We had the most amazing time on our Amalfi coast adventure, but it was time to head back home to our boys. After an hour taxi ride from Ravello to Naples, we hopped on a 3-hour flight to London. Our layover was 24-hours which was nice to break up the flights. Plus it was an excuse to enjoy London for a day!
 
We grabbed one of those classic London taxis at the airport and headed to our hotel in the city. Along the way, our driver wasn’t paying attention and rammed into a car in front of him. For reals dude? He got out of the car to check if there was any damage to his car or the one he hit….while the meter was still running. Luckily there wasn’t and we continued on our merry way (with no car crash discount).
 
We arrived at our hotel called Ruby Lucy that is located in the bustling South Bank entertainment district and only a short walk to the main sites. The check-in desk was in their bar and they had a dispenser to get the room keys. That’s definitely a first!
 
We dropped our bags off and headed out to grab a light snack. We were both craving a Cornish pasty that is super popular in London. There happened to be a place in the Waterloo train station right next to our hotel to grab some pasties. (The ‘a’ in pasty is a short ‘a’ like in apple… as opposed to the pasties that strippers wear on their ta-tas. Trust me, they’ll correct you if you say it wrong, lol.) Anyway, they look similar to a calzone and are stuffed with various meats or veggies. I got a veggie one and Marshall got the chicken one. Awww yeah, that hit the spot!

​We continued walking toward Westminster Bridge. The bridge was packed with hundreds of tourists taking pictures with Big Ben and the London Eye in the background. There were also a dozen street performers doing acts ranging from the typical metal floating statue man to a game of ‘find the ball’ where you pay the guy $50 and if you pick the right cup that the ball is under, you double your money. It was a total scam and most of the guys standing around were clearly friends that were in on it. When a friend pretended to play, they would win to show tourists it’s possible to win. But when a tourist chose the right one, he would switch it up before he turned over the cup so that they would lose their money. I couldn’t believe how many people fell for their scheme!

We continued strolling around the area and stopped in a few shops as we went. We came across a huge courtyard that had a massive crowd around a street performer. The guy was unicycling around in his underwear and a cape while juggling, lol. The next performer was even better! He grabbed random people from the audience to go up and copy him doing silly things in front of everyone. There was a little boy trying to copy him doing various dance moves. The boy was getting them all wrong, but it was so cute and hilarious at the same time!

​By this point, we were getting hungry for dinner and were searching for somewhere lively to eat. We peeked into a little bar/ restaurant called Mrs. Riot and it was vibrant with lots of bright colors and had a hoppin’ vibe. As we were checking out the menu, the hostess told us there would be live music starting shortly. Sold! We sat at a table right in front of the little stage so we’d have the best view point. There was a big group of friends sitting at the table next to us. One of the guys had a major plumbers crack so I was getting a good laugh taking pictures of Marshall pretending to put a flower from his drink down the guy’s crack, lol.
 
There was a bachelorette party that sat down next to us and we’re having the time of their lives. The singer then started her performance and she was phenomenal! She sounded exactly like Adele, no joke. This bar was definitely the place to be! We were having such a great time and didn’t want to leave but knew we had to get up super early in the morning to head to the airport. Now we know the best places to go next time we have another layover in London!

After spending two adventurous days in the town of Amalfi, it was time to head to the hillside town of Ravello, our final stop along the Amalfi coast. Our hotel was located just outside Ravello in the town of Scala, the oldest town in the Amalfi region. We grabbed a taxi to take us to our next hotel called Palazzo Pascal. Along the way, our driver informed us the name Scala translated to ‘stairs’ in English. Oh yay, more stairs. Good thing we got lots of practice in Positano!

When we pulled up to our hotel, we could see the sweeping views of Ravello and the surrounding hilltop towns. Unreal! To top it off there were three donkeys getting strapped with luggage at the top of the staircase that leads down to our hotel. I guess that’s how the tourists get their bags to their hotel rooms instead of trying to drag them down the steep stairs and busting off wheels. I asked if we could ride the donkeys into town, but they just laughed at me.

When we opened the door to the lobby, the first thing we noticed were all the photos on the wall of celebrities that had stayed at the hotel. Apparently, this is the place to be! We dropped off our bags at the front desk and asked the receptionist the best way to get to Ravello. She told us we can either walk about 30 minutes along a narrow hilly road or she could call a local moped company to see if they’d deliver one to our hotel. Moped it is!

As we waited for it to be delivered, we figured we’d explore Scala. We zigzagged down an insanely steep hill toward the ruins of an old church called Basilica Sant’Eustachio that was constructed in the 12the century. We explored the church grounds for a bit but knew we didn’t have much time before our moped arrived so headed back up the steep hill.

Once our moped was delivered, we cruised over to Ravello and parked near the main square. With no agenda we just started walking down a random alley and came across a restaurant tucked away with sweeping views of Amalfi and Scala. We grabbed a table and both ordered a little fried pizza that was on point!

Once we were stuffed, we made our way over to Villa Cimbrone per the recommendation of our taxi driver. It’s a historic villa dating back to the 11th century and is known for its gorgeous gardens and dramatic views. It’s also a luxury hotel with an upscale bar and restaurant. There are so many impressive elements from all over the world to see including fountains, statues, temples and pavilions.  We enjoyed exploring and of course taking silly pictures as we went.
 
After checking out all the sights, our feet were ready for a break. We made our way to the boujee bar inside the gardens for a drink. Our server recommended their cocktail of the day which was a refreshing summer concoction that included green tea, local limoncello and foam on top. So good! While we were sitting there, a big white cloud blew through and dropped the temp down about 10 degrees. but it was awesome to feel like we were up in the clouds.

Once the cloud passed, we were ready to check out more of Ravello. We strolled back through the town and stumbled upon a gelato shop. I couldn’t possibly leave Italy without having gelato! There were so many flavors to choose but I landed on a small scoop of the coffee flavored gelato. Just heavenly!

Once we had seen the whole town, we jumped on our moped and headed back through the narrow winding streets to our hotel. It was our last day in Italy and we were both ready for some relax time. We got our swim suits on and spent the rest of the afternoon lounging by the pool that overlooked the nearby cliffside towns. Now that’s what I’m talking about! 

​As soon as the sun went behind our building, we headed up to our room to get ready for dinner. The restaurant called Gli Ulivi was conveniently located at our hotel and overlooked the stunning Ravello hillside. We enjoyed our last authentic Italian meal on our trip. Every meal we’ve had in Italy has been top notch!

The Amalfi coast has been an absolute blast and we highly recommend visiting this gorgeous place! Our time here has come to an end and tomorrow we’ll be heading to London for a day layover on our way back to Seattle. 
 
