Venice Day 3 - Welcome to the Silhouette

Sunday dawned bright and early. Too early. We were hoping to conquer our jet lag and get some decent sleep, but it was not to be. Saturday night was our worst yet. I woke up after sleeping for only a couple of hours and was wide awake for another couple of hours. Then, just as I was getting tired and ready to fall back asleep, Stella woke up. For several hours. And that was that. Tracy and Gaylene had decided to head out early Sunday morning to see some sights and take pictures before the masses awoke and descended on the city. I told them I would join them if I was awake. Since I was very much awake and Stella and Mr. Frisby were both back asleep, I quickly got dressed and slipped out with Tracy and Gaylene. We headed to the Rialto Bridge and loved seeing a very quiet side of Venice in the early morning hours.

After our early morning jaunt, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the very busy day we had ahead. This was embarkation day, so we had a lot of stuff packed into our schedule including checking out of our hotel and boarding the cruise ship. Before checking out of our hotel at 11am, we had all planned a neighborhood walk together, so we met up in the Piazza San Marco. It was early enough that there were few people in the square, so we took advantage of that and snapped some photos.

Those pesky renovations really ruined our view of St. Mark's Basilica.

After meeting up, we headed out for our walk through another cool section of Venice. We saw some cool little streets and canals and, once again, enjoyed seeing a quieter side of the city.

Look, we actually got a picture of the three of us, together, in Venice!

Our walk took us over the Accademia Bridge which, like the Rialto Bridge, is one of the few bridges that spans Venice's Grand Canal.

The view of the Canal from the bridge is lovely, but the position of the sun when we were there was not the greatest for taking pictures.

 Oh well. Aren't my parents cute?

And, look! Another rare photo of the three of us. If only Stella and Mr. Frisby would cooperate, we might get a decent one.

After more meandering and exploring, we came to another bridge called the Bridge of Punches. It was where neighborhood disputes were settled back in the day by fistfights. The first one in the water lost the dispute. We decided to pose for pictures and Tracy and John's was the best.

More meandering and exploring.

We ended our walk appropriately - with gelato. We stopped at a little gelateria that our guidebook said was the best in town. And, as you could probably surmise from the photo below, it did not disappoint.

Funny thing about Stella: up until this point she had always refused gelato whenever we got it. We would offer her licks of ours and she would vehemently refuse. When we were eating the best gelato in Venice, I decided enough was enough. I bribed the little tyke and told her that if she had a lick of gelato, I would give her a cracker. She obliged and quickly realized what she was missing. She did not refuse another lick of gelato the whole trip.

After finishing our walk, we booked it back to our hotel so we could check out on time. Then, we made the trek through Venice to the cruise terminal where we got our first glimpse of the Celebrity Silhouette. It was GINORMOUS!

We told Stella we would be getting on that big boat. It took her a majority of the trip to realize that the big boat was actually the huge, white, floating resort as opposed to the little orange life boats on the side. One of the most exciting things about boarding the ship was the bed. Our hotel in Venice was a pretty nice hotel. The rooms were decent size (for Europe), the breakfast was good, and the location was fantastic. But, the beds and pillows were TERRIBLE! I mean, TERRIBLE. Undoubtedly, the rock hard pillows and uncomfortable mattresses were contributing to our inability to kick the jet lag beast. So, when we got to our cabin on the ship, I was so excited to see a comfortable bed and a plethora of pillows to choose from. It was a sight for sore eyes, let me tell you.

Though we were boarding the ship Sunday afternoon, we would actually not be departing Venice until the following afternoon. We would be spending our last night in Venice on the ship and I was hopeful we would finally get a good night's rest. After the very long check in and boarding process (during which my dad unknowingly drank a mimosa - awesome!), we were then free to come and go on the ship as we pleased. We just had to be back on the ship by 4pm Monday afternoon for our departure from Venice. While the ship looked awesome and we would like to have run around exploring it a bit, we still had more to do on our itinerary before leaving Venice, so we immediately headed back out to the city. Highest on my list was to go to the San Giorgio Maggiore church which is located on a small island directly across the lagoon from the Piazza San Marco. You may remember it from my last post - you know - the church you could see out the windows of the Bridge of Sighs. I did not care at all about the church (though it is supposed to be a cool one). My main interest was in going up the bell tower for the views of Venice.

