you + me = US: You & Me in the Mediterranean. Day 1

Thursday, June 30, 2011

You & Me in the Mediterranean. Day 1

Alfonso qualified for a mediterranean cruise this year through his work. Cruise, hotel, airfare, some excursions, all paid for. I was beside myself with excitement - I've been wanting to go to Italy since I did my 6th grade country report on it. I honestly didn't think I'd get a chance to go there til later in life, if at all. But for some reason the day miraculously came and has now passed. I wanted to keep track of all the memorable things we saw and did, so I wrote it all down, one day at a time. Here's the first day.

Day 1 From Utah to New York to Venice

Really it begins with a blurr of packing, entertaining, birthdaying (hence the crown below made by my sister and nieces), and preparing for departure.

Leaving Mia was so hard. I probably kissed her 40 times that morning and squoze her hand extra tight on the way to the airport. Mom gave me a hug, got choked up, and said, "Mia will be fine. Have a wonderful time. You may never have a chance like this again." I needed that.

Adventure 1. Luggage. We thought we could carry on 2 each. Not so. So we performed a total luggage rearrangement right there at the check out place. Checked 2 in and ended up taking the extra as a carry on. But right before boarding the plane, there was an announcement that there was limited carry-on room and passengers for that flight could check in any bags they wanted to for free. So we were able to check in that bag after all. . . for free. Well, they lost it. It was left @ JFK airport and is now being flown to paris and will then find it's way to my hotel room.

Adventure 2. The flight. I've decided that an international flight is like a giant sleepover. . . on a plane. . . with a bunch of smelly strangers. And that I really REALLY can't sleep on a plane. There were two 12 year olds making out in front of us. Lady bizzarly stomping her foot next to us. The touch screens on the backs of our seats were a real bonus. Except that they were touch screens and required considerable pressure. When I strangely found my seat being vigorously shaken (it felt like someone was punching it) by the person behind me. Serious poundage. I looked @ alfonso in bewilderment and he looked back @ the lady behind me. She was completely wrapped up in playing and winning her game on the back of my chair till she realized what she was doing. "Oh, sorry." She said. I'm just glad that she stopped after that. We got a good laugh about it anyway.

Adventure 3. My inflight playlist and a magic landing. You could brows throught hundreds of songs. My favorites were Cee lo green's Bright Lights, Big City, Love Gun, J. Legend & The Roots', Compared To What. Stuff by Miranda Richardson, Tim McGraw, Norah Jones. I also got that main song from Tangled, Now I see the light?Whatever it's called. I really like it and the words were very meaningful.It was playing as we touched down on italian soil. "All those years, watching from a distance. . . . I know I'm where I belong." I've always dreamed of traveling to Italy. My hayfever started acting up. I was just so full of GRATITUDE for this INCREDIBLE experience and humility for having this chance.

Adventure 4. The water taxi. After arriving in Venice, we dealt with our missing luggage issue (boooo), and were escorted on a short walk to our water taxi. WE boarded the boat (alfonso said to sit in the back per richard's request). IT was such a fun ride.

We felt the wind in our faces as an old venetian style motor boat cruised us along the coast of venice. Taking us to our hotel, the Molina Stucky Hilton. We saw so many beautiful buildings and began taking pictures. Lots of pictures. Our career as asian photo taking tourists really took off. How do you not take a billion pictures of the most beautiful place you've ever visited?

The hotel was AMAZING, the dinner, amazing, and our mini excusion afterwards. . . amazing. Our room was perfect. The dinner was delicious. Buffalo mozzarella - my new favorite. We decided to venture across the Giudecca Canal on the hotels shuttle boat, to the Zattere. First item of business, GELATO!!! For me, 1 scoop Cacao, 1 scoop twix. Alfonso got 1 scoop limona, 1 scoop melona. It melted so fast. We ate it like 2 year olds, giggling the whole time.

We strolled along the rios gasping at the architecture, the flowers, the alleyways, and I realized that I'd found a place where every ally was beautiful. Seriously. We stumbled upon a community gathering. A play of some kind? Everyone was celebrating and having a great time. They gave me a candle to light when it got dark. I don't know why, but I was so honored that they would chose me out of all the other people there. I'm wierd, I know. They play started, it was a comedy in Italian of course. We listened and couldn't help laughing at everyone laughing at something we/I didn't understand. Alfonso understood a lot of italian. I guess Spanish and Italian are very similar.

We topped the night of with late Gondola ride. (I have to tell you we rode the gondola's at the Venetian in Las Vegas on our honeymoon, where we were told that it was good luck to kiss under each bridge. So we were experts at the gondola thing :))The water was so peaceful. (GAG ALERT, GAG ALERT)Just like on our honeymoon we kissed under every bridge. That was fun. We tried to take pictures but it was so dark, we just wanted to remember how beautiful everything was.

