendors who were selling fruits, vegetables, meats, fish everything you can think of...  it definitely had a fishy smell to it!  Here I am in front of some fruit, do you see those big clusters of grapes?  I bought my dad a package of Valencia tomato seeds.

 Ellie and Lily in front of a fountain.

 A statue of Valencia!

 If you know Ellie, you know she loves potatoes...any kind, hash, mashed, and fried...here is patatas fritas...a bucket of them!!

 Final night on board the cruise ship

This is our last night on the cruise ship.  We had one more picture before going to the restaurant for our final dinner.  We had the best waiters who became our friends while on board

 an avocado crab salad for an appetizer...so yumm

 caramel popcorn sundae!  Oh yeah!!

 a chocolate mousse dessert!

THE END OF THE CRUISE

I think I will start another post with Barcelona!

Thanks for hanging in there for the 10 day cruise and 21/2 days in Rome ,

I know this was picture overload and I really tried going light, just to give you a little peek at what we saw.  It was an amazing trip and I think I am ready to try another one...maybe next year!

                                                    

Playing Catch-Up!!

First I want to share some pictures of my Dad with his two sisters.

Elvera is 94 sitting in the middle and Carm is almost 90, my dad turned 92 in October.

My Dad,  Bernie and myself went up to Seattle the middle of November for a memorial service for a cousin's wife who passed away.  We couldn't miss an opportunity to see the sisters.  My cousins Bonnie and Carole were there also.  It was a short visit, but so fun to see them and enjoy some stories with them.

This is our group that gathered for our Thanksgiving dinner. 

My Dad, center stage with all the kiddos, and you see the slouch?

Scott's brother, John and his wife Robin, then all the rest of us.

Good day with good food that everyone helped contribute and lots of good conversation.





Big May happenings!

Our annual Mother's Day Luncheon.  Lacey and Addie were able to join me..the rest of the girls were in Corvallis for a volleyball tournament! The younger girls bring flowers to Mary and one carries the crown! Addie loves the cake walk...and she almost always wins something sweet!!

Next up was Ellie's confirmation...she asked me to be her sponsor and I was proud and honored to accept.  It was a beautiful service, one Archbishop Sample presided over and he gave an awesome speech...I hope the young people will always carry it in their heart and remember to always keep the Lord as their first priority in life!

 

And finally on May 30 we visited the cemetery because that is Mom's birth date.  This year it also happened to land on the Memorial Day Holiday. 

Almost everyone from our family is in the picture.  We are missing Dina's husband, Jamie and Marty's daughter Teale.

front row left to right:  Aaron (Lacey's husband in a scooter, he had foot surgery, Tristan in his lap (7), Addie (8), Jalen (9), Ellie (14...almost 15!), Lily (12, but less than a month to be 13!)

back row left to right:  Scott ( my husband), Caleb (16) Lacey, Colleen, Diane (Bernie's wife), Bernie, Marty holding Clyde (11 months), Kyle (behind Elisa (his wife), Kim, Ben, Dina.

Dad made a German Chocolate Cake, so after the cemetery, some of us went to chick fil a for lunch, then went to Dad's to have some of the cake and to celebrate Mom's birthday..she would have been 92 on this day!!  We all miss her...

Well, that catches me up to RIGHT now...Lots happening this summer...I will do better about taking pictures and telling you about our busy life!!

Weekend volleyball Trips

A trip to Salt Lake city...beautiful weather..we drove to Park City and walked around the town...Dina and I had so much fun...it was to get out of the weather inversion they had in the city.  I didn't even realize it was surrounded by mountains because of the inversion!

Teammate Cali, Ellie and Dina with the mountains in the background...we finally saw them on the last day!

Scott with Ellie after the Denver Tournament..the team won a bid to the USA National Tournament being played in Indianapolis in June!!  Yahoo for them!!

Proud Mama with Ellie!

Most of the team and the other coaches had to RUN off to catch a flight home, these were the only girls left to accept the plaque and get a picture together!!

Here is the whole team that worked hard to win that bid to the national tournament

while in Denver, the coach arranged for a tour of the University of Colorado. The coach even talked to us and answered questions. While touring the facilities, especially the fitness rooms and the courts there were big posters on the walls...Words of encouragement:

 

Good words to live by...not only for athletes!!

Christmas 2015

 We have to document every gathering that Dad is with us...he made it through his fall okay and is slowly regaining his strength.  John & Robin always join us at the Christmas Eve dinner and opening of gifts.