After much confusion on how to get back to Venice from the ship and no help from any of the transport workers on the dock, we finally got on the right boat to the city and made our way to the island. We looked around for a bit and soaked in the views of Venice. Even without climbing the bell tower, it was pretty cool.

The church was actually quite pretty and we looked around inside before heading up the bell tower.

After ascending the bell tower, we got our view of Venice and it was breathtaking! The ticket to go up was a bit expensive, but totally worth it in my opinion. Unfortunately it was our one day of bad weather in Venice, but it made for better photos, so I guess it worked out.

After checking out the church and the views of the city, it was time to head back to the ship. We decided to go back via a water taxi up the Grand Canal. As the Grand Canal is the lifeline of Venice, we wanted to see it in all it's glory. We got on the water taxi and found seats at the front that provided great views of the canal, but little protection from the weather. And, it had started to drizzle at this point. While Stella had been a trooper all day, she was, shall we say, exhausted. Within minutes of sitting down on the water taxi, she was asleep in my arms. Unfortunately, this made it difficult for me to look around and really see everything along the canal. But, I had a great view of the side I was facing and Mr. Frisby took lots of pictures. And, Stella got a little nap in, so it all worked out. The Grand Canal really was fun to check out.

At the end of the Grand Canal, we got off the water taxi and caught the monorail back to the cruise terminal. Stella was not excited about having to wake up and continued to doze on Mr. Frisby's head as we made our way back to the ship.

After grabbing a quick dinner at the ship's buffet, we headed off to our comfortable beds, hopeful that we could at last say goodbye to our jet lag and get a decent night's sleep. After all, we had a busy final day in Venice ahead of us.

Day 2 in Venice

Saturday we ended up splitting up with the rest of my family for most of the day. We all had different interests and priorities, so we went our separate ways with plans to meet up for dinner. We had hoped to be well-rested and caught up on some sleep on Saturday, but it turns out jet lag is a beast. None of us slept well Friday night, so we were still pretty tired the next morning. But, we were still ready to explore Venice. We woke up, got ready, and headed to the Doge's Palace. I wasn't sure what to expect from the Doge's Palace. I didn't know much about it except that it was where the Doge (Venice's ruling leader) lived back in the day and it was pretty expensive to get in. It's one of "the" things to do in Venice, though, so we headed over to see what it was all about. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't super impressed and I had fairly low expectations when I saw the outside of the building.

However, we were pleasantly surprised and impressed upon entering. We took almost no pics. I think we checked the camera or something. But, it was much cooler than I thought it would be. First we toured the palace and all the governmental rooms. Then, we walked across the Bridge of Sighs to the old prison. You might remember the Bridge of Sighs from my last post when we rode right under it in a gondola. Here's a photo to jog your memory:

That's the Bridge of Sighs with the Doge's Palace on the left and the old prison on the right. Supposedly, it's called the Bridge of Sighs because prisoners would be taken across it on their way to prison after being convicted. They would look out the windows at the beautiful sight before them and sigh.

Makes you wonder what they saw, doesn't it? Well, wonder no more! Here's the view from the windows on the bridge:

That's the church of San Giorgio Maggiore across the lagoon. And it will appear in more detail in an upcoming post. After crossing the Bridge of Sighs, we toured the old prison. And it was really cool. Here's Stella checking out one of the prison cells.

After our fascinating tour of the Doge's Palace and prison, we had plans to do a walk through one of Venice's neighborhoods that was outlined in our guidebook. It was getting pretty close to lunchtime, so we planned to find a little cafe along the way. We made our way to the neighborhood and stopped in a little square at the start so Stella could chase pigeons for a few minutes. It was quite picturesque.