After the ride, we passed by the celebration and watched the local children dance to american pop songs on a stage lit up with lights and smoke. It was so fun.

I woke up in Salt Lake, I ended the night in Venice. It was a very long, but very GOOD day!

2 comments:

Bronwyn James said...: Wow, it sounds magical! What a wonderful experience. You go girl.; July 9, 2011 at 6:35 AM
Alfonso Flores said...: You are BEAUTIFUL !!! here and in Italy !!!! =0); July 14, 2011 at 3:52 PM

Kids Say The Darndest Things

9/8/14 After a massive pillow fight with Spence and Will, Mia fell to the floor and exclaimed, "I'm soaking tired!"

5/15/14 We were watching a Baby Einstein movie featuring a rhino puppet. Mia said, "Mom, that rhinoceros is a genius."

5/13/14 Mia just told me some disturbing news about her imaginary friend. "Squella, not like you, so her is hiding." I even offered Squella a popsicle to bribe her into liking me and she wouldn't budge.
5 minutes later:
No wait, Mia just informed me, "Her likes you now. Her gets a pop-is-cle."

5/02/14 Mia has been coming up with some unique names for her imaginary friends, Squilla, Quinley, Tortilla are just a few. Well today she was talking to her friend Celia and said,
"What's your Cat's name, Celia?
"Tiddley-Dee"
"Oh!!! GREAT name!!!"
Later, I asked her later about the cat and found out that there are TWO! One cat's name is "Tilly-Tina" and the other's name is "Tiddley-Dee."

4/21/14 Mia was shouting at me from the bathroom in a bossy way. I said, "Mia, don't talk to me like that." She said. "I YELLING at you." I needed to leave the room and she shouted again and said, "Mommy come here, right now. I gon count and you gon go in time-out!!!" Sweet swirling onion rings, I'm in for it.

4/4/14 While enjoying a chocolate chip cookie together, I asked, "Mia, why is chocolate soooooo good?" To which she naturally replied, "Cuz we gon' eat it."
Best reason ever.

1/07/14 At the store, at the top of her lungs, in attempt to tell me that she's going to "crack me up" Mia shouted, "Mom, I go a crap you up!"

12/11/13 Today at story time Miss Sally was teaching the kids about the color red. She was pointing out those with red hair. She said, "This little boy has red hair, and look, this mommy has red hair. And this mommy has red hair!" There was a pause and Mia shouted out, "I HAVE TWO MOMMIES!" All the parents looked around, Miss Sally bewildered, looked at me. Appalled I laughed and said loudly, "I have NO IDEA what she's talking about." Everyone started laughing. . . hard! For the life of me I couldn't figure out why she'd say that. So afterwards I asked Mia, and she pointed to the two mommies with red hair and said, "See? Two mommies!" Ohhhhhh, now I get it. Two mommies with red hair.

12/14/13 The dinner table was busy with multiple conversations occurring at once when Mia said, "Hey Will, this song my favorite: (in sing-song)
Hello Kitty, Hello Kitty,
I like Hello Kitty"

12/03/13 Ben was teasing Mia on the couch. When she angrily yelled, "Ben, DON'T BLOW ME! I NOT a bubble!!!"

11/13/13 Today I was crying and couldn't stop. Mia dropped what she was doing and ran up and said, "Hold me, you feel better!" I hugged her tight and put her down. A few seconds later she came up and said, "Here Mom, a have a Kleenex."

Lately, Whenever we are having a nice snuggle moment as a family, Mia will come up and say, "All To-ah-gedder."

10/13/13 I need to preface this by saying, Mia's word for "girl" is "grill." After church Mia got very upset and ran to her room. Alfonso went up to try to comfort her and said, "Don't cry, Mia." To which she responded, "But grills like to cry."

09/25/13 Mia and I were playing with pretend snakes. In their "conversation", they made a deal and so I told her, "Let's shake on it." she immediately began to violently shake the snake.

08/24/13 Once again, Pandora displayed the album cover (One World's Acoustic) of Justin Bieber on the screen. Mia looked at it again and said, "Mom, look! A doggie. Doggie wif guitar."

08/21/13 Pandora displayed an album cover of Justin Bieber on the t.v. Mia, startled a little by the music, looked up at the screen, studied for a minute and said, "Cute doggie!"

08/19/13 As we were all getting ready to go swimming, Mia was excitedly showing everyone her "swimming soup."

08/17/12 A day after I taught Will about the Star of David, Will was playing with a couple of triangle magnets. When he had overlapped them just right he held them up and said, "Look, it's Jared's star!"

08/16/12 After taking off Ben's newly acquired football gear, Will sat next to me, sighed, and said, "It's nice to have a football player in the house."