Next stop: London

The ferry followed along the Amalfi coast and gave breath taking views along the way to the town of Amalfi. When we arrived, we disembarked the ferry (along with the 50+ Italian teenagers) and walked over to our hotel Palazzo Don Salvatore which was just right up the street from the port. Our room wasn’t quite ready but the friendly receptionist brought us some snacks and an Aperol Spritz welcome drink while we waited. So sweet! The last time we had an Aperol Spritz was in Austria like 8 years ago and we both remember it tasting like cough syrup. But we gave it another shot and actually enjoyed it this time!

After resting a bit and coming up with a game plan for the day, we ventured into the town to check out the shops. Many of them had similar items as Positano, but one big difference…. nearly everything cost about half the price! I saw the same shirt I bought in Positano for €39 with a price tag of only €19 in Amalfi. Dang, I should have waited to do all my shopping in Amalfi!

In less than an hour, we felt like we’d seen the whole town and wanted to give our feet a rest so we found a cute café in the main square that was facing the beautiful church of Duomo di Amalfi. We shared some bruschetta and enjoyed people watching. I’d say at least 50% of the tourists along the Amalfi coast are from the US so we fit right in with so many people around us speaking English.
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We moseyed our way back through the town over to our hotel to check in. When we opened the door to our room, the first thing that caught our attention was the biggest bathtub we’d ever seen in our life sitting right in front of the window with an amazing ocean view. I swear like 6 people could fit in that tub!

That evening we weren’t super hungry for dinner so we found a café along the beach to have a light snack. I ordered another a mixed green salad and Marshall got a truffle pasta. He said it smelled like a chlorine pool but still tasted pretty descent, lol.

The next morning we woke up with no agenda. I had read about how much fun people have renting a moped and cruising along the Amalfi coast. Neither of us had driven a moped before but we’d figure we’d give it a shot. Why not? Marshall took it for a test drive down the street and then I hopped on the seat behind him and held on for dear life. Lets go!

We started cruising down the narrow winding roads along the cliffsides of Amalfi. For the most part we felt safe, although passing giant tour busses was a bit tricky when the lanes are just barely wider that one car width. The views and experiences we had that day were so worth a few bitten nails!

We came to the first little town not far and stopped to walk the town. It was still fairly early in the morning so most of the shops hadn’t yet opened. We quickly got back on the moped and decided to go all the way down the coast to the large city of Salerno and then check out all the little towns on the way back to allow time for shops to open. Unfortunately, when we got to Salerno we were expecting to see shops along the waterfront to explore. Instead, there were several factories and hundreds of shipping containers that felt very much like we drove to a working port. We still went for a nice walk along the waterfront before getting back on the road.

We were much more interested in strolling through the quaint charming towns, so we started making our way back up the coast. Somehow we just happened pull right behind a hearse in a funeral procession! Seriously? We didn’t want to be rude and zoom past them on our moped so we followed behind them at half speed for about 15 miles until they finally turned off. Hey, at least we got to soak in the scenery around as we're driving at a snails pace!

We sped off again until we came upon the next town, Maiori. By this point we were both hungry for lunch and this looked like a cute town that had lots of waterfront cafes. We pull off and found a café with a great view of a castle on the cliffside. While we were snacking on some bread as we waited for our lunch to arrive, a tiny bird landed on our table trying to sneak some crumbs. Marshall started to hand-feed the little fellow so he kept coming back for more. I’m sure the restaurant just loved us feeding bids on our table, lol.
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After wrapping up lunch, I took the moped for a quick test drive through the town to show Marshall my mad skills. He hopped on the back seat behind me and was going to let me drive for a bit, but I couldn't hold both of our weights and we were starting to fall over. We both agreed we wanted to survive the day, so I let him get back in the drivers seat. We followed the coast back up to our hotel in Amalfi and rested in the room to rejuvenate and charge our phones. Both our phones were nearly dead after taking so many videos and pictures along our drive and we needed to make sure we had plenty of battery to get us through the evening. You never know what you’ll see!

I worked on the blog for a bit while Marshall took a quick cat nap before venturing back out. This time we headed North toward the town of Priano. Along the way, we saw a bunch of people standing on the side of the road and wanted to stop and see what was attracting so many people. As we were looking for a parking spot, I noticed a guy squatting on the side of the road with his bare butt facing us while he was dropping a deuce. No way! His girlfriend was just standing along the road not doing a very good job covering for him. She smirked at us as we drove by laughing histerically. Once we parked, we walked over to the staircase and peeked down. It was a picturesque beach cove with several people swimming around. We debated going down there, but it would have required trekking down a zillion stairs so we decided take a quick picture and then get back on the road. 
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We navigated our way to a bar I had researched called Il Pirata that is tucked away in a little cove. The bar is actually built inside of a cave. So cool! There is also an outdoor patio that we sat on to enjoy the cliff side views. Two older couples sat down next to us that happened to also be from Seattle. How random! We chatted with them for awhile about our Amalfi coast adventures. At one point, the owner of the restaurant stopped by to greet us. She was an older lady that didn’t speak English but was overly friendly. In fact she even grabbed Marshall’s face and gave him a juicy kiss on his check. Now that's one way to get returning guests!

We scootered back to the hotel and took it easy before getting ready for a nice dinner. That evening we rode over to a restaurant called Baglio Amalfi Bistro. When we got there it looked closed and there was nobody around. The owner all of a sudden walked around a corner, opened the restaurant and told us he came to open “early” for us (at 7pm!) because we had booked our reservation so far in advance before he had changed his hours. So nice of him! This place had the most panoramic views of Amalfi. The owner recommended we start with his wife’s favorite red wine from the Amalfi region which was lovely. His wife was also the cook and she made us our delicious gnocchi and ravioli dishes. The sun was going down as were enjoying our dinner which made for a gorgeous backdrop on our last evening in Amalfi before heading up into the hills of Ravello tomorrow.

We hopped back on our moped to head back to our hotel. We were having so much fun cruising around and wanted share the joy with everyone, so I’d yell ‘woop woop’ and Marshall would honk ‘beep beep’ to all the passing mopeds and random people walking along the side of the road. We got lots of stares and occasionally would get a 'woop woop' or 'beep beep' back at us, lol. Just trying to liven things up! To top off the evening, I enjoyed another relaxing bubble bath while staring out at the city lights out of our balcony before heading to bed.

Next stop: Ravello, Italy

As we left off in our Capri post, we were on our way in a taxi from Amalfi to Positano cruising along the tiny winding seaside road and started to hit some heavy traffic. Our taxi driver got a call then the taxi in front of us suddenly stopped and forced their passengers out and made them move into our taxi. Nobody knew what was going on, but everyone quickly got in the car because we were literally in the middle of the street on the side of a cliff.