We then began meandering through the little side streets and canals, but jet lag was rearing it's ugly head and Stella was not a happy camper. We decided that lunch had better be our next order of business because things can turn really ugly if Stella is hungry. So we found a little cafe and grabbed some sandwiches. We tried to quickly eat and feed Stella so we could be on our way, but the little girl had had it and a complete and ugly meltdown ensued. We abandoned our planned neighborhood walk and made a beeline for the hotel so we could get Stella down for a nap. After she fell asleep, we decided we had better split up if we wanted to see the things we wanted to in Venice. We determined that I would head out for the first hour while Mr. Frisby stayed at the hotel with Stella and then we would switch. I grabbed the camera and headed out. I didn't want to go too far and decided it would be best to stick to main areas where I had little chance of getting lost. I decided to check out the Rialto Bridge since it was only a few minutes' walk from our hotel. While it would have been fun to be checking it out with Mr. Frisby, it was quite liberating to be out and about and seeing and enjoying the sights without at least half of my brain focused on the needs of a small child. I THOROUGHLY enjoyed that hour to myself. I loved seeing the hustle and bustle of the very busy Grand Canal and the Rialto Bridge was impressive.

One of the first things that Tracy noticed and looked for throughout our trip was laundry hanging out to dry. I became very accustomed to seeing it while living in Portugal, so I would hardly have noticed it. But, for her it was a novelty and she loved it. So, we were kind of always on the lookout for good laundry shots for her and we would always point them out. I found a pretty good one while wandering around the Rialto Bridge.

After my very short hour was up, I headed back to the hotel so Mr. Frisby could do some sightseeing as well. I believe he also headed to the Rialto Bridge. It was a pretty cool area.

After little Sleeping Beauty awoke from her nap, we decided we would have time to squeeze in our neighborhood walk before meeting up with everyone else for dinner, so we headed out. This was one of my favorite parts of our stay in Venice. Stella was well-rested and happy and we just got to wander through this untouristy little neighborhood and get a glimpse of regular old Venetian life. It was awesome! We sampled some gelato at a place recommended in our guidebook and it was delicious. Our walk took us by the hospital where we got to see the Venetian ambulances.

We also went out to the edge of the island where we could see the cemetery across the lagoon.

And, we found my favorite laundry shot of the trip. We saw it and immediately knew Tracy would love it.

We also went by the naval yard. Unfortunately it was closed so we couldn't go inside, but it was still pretty cool-looking from the outside.

That concluded our walk and with just a few minutes until our meet up time, we booked it to the Piazza San Marco where we were supposed to meet everyone else. We arrived a few minutes late, but everyone else did, too. We headed to a restaurant for dinner. It had looked good, but was actually a disappointment. Oh well. At least we had good gelato. After dinner, we headed back to the Piazzo San Marco, stopping in shops along the way. We picked up some fun souvenirs and then Stella got to play on these lion statues in the Piazza that she loved.

After that it was time to head back to the hotel for some much needed rest. While that morning had definitely been touch and go, we ended up having a great day and were ready to continue our adventures the next day.

To Venice and Beyond!

Let's go back in time a little, shall we? Specifically, let's go back to late winter 2012. Mr. Frisby and I had just done our taxes and were set to get a killer return (having a mortgage and a baby are awesome in that regard). We thought about the different things we could do with the money and ultimately decided to give in to our irresponsible inclinations and travel. We thought about various destinations and then I remembered that my oldest sister, Julie, and her husband, Terrell, were planning to do a cruise with my parents somewhere in the Mediterranean. I called her up and invited ourselves along. It was so long ago that the details are now a bit fuzzy in my memory. But, I remember telling her that Venice was at the top of my list of places I wanted to travel to (and had been ever since I had a list of places that I wanted to travel to) and so I wanted that to be in the itinerary. She was happy to have us along and the planning commenced. She found a spectacular 11 night itinerary that sailed out of Venice on September 15th, 2013 and arrived in Rome on September 29th. When it opened up for booking in April 2012, she got all of us balcony cabins right next to each other. We were super excited, but September 2013 was a long way off. Over the course of the next year and a half, we busily researched the ports we would be seeing and booked tours in most of the ports. Somewhere along the way, another sister, Gaylene, decided to join the fun and then another sister, Tracy, and her husband, John, joined in, too. We decided to fly into Venice a couple days before boarding the ship so we would have a good amount of time there. And we decided to stay a few extra nights in Rome after the cruise to see the sights there. As we got all of our flights and hotels and tours booked, we anxiously awaited September 2013. *cough* understatement *cough*.

As we made our plans and got ready to go, there were a number of things that made me nervous about taking Stella on a trip of this magnitude, not least of which was the super long flights. I did some research to find good activities and/or products to keep a toddler busy on a plane and I stocked up with those items.