07/24/12 I was looking at my wedding ring while tucking Will in to bed. Will noticed and said, "That's a pretty fancy ring." I said, "It is. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever owned. But I love it mostly for what it stands for." Will surprised me when he responded, "You love it because it reminds you of the day you got married. Even if it was made of wood, it would be a still be a great treasure."

07/23/12 After a run to Dairy Keen, Will shared the following insight: "The most humblest flavor of ice cream in the whole entire world is vanilla." When I asked why, he said, "Because it's simple, it's plain, and it's always there. "

07/05/12 Fearing that Mia might ruin his pillow fort, Will asked, "Mom, can we put her to sleep?"

06/28/12 As we were setting the table for breakfast, Will (7)said, "I'm a simple man." I couldn't help but smile. "I'm a simple man with complex thoughts." Did I mention, he's 7???

06/25/12 While I was looking for a rubber band, Spencer handed a large one to me and proudly said, "I wear 5 rubber bands on my wrist at all times."

06/22/12 For the second time, Spencer said, "I don't believe in sarcasm." I argued that sarcasm does exsist and gave him an example. His response, "I call that oppositism."

06/03/12 While we were driving, Spencer spotted a slowly oncoming tractor and car and said, " 'Wow, tractors drive slow!' thought the lady in the green car."

06/03/12 We had watched a bunch of old footage of Beatles performing some of their hits, when Will yelled out, "Can we PLEASE stop listening to classical music?"

05/12/12 Trying to explain to our sick kids why we couldn't have friends come play, I said, "We need to get this virus out of our house." Will said, "Lets give it to someone else!"

03/03/12 Will just said, "I have a faculty butt."

03/01/12 Will told Ben that from now on he wants to be called Bethica, queen of the sea.

03/01/12 Will came inside from shoveling snow with cold hands. After explaining to me that the problem was his gloves, he asked,"Can I have an upgrade?"

11/29/11 Me: "Will, what do you want the person you marry to be like?" Will: "Hot and sexy." Room fills with shock & stifled laughter. Me: "Will. . . what does it mean to be hot?" Will: "That you just came out of the desert."

11/28/11 When it's time for oracion/prayer, Mia oftentimes will fold her arms and talk quietly while the prayer is said. At the end we say "amen." She loudly says, "BOB!"

11/26/11 Alfonso swatted at the pesky fly once again. "It's taunting me." He said. Will exclaims, "It's taunting you??" Mutters to self, "I hate taunting flies."

11/10/11 Will walked in the door and when he saw his friend Annie sitting on the couch said, "I knew this day had something special in it." "What?" Annie asked. "You! I knew you were coming over. You make today special."

11/10/11 In the car, Annie (a girl I'm tending) said, "Jesus is so lucky! He gets to be born on Christmas, huh!"

09-09-11 Alfonso and I went on a date for our anniversary and left the kids with family. After we picked up the kids, Will politely asked, "Were there a lot of people at the anniversary?"

09-08-11 At the breakfast table, I was telling the kids that tomorrow would be Alfonso and my anniversary. Will lowered his head and said, "I'm glad I don't have to see that."

09-07-11 At a restaurant, we were all joking back and forth and Will said, "You gotta be pushing my leg!"

08-20-11 At our moving sale, my 3-year-old neice, Nicole held up a shiny quarter and said, "Look, I have a quenny."

08-20-11 5 minutes later, Nicole was whining. Her Mom, D.D. said, "I'm not going to talk to you until you use a big girl voice." Nicole gave her a mean look and said, "But you just talked to me."

08-19-11 Will, sitting at the table kept singing, "Can't you see, I love my pancreas, look at me, I love my pancreas." Over and over. Thank you, Wierd Al.

08-19-11 Quite proud of himself and giggling a little, Spencer announced, "Faster than a speeding two-year-old, able to leap a towering pile of laundry, it's SUPERMOM!!!"

04-29-11 We had just finished a large meal at Chick's Cafe when Spencer leaned back in his chair and energetcally patted his stomach saying, "Now I know what Santa feels like."

04-28-11 Will was helping me pull our huge new stroller out of its box. His job was to pull the box down as I held the stroller up off the ground. It wouldn't budge. He paused and said, "Wait, should I go drink some milk, to make my muscles stronger?"

About Us

Our blended family is many years and obstacles in the making. We two were raised in separate countries, different cultures and upbringings. For each of us, God's blessed broken road weaved through marraige, the birth of a child (or two) and a painful divorce, in the end, leaving a himless her and a herless him. We met on a blind date in 2008 and haven't been able to stay away from each other since. Married for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple, we and our four children are determined to BE a forever family. This blog is an account of our daily lives, our ups and downs, and our journey to become "one."