Once everyone gave their awkward hellos, we continued a little farther until the traffic came to a complete standstill. Without saying a word (again), our driver hopped out of the van and opened the side door and told everyone to get out on the side of the road. Like the middle of the road… on the side of a cliff. He opened his trunk and tossed everyone their bags. We pulled out our phone that was navigating to our hotel and showed him that we still had another 31 minutes to go. He shook his head and just pointed ahead saying (in a broken English) ‘Eh, it’s not much further. Just around the bend-a! You go-a! First road on left. Take it down-a’. Say waaaaaa?

A couple of other tourists that were in the van with us just started walking down the road so we figured they’d been here before and followed behind them. We quickly realized they had not and were just as confused as we were why we were so abruptly thrown out of the taxi long before our stop. We walked a good mile with our heavy packs, nearly getting side swiped by cars, trucks, busses, and other slow walking tourists down the side of the road which has about two inches of shoulder.

We found the ‘road on the left’ and it just led straight down a series of stairs. We ended up walking over 20 mins down the steepest stairs we’ve ever seen in our life all the way down the cliffside until we got down to the beach. Based on the map, we knew our hotel was close to the beach, but we soon realized that we now had to climb back up the other side of the hill. Seventy five degree heat doesn’t sound too crazy, but with this humidity and after that insane hike, I was two seconds away from ditching my bag at the bottom of the staircase and being perfectly fine wearing the same sweaty outfit the rest of the trip. But Marshall kindly offered to carry both bags up what ended up being over 400 stairs to our next hotel, Casa Albertina! My hero. 😊

Meanwhile, on our walk up to our hotel there was a loud rescue helicopter hovering above us. Everyone in the town stopped what they were doing and just stared at the helicopter trying to figure out what it was doing. As soon as we arrived at our hotel dripping sweat and panting, we asked the receptionist what was happening. He said that a lady had fallen off the side of a cliff on her way back from the Path of the Gods hike. Wait, you mean the Path of the Gods hike we’d planned on doing the next day?? Yeah, that one! How terrifying!
 
Apparently that hike is a little sketchy in some parts and it’s not uncommon for hikers to fall off the cliff. We continued watching nearby and saw three rescuers drop from the helicopter and repel down the side of the cliff. After what felt like an hour, we finally saw the lady getting airlifted out. She’s so lucky to have survived because that looked like at least a 200 foot drop! I think we’ll go ahead and scratch that hike off the list for tomorrow and find something a little less dangerous to do, thank you. Definitely don’t need any broken bones on this trip!
 
After checking in, we headed up to our room to put our bags down and freshen up a bit. When we opened the doors to the patio we were surprised by the most jaw dropping view of Positano. We both agreed this has got to be one of the best views we’ve seen in the world. Pictures don’t even do it justice. We just stared at it and didn’t want to leave. Absolutely stunning!

We got so distracted by the view, we were 45 minutes late to our dinnere reservation at Da Gabrina (oops!) so they gave away our window table. All good, we still got a table with a nice view! We were both still stuffed from lunch so we just ordered a light meal and headed back to the hotel to hit the hay.

The following morning, we hit the streets of Positano and stopped in nearly every shop. The majority of the shops are women’s clothing boutiques, so I was loving every minute of it. After checking out nearly every shop we passed, we were ready to give our feet a rest and find a place to sit down and people watch. We passed a sign that said “Best Pizza” at a restaurant called Sado d’ Oro and figured we’d try it out. We shared a pizza and each had an espresso martini. The pizza was great, but the espresso martini was even better! I don’t know if it’s the type of espresso they use or the environment, but it was one of the best I’ve had! 

After lunch, we reluctantly checked out of our hotel and into the next one, Villa Yiara. I only reserved one night per place because, well, that was what was available and we really don’t mind checking out new places as much as we can. Makes it even easier having just our backpacks! Oh, our backpacks. We REALLY didn’t want to trek our backpacks to the next hotel…another half cliff uphill…so we spoiled ourselves and paid the porter 15 euros per bag to take it to our next hotel. We were in the middle of our day and didn’t want to get all sweaty before we went out that evening. We probably should have hired a porter yesterday instead of nearly breaking our backs. Lesson learned!

​Later that afternoon, we strolled along the beach over to Franco’s Bar, a super popular outdoor bar with a hoppin’ vibe and sweeping views of Positano. We got there 10 minutes early thinking we’d be first in line but there was already like 25 people waiting. Luckily, we ended up getting the last front row table along the terrace. Score! Another American couple sat down next to us that we enjoyed chatting with so we ended up staying there for three hours soaking in the sun and the views. Their cocktails were bomb and came in unique glasses. Highly recommend this place for a great time!

​Once the sun had set over the hill, it was time to tackle the crazy hike over to our dinner reservation at Orama Restaurant. We hiked down 500+ stairs, trekked along the beach and then hiked back up like 1000 stairs to the restaurant. Thank God we are in decent shape and this restaurant is semi-close to our hotel! To help make the hike more enjoyable, we turned on some party music to jam out to like Get Low by Lil John. I had an amazing chicken dish that was cooked with apples and orange zest and Marshall had spaghetti carbonara. Well worth the journey! After dinner we ended the evening with a romantic jetted bath on our patio overlooking the city lights.

​The next morning, we had a gourmet breakfast delivered to our patio, including a meat and cheese platter, fruit bowl, croissants, pastries, and cappuccinos. It was seriously enough food for like 8 people. We decided to take the morning slow and relax on our patio for a few hours. I spent time working on our blog while Marshall was hand feeding the local stray cats our leftover breakfast.

​Once we checked out, we hiked down to the ferry terminal to buy our tickets to Amalfi. The port had been closed the two days prior for repairs. It was still barely open and had fences and machinery everywhere. There were hundreds of people waiting in the ferry line for various ferries going to different cities along the coast. When we got to the dock to buy our tickets the cashier told us the next ferry was ours. Great!

So, we stood in the line with everyone else and waited for our ferry to disembark so we could get on. We waited for a while and realized the line in front of us hadn’t moved, but the ferry seemed to be full. We asked someone in line if people were still getting off and they said they thought that ferry had already boarded. No way! As soon as we realized we were in the wrong line, we pushed our way to the front only to get to the draw bridge literally as it was going up. It was like straight out of a movie scene. We seriously would have made it had we been there 2 seconds earlier. Are you kidding me?? I thought about doing a hop, skip and jump to see if I could land on the draw bridge, but realistically I would have landed in the water and Marshall would have to come rescue me.