And here is Dad with just his 6 great grandkids...we celebrate Christmas with the rest of the Iacolucci family later in January, so little Clyde is not in this picture.

from left to right...Addie (8) Lily (12) Jalen (8) Ellie (14) Papa Ben (94) Caleb (16) Tristan (6)

June 2016...looking back on this year

I guess I get so wrapped up in every day that I forget to document the events on a more timely fashion!  So I will try to go back and add a few highlights with pictures and see if I can do a better job with keeping this up to date on a more regular basis...no promises, but I will try!

In November we took the family to Kauai for a week ...here are some pictures and highlights!

A picture with the grandkids before our "Thanksgiving feast" at the resort.

Couldn't resist this picture of a bird that joined us as we sat at a table waiting for the rain to let up!

On our way to the beach, we stopped for a family photo shoot.

 

Scott with the Snooks and Caleb went on a hike, kayaking and zip line trip, the rest of us headed south to play on the beach and to see some sun!

The kayaking group...they even jumped off a waterfall and were able to swim around and have lunch at this location

Here is Jalen (8) going down the zip line!

We took a boat cruise up the coastline and even did some snorkeling, we had BIG turtles and dolphins following us on part of the trip.  It was a blast!

 This ends November 2015

Playing Catch-up on this blog!!

October 2015
I really can't believe it has been nearly a year since my last post!  My last post was celebrating the life of my Auntie Elvera...my Dad's oldest sister.  A lot has been going on in the time between!  Let me catch you up on life with the most current events, then I will go back and make some highlights!

First here is a picture of my dad:

Now for the story:

On Monday Oct. 12 I get a phone call from Dad (about 5:15 pm) and he can barely talk and breathe at the same time. It seems he took a great fall out in his garden.  He had pulled up all his tomato plants and all but one stake two weeks earlier.  This one stake was giving him some problems, it was pounded into the clay and didn't want to budge.  Every time he walked by, he tried tugging on it.  Well, on this fateful day, he climbed into the raised bed ( about 16" high) and decided this was the day that stake was coming out because he wanted to get his garlic planted!!

He tugged, the stake broke and he flew backwards, out of that raised bed and landed on his back left flank onto another raised bed.  It really took his breath away and he couldn't move for maybe 5 minutes.  He managed on his own to get up, and I am not sure how he did it.  Still, he waited nearly an hour before calling and telling me about this accident and that he thought he should go to the hospital.

Marty picked him up at home and I met them at the hospital.  Sure enough a broken rib.  They sent him home with pain pills and we were told to double up on some laxatives as the pain pills will cause constipation.  Between Marty, Bernie and myself we took care of him.  

then on Friday night at 8:00 pm he calls to say he is NOT good and in a lot of pain from constipation.  So back to the ER.  Bernie took him and I met them.

They admitted him at 2 AM and he stayed until Monday about 4 PM.  He celebrated his 94 birthday in the hospital.  Marty told him if he didn't want a party, he could have just told us!!  *wink*  You can bet I will be making his favorite German Chocolate Cake (the one my mom ALWAYS made for him) when he is back on his feet and ready to party!!

From the the hospital they transported him to The Pearl for some rehab and time to heal the rib.

The picture above is him at The Pearl, he is laying on his bed and he is doing really well.  He is NOT taking any pain pills except for Tylenol.  He will be discharged on Tuesday, Oct. 27 and will be going home.  His goal is to stay at home and for now, we are going to see if we can make that happen.  He has all winter to heal and gain back his strength.  He is walking like he is in a race at the facility!  The caregivers all love him, naturally!  They think he is so sweet and nice.  AND HE IS!!

Now I am going to share what was going on during some of this time of my Dad's ordeal.

First, Ellie, Dina's 14 year old daughter and lover of all things volleyball made the West Linn High School Varsity team as a freshman!  And the best news is she actually plays and has a rotation position!  She really is amazing to watch.  She plays left back and can dig up just about any tip or hard hit, she is so fun to watch.  I have a blurry picture of her on the floor as she dives for the ball!  As usual she hits the floor and gives it all she has to get the ball up and put it back into play.

This is a silly picture of the team after their last league victory game against Lake Oswego.  Ellie is middle row second from right. (front row is just one girl stretched out!).

And being the typical grandma, I will proudly declare that Ellie saved that game for them in the final 5th set of the match.  West Linn won the first two sets, then a different team was out on the floor...serves were missed hits were long, you get the picture!  (all except Ellie, she got in all her serves and had aces!  Oh, I will interject at this point that the last tournament in Bend a couple of weeks ago, Ellie served 11 straight points and had 6 aces!!  I told you she is amazing and so fun to watch!)