At last Thursday, September 12th arrived and we headed to the airport, giddy with excitement. Gaylene, who lives in Morgan Hill, was with us and we met up with my parents once we got to our gate. Stella had a great time watching all of the goings on at the airport while we waited to board. That's our plane out the window.

One of the things I LOVE about traveling with kids is priority boarding. We boarded early and got settled in our seats. It was Stella's naptime - and it showed. Here she is waiting for takeoff. She looks like she's smiling, but she's actually screaming.

The 10 hour flight to Amsterdam was looking more and more painful by the minute. Fortunately, my sister and parents were sitting nearby, so once they got on Stella was a little happier. Just before takeoff,  one of the flight attendants asked how old Stella was. When she found out she wasn't two yet (only a week and a half away), she freaked out a little and told us that, even though she had her own seat, she had to be on one of our laps, buckled in a special seatbelt that connected to one of ours for takeoff and landing. Fine, KLM. Give us the special seatbelt. After the fasten seatbelt sign was turned off and Stella was free to move about the cabin, she was happy. We began the process of gradually pulling out all of the new things that I brought to keep Stella busy to while away the ten hours. Stella has never really watched videos before except of herself. In preparation for the trip, we loaded our iPads with kid-friendly movies and videos and I bought her a pair of kid-sized headphones. The headphones took some getting used to, but she liked the videos. Though, they could usually only keep her attention for 20 minutes tops. She preferred videos with singing in them and particularly enjoyed the Veggie Tales movie.

She also liked the new book I got her about an airplane ride.

She ended up going to sleep for about and hour and a half in the middle of the flight. Unfortunately, I was not able to go to sleep then, so I didn't sleep at all (I've never been able to sleep well in airplanes or cars), but her nap was a much needed break for me and Mr. Frisby. Actually, Stella did very well. She was a typical two year old and was restless and curious and needed to be kept busy. But, she didn't cry much and didn't bother the people around her, so it was a success. We made it through the ten hour flight, exhausted, and met up with Tracy and John at the airport in Amsterdam during our layover.

Our flight from Amsterdam to Venice was less than two hours and by the time we landed, poor little Stella was so tired. We met up with Julie and Terrell at baggage claim in the Venice airport. It was early afternoon on Friday, September 13th. We then found our water transport to take us across the lagoon to the city. We were staying in two different hotels and were on different lines of the transport to get to our locations. So, we split up again and headed off with plans to meet up that evening in the Piazza San Marco for our first planned activity - a Gondola ride. Poor Stella was so exhausted that she fell asleep in her little suitcase chair while waiting to board the transport boat. She didn't wake up at all when we took her out of the seat and loaded her onto the boat or during the 45 minute ride into Venice.

Our transport from the airport took us right down the Grand Canal and we got off at the stop near the Rialto Bridge. Gaylene and Tracy and John were in the same hotel as us, so we were all together and commenced the grand search for our hotel. We had read that it's very easy to get lost in Venice since not all of the "streets" have names and it's very easy to get turned around. We found this to be very true. Fortunately, we only got a little lost in the search for our hotel and we eventually found it and got checked in. We were super tired, but also ready to see Venice! We headed out to find a bite to eat before meeting up with my parents and Julie and Terrell. We found a little pizza place near our hotel. It was pretty tasty.

After our pizza, we headed to the Piazza San Marco. I'm kind of a sucker for big, European piazzas (or plaças, or plazas as the case may be) so, not surprisingly, I loved St. Mark's. Unfortunately, they're doing some restoration work on the front of St. Mark's Basilica, so much of it was covered with scaffolding (somehow, this seems to be our luck when visiting Europe), but it was still impressive and we were excited to be there.

Stella was enthralled with all of the pigeons and commenced chasing them immediately.

We had a difficult time meeting up with my parents and Julie and Terrell. It turns out the Piazza San Marco is huge and busy and full of people, so it's easy to miss people there. We thought they were just taking forever to get there when, really, we just never saw them. While we waited for them to arrive, we decided to sample our first Italian gelato. It did not disappoint and it would prove to be the first of MANY scoops to be had on this trip.