We had to wait another 45 minutes for the next ferry in the hot sun so we went over to the nearby bar and grabbed a limoncello spritz while we waited. Once we finally got on the ferry, we ended up sitting on the bottom deck with over a hundred teenagers clapping and chanting Italian….chants? I’m sure there was some significance, but we just clapped along and talked about looking forward to hanging with our boys when they are teenagers. Oh to be a teenager again.

Next stop: Amalfi

​The next stop on our adventure is the glamorous island of Capri, Italy! After a 3-hour flight from Helsinki to Naples and a 50-minute ferry ride, we arrived to the gorgeous island that is famed for its rugged landscape, upscale hotels and shopping, from designer fashions to limoncello, and is a top vacation destination for celebrities. I can definitely see why!

The hotels are located at the top of the hillside and to get there you need to take a “funicular”, which is cable railway system. We arrived at the island at the same time as a cruise ship (or 3 apparently) and were crammed inside the funicular whacking people around us with our giant backpacks.

Oh, that’s right, I forgot to mention earlier that we decided to backpack this trip! We’d missed backpacking ever since our 6-month adventure about 8 years ago and thought this would be a great opportunity to do it again. We somehow used every nook and cranny in each of our bags and way over packed. What were we thinking?? We didn’t weigh our bags but I swear they are each over 50 pounds and I’m definitely going to need some massage therapy when we get back.. Lesson learned, next time we’ll cut out all extra stuff like shoes I’ll never wear, books Marshall won’t have time to read, and about twice the amount of clothes we really needed.

Once we reached the top of the hill on the funicular, we zigzagged through various streets and eventually found our hotel. It had an incredible lush walkway and we were really excited to check out our next room. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite ready so we dropped our bags off at the front desk and grabbed lunch at a restaurant next door called Villa Margherita with a great view of the valley and ocean. We both had a delicious pasta dish and a refreshing cocktail. Mine had some fluffy raspberry foam on top. Yum!

​After wrapping up lunch, we went back to the hotel to check into our room. It was a grand luxurious suite that felt like it was made for a queen. Seriously, this thing was like half the size of our house and had a patio with lounge chairs facing the gorgeous ocean views. Such a dream room! We changed into some cooler clothes and ventured off into the winding streets, window shopping at the ridiculously expensive high fashion clothing stores while smelling the perfume wafting from stores and dodging tourists with half melted gelatos. 

​After a few hours, we stumbled upon a bar called Capri Rooftop Lounge Bar that had breathtaking views of the ocean and cliff side hotels. The craft cocktails were also super unique. This is my kinda place! I had their version of an espresso martini that was clear at the bottom and had coffee foam on top. So good! As we were admiring the views and shoeing a few birds from our bread basket, a LOUD 60+ year old lady at the table next to us was talking to the two gentlemen with her about how she loved to dance on tables, lol. There’s a variety of characters around here, that’s for sure!

​We came back to our room and relaxed out on the lounge chairs on our balcony sipping on a bomb limoncello slushie that you’ll see all over the island. We both fell into a deep much-needed nap after only sleeping a few hours each night. That felt amaaaaaazing!
 
It then started to pour down rain so we ran back inside and just waited it out in the room until the rain cloud passed over. Apparently, it had been raining for like a month straight and the northern part of Italy had really severe flooding. Several of the locals told us how nice it was to have a clear day finally. We got super lucky with our timing to say the least!

Later that evening, we made our way to dinner at a nearby restaurant called ll Geranio. Once again, we both had tasty pasta dishes and some local red wine (I mean, when in ‘Rome’!) and spent the rest of the evening sipping wine watching the sunset over the ocean view. 

The following morning, we hiked up a steep alley to get to a little coffee shop called Caffe Manari for a fresh baked pastry and coffee. I ordered their version of a Frappuccino which was chocolate gelato blended with espresso and milk. Delicious!

We had a planned private boat tour for the day to explore the coastline of Capri and see the blue grotto that is a famous attraction in Capri. A local skipper met us down at the marina (fashionably late). We boarded his traditional wooden gozzo boat and set off for a 3-hour tour around the island.
 
The first stop on the tour was the blue grotto, which I was so excited to see! When we pulled up to it, there were a dozen boats waiting their turn along with a cliffside staircase stacked with tourists that had arrived from a tour bus. In order to go into the grotto, you have to wait for a little row boat to come by to pick you up and take you inside (half of the rowers had small cigars hanging out of their mouths – such great multi-taskers). After waiting about 10 minutes, our skipper told us that it will be another 30-45 minute wait…that is unless we bribe one of the guys on a row boat with 20 Euros. Dude, why didn’t you mention that earlier? There were like 100 people waiting…. Sold!
 
Our skipper whistled a special ‘hey, we got twenty bucks here’ whistle and a guy magically showed up at our boat in a jiffy. We hopped on his row boat and was told to sit on the very bottom, below the seats. The opening to the grotto is so low that we all had to lay down as flat as we could on the floor of the boat so we didn’t hit our heads. The guy had to pull us as fast as he could through the small tunnel while between waves. I can’t imagine what would have happened if he mistimed that. We’d have a flat smoldering skipper on our hands, that’s for sure.
 
When we got inside the grotto, there were about eight other boats in there and all the rowers were serenading their riders with classic Italian songs. They call it the blue grotto because sunlight passing through the underwater cavity shines through the seawater creating a blue reflection that illuminates the cavern. So majestic!
 
As we continued cruising around the island of Capri, we checked out the Natural Arch, Punta Carena lighthouse and several more caves along the way. This tour is an absolute must for anyone visiting Capri!
 

​When we got back to the marina, we walked over to a nearby restaurant called J.K. Place Capri for lunch. There was literally nobody there so we got the entire balcony and 3 servers to ourselves. They brought us lots of free snacks which seems to be common here. The drinks and view were amazing so we ended up spending a couple hours just enjoying the view and the experience until we had to leave to ferry over to the next town on our journey. 

​Before getting on the ferry, we needed to grab our bags at our hotel, which was at the top of the hill. So, we rode the funicular up to the main square, walked to our room, grabbed our bags and headed back to the funicular again. What we didn’t account for was the funicular line to be as insanely long as it was. We felt like we gave ourselves plenty of extra time, but it was so long that we didn’t think we’d make our scheduled ferry. Good thing we’re pros at getting our way around a line! We wiggled and edged our way through the crowd (with MASSIVE bags strapped to our back mind you) and ended up right near the front of the line. Heck yeah! I’m sure we got a lot of stink eyes by the folks we banged into along the way, but hey, at least we made the next funicular down!