The team gets to go to the State Playoffs, the first game is Wednesday, they should win, we have beaten the team before, but again, it depends who shows up to play!!  *wink

This game was played on Tuesday, October 20, just keeping the time line in place.  

On Thursday October 21,  at 2:00 am Scott woke me and said he needs to go to the hospital...he was in a lot of pain, he had been up for a couple of hours, had vomited and wasn't sure what was going on...so another trip to the ER.

NO surprise, it was a kidney stone!  And it had already dropped, however there were a couple more in his kidney.  

He was screaming in pain and took quite a bit to get it under control.

Finally by 7:30 am he was pain free and sent home.

NO pain the rest of Thursday, NO pain all day Friday,

then comes 2:00 am Saturday morning and he needs to go back to the hospital.

we were there until 8 am...and I think this was a harder day, lots more vomiting.  But once the pain was under control he was good.  We actually went to watch Addie play CYO volleyball and then had  a nice visit with dad and came home.

We were both in bed before 9 pm and out like a light.  I slept until 7 am and felt great with a good nights sleep.  Scott was still sleeping away and finally about 10 AM I go check on him and he tells me he drove himself to the ER, I said, "No you didn't"  he says, "yes, I really did!"  He didn't get admitted to the ER room, but talked to the Triage nurse, told her he took two pain pills before going to the hospital, but wasn't sure it would be enough to take care of the pain, so he sat out in the lobby for one hour with the nurse checking on him and sure enough within one hour the pain was gone, so he came home!

He is staying on top of the pain, but the poor guy got a migraine and he cannot shake it, it is causing more vomiting which is never good.

The only good news is NO stone pain!

Praying tomorrow he wakes up feeling better!

 END OF SEPTEMBER, FIRST OF OCTOBER 2015

Linda and I were suppose to go on a stamping retreat with 6 other ladies to the San Francisco area.  So as soon as we were invited we purchased our tickets and found a place to stay for two nights to see some sights before heading east to our stamping retreat.  We were so excited and looking forward to meeting the other ladies that we just "talk" to on our card blogs.  Sadly the host had to cancel (hopefully just postpone) as her husband had a major accident and needed surgery and lots of rehab time.

So Linda and I canceled our hotel reservations and I asked Scott to take care of the plane reservation.  He offered to take me to San Francisco instead

I couldn't turn down an offer like that!

We found a place to stay using the Air BnB.  We stayed in "Rob's flat in what is considered the North End of the Pan Handle. And it was a wonderful neighborhood.

Rob has the whole top floor of this building, two tenants have apartments on the first level.  He is lucky to have a garage and a very safe gated front entry.  That is Scott standing in front.  We walked about the neighborhood every evening for our dinner.  We loved going where all the locals eat and living among them.  And on many corners were the local 'grocery' stores...small but I guess they have all you would need, people would be carrying packages back to their homes and if you have ever been to SF, you know that it is one hilly city!  So not an easy walk by any means.  This cost us $179 a night which is a steal in SF, and it turned out that Rob flew out very early the next morning to go to North Carolina to see his mom, so we had the whole flat to ourselves!

The Painted Ladies..any house that has at least 3 different colors on it and in the Victorian style

STS Peter & Paul Church

Looking down the street we just walked up to go to Coit Tower

We walked this hill several times a day to go back to our flat

The Hardly Strickly Bluegrass Festival in the Golden Gate Park, this is Lee Ann Womack singing.  They had about 5 stages set up around the park, the festival was free, lots of food vendors, lots of grass to sit and listen to a variety of music.

Sunday morning double parked cars for people attending a local neighborhood church.

We drove down the coastline a bit heading to the airport to leave, we are sitting above the beach and this metal container held three service men whose job it was to keep an eye on the coastline for any Japanese war ships during WWII.

there were hiking trails and lots of people had their dogs out walking.

 

A description of the BASE End Station...Watching for the Enemy!

We rode a tour bus around the city and stopped in Little Italy so we could have lunch and walk the streets a bit.  We had an awesome sandwich at this place!  YUMMMM

We rode the city bus to the Golden Gate Park and we rode it another day all around the city...$1 for all the rides!  We walked around Ghiradelli Square, and we finally did the Alcatraz Tour, we managed to get the last two tickets for a Friday afternoon tour.  It was very interesting!

Alcatraz Island from the boat, it is no longer in use, it shut down in 1963

Well, these are some of the highlights of this very fun trip...Oh, I almost forgot about our trip to Stanford.  Scott wanted to reminisce, so we took a day and drove down there.  The only thing familiar was the Larkin house where he lived for two years!