At last we found the others and found a gondola. Julie and Terrell had been to Venice and ridden a gondola before, so they decided to meet up with us when we were done. John had skipped out on St. Mark's in favor of a nap at the hotel. So, the rest of us decided on the length of our ride, decided on a price with the gondolier and headed out. Riding a gondola in Venice is one of the items on my fairly short bucket list, so I was super stoked about it and we had a fabulous time. Mr. Frisby took this next shot and I believe it may have been his favorite from the trip.

We headed right under the Bridge of Sighs and wound our way around the little side canals. It was totally the cliché thing to do and it was totally awesome!

Stella was, understandably, very tired, so she opted for lounging during our ride.

After our gondola ride we found Julie and Terrell and poked around the Piazza some more before heading back to our hotel to crash. It was a great first day in Venice and we were super excited to finally be enjoying our long-awaited trip.

Pre-Cruise Adventures

Before we left for our cruise, we had a couple of fun adventures for Stella. The Saturday before we left, I decided to squeeze in a quick visit to Gilroy Gardens. They were having a petting zoo for the month of September and I knew Stella would totally LOVE it, so I wanted to get her over there before we left. It cost a little extra to get into the petting zoo, but it was well worth it because the girl was in absolute heaven. She tried to pick up and hug every animal she encountered.

This last picture is my favorite from the day. Stella and a rooster having a staredown. Stella won.

Our next adventure was Stella's first Giants' game. Awhile ago, I did this post about Mr. Frisby's awesome work party at AT&T Park. At the work party they gave us free tickets for the Giants' game on September 10th. Since Stella was still young enough to get into the games free, we decided to bring her along. We took the train up to the city, so right off the bat Stella was having a good time. It was an evening game, and ended up being a VERY long one at that, so when it was still the fifth inning after they had been playing for over two hours, we decided to call it quits and head home to get Stella to bed. This was a smart move even though we didn't get to see the whole game. It was after 11 when we finally got home and got her to bed. She was one tired little girl, but we had a great time and she was super cute in her little Giants' shirt. Even now, whenever she wears the shirt, she yells "Go Giants!"

And those were our pre-cruise adventures. September was a very busy month for us. Next stop: Venice!

24 Months

I have A LOT to blog about. And very little time. But, we'll see what we can get done. Stella turned two over two weeks ago. I'm behind on blogging about it because we were on a cruise when it happened. See? A lot to blog about. Stella, her birthday celebrations, our vacation, our new house, plus a bunch of other fun things. So, let's start with Stella's 24th month and then I'll try to tackle those other things.

Stella is a riot. She makes us laugh on a daily basis. She talks like a boss now and has even begun to sing here and there. She knows some of her books fairly well and will quote some of the lines with us as we read. Unfortunately, it was a super hectic month for us as we were getting things ready for our cruise, so I didn't take a lot of notes on what Stella has been up to. I'll just have to rely on the pictures we took and my memory.

Stella says "hi" and "bye" to everyone and everything. She's quite a social girl most of the time and made lots of friends on our cruise. And she is just as social with inanimate objects as she is with people. She's even become pretty tight with Siri and it's not uncommon for me to take my phone from her and see something like this:

Unfortunately Siri doesn't speak "Stella" as well as I do.

We only let Stella have a pacifier when she goes down for a nap or to bed at night. She likes to have two - one for her mouth and one to hold in her hand. I've recently noticed that she holds her second paci with the nipple in between her fingers like a cigarette. I find this hysterical. See above comment about Stella being a riot.

She copies pretty much everything we say and do. She saw me foam rolling one day and decided to give it a try. And she wasn't half bad.

She also LOVES to help with pretty much anything. If you tell her you need her help with something, she'll run right over. She's started helping Mr. Frisby set the table a little bit and loves putting the silverware at each place. She also helps a little bit with emptying the silverware basket in the dishwasher.

Stella and Scout remain good buddies and play more and more together. They missed each other quite a bit when we were on our cruise. I think they're equally good at annoying each other, too. It's pretty funny.

I guess that's about it for this month. As I said, things were super hectic this last month, so not too much detail. Oh well. I'll do separate posts for her birthday celebrations and some fun adventures we did with her before the cruise.

It is a little crazy to have a two year old, though. It's been so fun over these last few months especially to see how much she's learned and progressed. She communicates so much more and her personality gets bigger every day. I really can't imagine life without her. We love our little Stella!