By the time we got down to the bottom of the hill, we had less than five minutes to get to the dock, find out which of the 13 ferry terminals we needed to go to and get to the correct one in time. We stopped to ask an attendant who looked at our ticket, looked back at us and said, (in classic Italian voice) “It’s the last, uh, terminal, you better run!” We looked at each other, looked at the super long dock, and RAN. We booked it as fast as we could winding and weaving through the tourists getting off the other ferries…. with 50 pounds on our backs. But, we made it… just barely. Phew, talk about a close call!

We picked a seat on the top deck so we could watch the view as we ferried the 50-minute ride to Amalfi. We sat next to a lively couple from New Jersey in their 60’s who were on their honeymoon. The guy was a classic Italian jokester telling us all about his life story and how his family is connected to the Italian mafia. If his stories weren’t crazy enough, as we were chatting with them, a guy on a speed boat rode past us standing up and yelling WOOOOHOOOO …… totally naked!! I guess some Italians can’t handle their limoncellos, lol.

Although we were headed to Amalfi, we were actually staying in Positano that evening. We’d planned to take the ferry directly to Positano which is way closer to Capri, but the dock randomly closed for repairs that day so our only option was to take a ferry all the way to Amalfi and then take a taxi 30 mins back up the coast to Positano. Grrr, so inconvenient! When we arrived in Amalfi, we found a taxi pretty quickly and negotiated a whopping 100 Euro ride. The driver said he would get us to the city center and we could walk just 5 minutes to our hotel. What a deal… the ferries were still emptying and a bunch of tourists were starting to ask the only remaining 4 taxi drivers for rides, so we took him up on the deal and got on our merry way.

The roads were barely bigger than a one lane road, but somehow cars, trucks, and busses are all able to pass each other by getting an inch from each other and the guardrails ‘protecting’ you from falling a thousand feet to the water below. Definitely not for the faint of heart! After about 30 minutes, we could see that we were close to Positano but we started getting into some heavy traffic. Then all of a sudden our driver got a call and suddenly stopped the car…. What happened next is something we’ll never forget. To be continued on the next blog….

Marshall and I have been itching for another European trip, just the two of us. This time we landed on visiting Helsinki, Finland and touring the Amalfi Coast in Italy! Marshall’s mom was excited to fly in from Florida to come hang out with the boys for 10 days while we’re gone (Thank you!!). The boys were super excited to spend a lot of time with her and show off their skills at their baseball games and taekwondo.
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We left on a Friday around 7pm to take a 9-hour red-eye from Seattle to Helsinki. Normally I can sleep on planes, but unfortunately neither of us got a minute of sleep. Just wonderful! By the time we arrived, it was 2pm Finland time since they are 10 hours ahead. After a 30-minute taxi ride to the historic downtown area, we arrived at our Lapland Hotel. It’s a boutique hotel with traditional Finnish decor including lots of sheepskin and reindeer antlers. Our hotel room was awesome! It had a luxurious spa-like bathroom with a huge steam sauna that you pour water over rocks to get scorching hot. 

Although we had a sauna in our room, we just had to check out a traditional Finnish public sauna that is a super popular thing to do in Finland. We hopped on a couple of electric scooters and rode over to the famous Kotiharjun sauna which is the only remaining wood burning sauna in Helsinki.

When we arrived, there were around 10 sweaty local men with towels wrapped around their waist cooling off outside the front door. They all stared at us when we walked in as we clearly were not locals. After we paid, Marshall and I went to our separate locker rooms to strip down. The men and women have separate saunas and clothing is forbidden. This is waaaaay outside of my comfort zone!
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The women’s locker room was empty, so I decided to sneak my cell phone into the sauna to take pictures of this unique experience. There was nobody in there so I quickly snapped some pictures of the giant wood burning stove and took some selfies to prove to my friends back home that I actually sat in the sauna butt naked (nobody believed I would!). Within a few minutes a women walked in with her towel wrapped around her so I wrapped my towel around me too so she didn’t feel awkward. She was from Sweden and we spent the whole time just chatting about our various travels. The sauna was well over 200 degrees so I only lasted about 15 minutes before I had to get outta there.

Meanwhile, when Marshall walked into the men’s sauna, there were already two guys in there and Marshall realized he was the only one who brought a towel in. The others were sitting on wood blocks just letting their balls hang out. Yikes! Marshall walked up to the top row and sat down to enjoy a true Finnish sauna experience and relax. Next thing he knows the ten guys that were sitting outside all came in at the same time, minus their towels. They all grabbed their own wood block to sit on and spread out to find a spot with a bit of elbow room to sweat it out. Except for the biggest, most tatted dude there who decided to sit right next to Marshall. The top row is by far the hottest area and they were both soaked in sweat in minutes. Marshall just sat there minding his own business when the guy next to him got a little too sweaty and decided to shake off like a wet dog and sprayed Marshall’s entire left side with Finnish dude sweat. Gaaa-rosssss!

The guys kept pouring water on the hot coals making the sauna ridiculously hot. Marshall challenged himself to not be the first one out, plus he didn’t know the etiquette of leaving a sauna (Take the wood board with you? What line do you take so your butt/junk doesn’t pass by the wrong dude?), so he waited about 20 minutes before someone left and he followed the guy out. As he was walking back to his locker, he passed by a few older gentlemen just hanging out in the locker room playing chess and drinking beer, nodding at everyone as they passed. This place was quite the experience!!

We scootered back to our hotel to get ready and head to dinner. We were exhausted from the non-sleep for the last 48 hours and wanted to get a quick bite then head to bed. The restaurant we went to called Hoku was inside of a shopping mall but had a great view of the busy courtyard below. We had fun people watching as we enjoyed our dinner. Luckily, we didn’t faceplant into our food from exhaustion and got back to the hotel around 7pm to immediately hit the hay.

That night I woke up at midnight and could not go back to sleep. Grrrr! I’m someone who needs a solid 8 hours so the 4 hours I got was a bit rough. Luckily our room had an espresso machine so we started our morning off with a fresh espresso shot before heading down to breakfast. Our hotel had the most amazing breakfast buffet we’ve ever had in any of our travels. They had a huge spread of local cuisine including their award-winning porridge, reindeer sausage and an array of fresh baked breads, pastries, and delicious smoothies.
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The activity we had planned for the day was to explore Suomenlinna Island which is an inhabited sea fortress comprised of 8 islands. We hopped on a quick 15-minute ferry ride over to there. There are several trails that lead to various historical and scenic sights around the islands. We had no real agenda so just picked a random trail to start walking along to check out the sights. As we were strolling, we accidently got deep into the residential part of the island and we passed by a woman walking her….CAT!....on a leash! But why?? We then stumbled upon a section of the island that had several hobbit-like structures, some of which we could walk through. So cool! We eventually made our way to a café on one of the islands called Cafe Bar Valimo that was off the beaten path next to the locals’ dock. We both ordered pasta dishes that were super flavorful as we watched the boats and seagulls go by.

After wrapping up lunch, we hopped back on the ferry back to Helsinki. There is a public market right next to the dock, so we meandered through there on a mission to find a Finland Christmas ornament to add to our collection of ornaments from around the world. We quickly found the perfect one and moved on to check out some nearby vintage clothing stores. Marshall and I thought it would be fun to have a competition to see which one of us could come up with the most ridiculous outfit. I found a mickey mouse T-shirt, a colorful 80’s jacket, some bright red men’s track pants and a cowboy had with corks hanging all around the brim. Marshall found bright yellow jacket, neon green pants, a hideous flower tie and a kid-sized fedora hat. According to our Facebook friends, Marshall won the competition. Dang it, I gotta step up my game next time!

By this point we were ready to check out a cool cocktail bar I had researched called Liberty or Death. It was cozy inside with leather couches and American hip hop playing for us to jam out to. The bartender made us some delicious custom cocktails that were super refreshing. We were planning to go to dinner afterwards but we were both pretty tired and jet legged so we decided pizza in the room sounded more relaxing. As we were walking back to our hotel, we strolled through a park that had random graves scattered throughout. There were people picnicking literally right next to headstones. Very strange to us, but maybe that’s normal here? The Finnish people are extremely nice and very helpful, but that was one question we kept to ourselves.
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Back in our room, we did another sauna session to wind down. We loved the sauna so much, we used it 5 times in two days, lol. We highly recommend the Lapland Hotel as it’s in the heart of the city, has a traditional Finnish vibe, and the coolest in-room saunas. Overall, Helsinki was a great cultural experience and are glad we chose this stop on our way to Italy.
Next stop: Capri, Italy

After a two-year hiatus of international travel, we are ready to get back in action! This time we were headed to the gorgeous island of Nassau, Bahamas! Marshall’s parents had visited there last year and after showing us all their gorgeous pictures and videos, we were inspired to go check it out for ourselves.

Our trip started off a little bumpy with some flight delays, but we were just so excited to be in the Bahamas. When we checked in to our hotel that were staying at just for one night, we were nonchalantly told our room was downgraded from a one-bedroom suite with a fold out couch to a small studio room with two queens. I was super bummed because this was the only night that Marshall and I were going to have a room with some privacy on our trip. The lady said our room had a leak, but I’m sure she just gave our room away to some baller who slipped her some cash under the counter. To try to make us feel better about the situation, the lady walked over to the fridge and started handing us some free local beers, lol. I suppose that may have made me feel better if I actually liked beer.
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The boys couldn't wait to check out the waterslides, so we dropped off our bags in the room and went straight to the pool. They immediately ran up the stairs to the top of the slides. Marshall and I waited for a while wondering what was taking the boys so long to come down. Apparently, the slides were so old that the surface was no longer slick and the kids had to manually push themselves down at a snail’s pace, lol. The boys ended up using the slides more like a diving board so they still had plenty of fun. Then within ten minutes at the pool, lightning and thunder rolled in with a downpour of rain so we ran back to the room and got ready for dinner.

I had made reservations for a nearby restaurant called Poop Deck, and yes I only chose this place because of the name. I was really hoping the food didn’t live up to its name but my veggie fried rice unexpectedly came with chunks of various crab body parts. Alrighty then! I just covered up the crab pieces in my napkin so I couldn’t see it and was good to go. I was actually more excited for the trendy cocktail lounge next door to our hotel that Marshall and I had planned to chill at after dinner. We’ve been letting the leash out more with the boys and after testing them to use one of our phones to call us a few times we allowed them to play their iPads in the room while Marshall and I went downstairs to the coolest speakeasy style cocktail bar called Bon Vivants. The drinks were incredible and came in awesome cups like a gold horse and a pink pig!!

The next morning, we had a full day excursion planned to the nearby island of Exuma Cayes. We boarded a little 10-person plane along with two other couples and flew a quick 30-minute over to the island. Tyson was ecstatic that he got to be the co-pilot on the way there. Such a memorable experience! He was having fun checking out all buttons and holding onto the wheel pretending to fly. The views of all the little islands below was magical!

Upon arrival, we met our tour captain and hopped on a speed boat to go explore various exotic locations. Our first stop was an island inhabited by about 50 huge smelly pigs. As we pulled up to shore, the captain whistled loudly and the pigs came swimming over to the boat to get some snacks. The boys grabbed a loaf of bread and threw little chunks at their heads. We then hopped off the boat and hung out at the beach petting the pigs, dodging poop piles, and taking pics. There is one huge mama pig that is really aggressive so the guide said to stay away from her, but the rest were ok to pet. The boys were able to pick up the baby pigs which was super cute.

The next stop was swimming with sharks, the boys' favorite stop on the tour! On the ride there, Wesley pointed out into the ocean and said, “Look, it’s a great white shark”! Lol! We pulled into a marina where all the sharks were swimming around with the tourists. The tour guides gave the sharks lots of fish to keep them hanging around. The boys were a little apprehensive to get in the water at first but once they saw other people petting the sharks they were excited to jump in. They loved petting the friendly sharks and swimming around with them. They didn't want to get back in the boat when the captain said we were headed to the next spot!

​We continued our tour and stopped at a little sand bar to relax and swim around in the shallow turquoise blue water. The boys were less interested in relaxing and more interested in the box of free chip bags and doing cannon balls off the front of the boat into the water. These boys never run out of energy!
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As we continued on our journey, we stopped at a plane wreckage from 30 years ago. Marshall took the boys out snorkeling all around the plane. The boys had to learn quick how to use the big goggles and snorkel, but they did amazing. So cool to swim around a plane wreck the first time you snorkel. What a crazy site to see! I sat this one out and just laid out on the boat and worked on my tan.

The next stop was Iguana Island as the island is inhabited with iguanas freely roaming around. Obviously, you can’t feed or pet them (unless you’re ok with missing fingers), but we could get up close to them for pictures. Marshall did a sexy modeling shoot laying on the beach right next to the iguanas, lol. The boys mostly liked chasing them around.

The next stop was an island cave where the James Bond movie Thunderball was filmed. We all swam over to the little opening where you enter into the cave. Once inside, the water reflecting onto the cave walls gives it a blue glow. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any pictures because we forgot to bring the SIM card for our new GO-Pro. Doh! The boys thought it was cool that there were bats hanging from the top of the cave and one was flying around above us. We snorkeled all around the cave and saw the most colorful exotic fish we’ve ever seen. It truly was a magical experience!

After all the amazing stops on our adventures, it was time for a late lunch at a local yacht club. The eight of us in our tour group sat together at a big round table and chatted about everyone’s various travel adventures. It’s always fun hearing where other folks have traveled to and get ideas on interesting future places to check out.

Once we wrapped up lunch, we all walked back over to the boat, except for Tyson who thought it would be more fun to swim to the boat. We headed back to the airport and boarded our plane back to Nassau. This time Wesley got to be the co-pilot. He thought it was so cool! About halfway back, our co-pilot fell asleep at the wheel, lol. Thank God we had a back up pilot on board!

After deboarding the plane, we taxied over to the magnificent Royal Atlantis hotel. This place is massive! There’s a huge waterpark, aquariums, dolphin lagoon, casino, arcade, and the list goes on. The boys immediately wanted to check out the Aquaventure waterpark. It’s a lush, tropical aquatic playground with several thrilling slides, 11 pools, and a mile-long rolling rapid river. This place is a blast for both kids and adults! We were only able to go down a couple slides before a lightning storm rolled in and the park closed. That’s ok, we still had three more days here so we went inside and explored the resort! 

The next morning Marshall took the boys out to grab some fancy donuts for breakfast while I joined a work call. Luckily this was the only call I had to join on our trip. By the time the boys came back from breakfast they were ready to hit up the waterpark. The first slide we all went down was a two-person tube slide that jets through a shark tank. So cool! Tyson wanted to go on all the thrilling slides first, but Wesley was a little apprehensive and wanted to just do the tamer slides to start. Throughout the day Marshall and I took turns going on slides with each of the boys.  Wesley eventually built up enough courage to go on one of the speed slides called ‘the challenger’ with Tyson where they raced side by side down super steep slides. They go so fast that they skid across the pool when they get to the bottom. He loved it and wanted to go on it over and over again. Tyson’s favorite slides were ‘abyss’ where you spiral down a slide in complete darkness and ‘leap of faith’ where you drop down a near vertical slide that shoots you through the shark tank.

That evening we walked along the marina in search of a fun dinner spot. The marina is a bustling place to hang out in the evenings. We heard some live local music playing at a vibrant colored restaurant that looked hoppin’. That was an obvious choice for dinner! It always adds a great vibe when you can jam out some great music while enjoying dinner on the town.

​The next morning, we were excited to check out downtown Nassau. It was a quick 10 minute water taxi ride from our hotel that drops you off right in front of a huge straw market that sells a lot of local knick knacks and souvenirs (aka junk). After about the third vendor, you quickly realize they all basically sell the same stuff. We were on a mission to find our Bahamas Christmas ornament, a family tradition we do on each trip to remember all the places we've been together. We also gave the boys each $10 to haggle with. Wesley found a shark stuffy and Tyson wanted to save his money for something later on the trip. 

After about an hour downtown the boys were ready to head back to the hotel to go to the water park. Surprise suprise! We went on the lazy river and a couple slides and then the boys wanted to try a fancy drink at Chocotini. It was a chocolate smoothie with whipped cream, sprinkles, chocolate chips, marshmallows and gummy candies on top. The boys shared one with two straws and were in chocolate heaven.
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We went on a few more slides and then headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. We walked over to the marina and decided on a restaurant called Carmine’s for dinner. It’s a family style Italian restaurant so the portions are huge. We ordered Parmesan chicken with angel hair pasta and a side of meatballs for us all to share. It was delicious but between the four of us we could only devour about half the meal. 

Later that evening there was a cultural show with lots of music and dancing. A lady was doing an act where she was rubbing a fire stick on peoples hands in the audience. Tyson wanted to see what it felt like so he stuck his hand out and she ran the flame across his hand lighting it on fire and then quickly patted it out. He thought that was so cool! Meanwhile, I was freaking that he may have burned his hand, but luckily this was some kind of magic fire that doesn't burn your skin. Then the performer asked for volunteers to go on stage and learn some local dance moves. Tyson raised his hand and was brought on stage with 3 other adults. She grabbed Tyson first to perform a little dance routine. She put his hands up on her hips and when she dipped, he dipped, they dipped. Haha, actually they moved their hips in sync to the right, left, back and front over and over as they got faster each time. We all got a good laugh!

​The following morning, we filled our bellies with a big pancake breakfast and headed straight to the waterpark. As we were raging down the rapid river, black clouds rolled in and it started to downpour on us. Just wonderful! We all jumped out of the water and ran to the nearest cabana for shelter. To entertain ourselves while we waited out the rain, we played ‘would you rather’. The boys like to come up with the grossest things like “would you rather eat your own poop or drink someone else’s pee?” Lol! Gross...
 
That afternoon I took the boys on an adventure exploring areas of the hotel that we hadn’t yet seen. We strolled through their ginormous aquarium and saw lots of colorful fish as well as some rare saw-nosed sharks. We continued our exploration across a suspended rope bridge and over to Cove beach for a swim in the crystal blue water. 

That evening Marshall and I dropped the kids off at the kids club and we went on a date night. Woohoo! We had a lovely dinner out on the patio at Nobu restaurant with a great view of the ocean. Afterward, we moseyed over to the marina and stopped in a bar for a tasty espresso martini to end the evening. It was already almost 10pm and time to pick up the boys. We started heading back and stumbled upon some live music and dancing out in the courtyard so we obviously had to stop to do the Cuban Shuffle (which Marshall is a professional at and I'm out there just running into everyone). When we picked up the boys from the kids club they both had trophies in their hands for winning a talent contest. Apparently the boys chose to do a running race and Wesley came 2nd and Tyson came 3rd (not sure how that’s possible, but that’s cool). 

The next day was our last day in the Bahamas. We found a fun breakfast place at our hotel with fancy donuts. The boys picked out a yummy chocolate oreo donut. They were a chocolately mess afterwards but totally worth it! Luckily we were headed to the pool afterwards so they could wash off all their goobers. We only had time for a few slides before heading to lunch. We fame across a cool lagoon restaurant that is surrounded by sharks, stingrays, and tons of fish. The boys spent most of the time just watching the fish and taking a bite here and there.
 
We wanted to spend the last few hours relaxing at Cove beach. Conveniently located right next to the beach was a drink stand that sold fancy tropical cocktails in a pineapple. Obviously I had to get one! After soaking up the last bit of sun, we headed back to front desk to pick up our luggage.  We asked what time we should leave for the airport and they said we should have left a couple hours ago. Oh crap! We quickly grabbed a taxi and raced to the airport, arriving just barely an hour before our flight took off. We cut in line at security and customs and booked it to our gate. We arrived at the gate nearly dry heaving only find out our flight was delayed and had plenty of time after all. Of course!

 We flew an hour back to Orlando and stayed with Marshall’s parents for the weekend. We figured since we had a layover there we might as well stay a couple days and visit them. We spent a lot of the time at Cocoa Beach where the boys boogie boarded in the waves and collected shells along the beach. They also got a lot of pool time in grandma and grandpa and cousin CJ. While they were all enjoying the pool, Marshall and I went fishing off their dock and I caught at least 15 catfish. Oh yeah, I’m a master fisherwoman! On an unrelated note, Wesley randomly started calling everyone ‘bro’ while we were there, including his grandma. Oh, the phases kids go through!
 
We were supposed to only stay two days with them but ended up staying an extra day after our flight was cancelled. It was a little inconvenient but luckily we both brought our laptops to be able to work. Unfortunately though, we originally had a direct flight home but got rebooked with a layover in San Diego. When we got to the airport, there was a lightening storm so the flight was delayed. We ended up missing our connecting flight in San Diego and the next flight out wasn’t until the following afternoon. Great, now we stuck in San Diego for a full day! The airline tried to do us a favor and put us up in a ghetto two-star hotel that smelled like vomit and had a giant spider on the ceiling. I think I used half my bottle of nice perfume trying to cover up the smell. The only silver lining was that Marshall was able to take the boys to the San Diego Zoo while I worked in the hotel room waiting for our flight.
 
All in all, we made some great memories on this trip and the boys said the Bahamas was their favorite place they’ve ever been! They even said they want to take their kids there one day, haha.

For the last few years, we’ve planned a getaway in February for us to escape the dead of winter in the Pacific NW. With limited countries open for international travel due to Covid, we decided this was the year for a trip to Hawaii! The boys have never been, and Tyson has been asking to go to Hawaii the last couple years. Our friends, Bethany and Chris, live on Oahu and they have two girls the same age as the boys. We figured it would be fun to visit them while we’re there!

The morning of our flight we woke up to about 8 inches of snow at our house. Uh, seriously? We tried to book an Uber to take us to the airport, but no Uber’s were available in our area because of black ice on the streets. Shoot, we didn’t plan for that! We were frantically calling our nearby friends to see if anyone could take us to the airport like NOW. Luckily our friend, Devin, was able to take us! We owe him big time!

Unfortunately, due to the snowstorm our flight was delayed multiple times - like 5 separate delayed announcements, 3 different potential planes and a gate change at the last minute. After 10 HOURS waiting with a 4 and 7 year old at the airport, we finally boarded the plane. It’s about time! The pilot (named Casino) said we were taking a risk boarding because if we didn’t board and take off within an hour he would time out and not be legally able to fly us out. As everyone was buckled in and ready for takeoff - you guessed it- the captain came on the intercom and canceled the flight. You’ve got to be kidding me! We all gathered our bags and explained to the kids what just happened and that we weren’t going to Hawaii today. Then we had to stand in an hour-long line at customer service to change our flight. Of course we got a lady who was in training on her first day so even though we were middle of the line to start we were literally the last to leave the line. Everyone ended up on a flight the next morning except us who had to  take the 5:30pm flight..... on Valentine’s Day. We had a super fun day planned that day and a double date with our friends that evening. Such a bummer!

The next morning we figured we’d make the most of our time while we waited to go back to the airport so we sledded down our steep driveway all morning and enjoyed some Valentines chocolates. As long as the boys are having fun that’s all that matters.

It was finally time to go back to the airport and luckily our flight was on time this time. Yay! After a 6-hour flight, we arrived in Honolulu around 10pm and they almost didn’t let us in because our 72-hour COVID test had expired. We explained to the manager that our flight was delayed due to a crew mistake that was completely out of our control and luckily he let us through.

We shuttled over to the rental car place and picked up our sweet convertible Mustang. Whoop whoop! The drive over to our Paradise Bay Resort in Kaneohe was nearly half an hour. We pulled up to the front door and starting to unload our suitcases only to find out we had left Tyson’s suitcase at the rental car place. Dang it! It was late and the rental car place had closed so we decided to just check back in the morning and hope they have it. We then walk toward the front door of the resort and see a sign on the door that the front desk closed at 11pm and it’s now almost 11:30. No freakin’ way! We called the emergency maintenance number and woke a guy up out of his slumber to come open the door for us. He said he lived twenty minutes away and would come right over so we just stood at the front door looking up at the stars while we waited. Thirty minutes later he showed up and let us in. Once we finally got in our room we all crashed hard after our exhausting day.

The next morning we drove to the rental car place and thankfully they had Tyson’s suitcase!! We were so happy we didn’t have to spend half the day buying new clothes, swimsuits, toothbrush, etc. Tyson changed his clothes in the car then we headed to Egghead cafe in Honolulu and grabbed a s’more pancakes, strawberry shortcake pancakes, and chocolate banana creme brûlée French toast. Oh, and of course mocha Frappuccino’s. Yum!! Wesley loves my Frappuccino’s so I’m always catching him trying to sneak a sip when I’m not looking. Such a sneaky little fellow! We took our breakfast to a nearby beach park and enjoyed the sun and crashing waves.

We then headed to Makapu’u lighthouse trail to go on a ‘short’ hike. We weren’t exactly prepared for a hike as Marshall and I only had flip flops on and we only had a small cup of water for us to share between the four of us for what ended up being a 2.5 mile hike in the blistering heat and quite a bit of elevation gain. Definitely could have planned that better! The boys complained in the beginning that they were super thirsty and the sun was so hot they were going to burn to dust. Oh good lord! Tyson’s job was to ration the water so we could all survive the hike. They had a big lesson in patience, perseverance, and appreciation for the basics. When we finally made it to the top, we could see whales jumping in the ocean and the amazing view made it all well worth it.

After the nice breezy downhill walk back we put the top down on the Mustang and cruised the shoreline. We stopped in Kailua to share an açaí bowl which was so delicious and a new family favorite we plan to seek out near home! We then headed back to our hotel to freshen up and get ready for dinner with our friends.

We rescheduled our Valentine’s double date to the next day and fortunately they had their babysitter already lined up. After dropping the kids off at the sitter, Bethany and Chris hopped in our mustang and we headed to Haleiwa Joe’s in Kaneohe for dinner. We walked to the back of the ginormous line but Marshall walked straight to the front to ask how long the wait was. They said 2 hours! He noticed a group of 4 leaving a table in the bar and asked if we could snag that table while we waited for our table in the restaurant. The lady said technically we should be waiting in line even for the bar and Marshall was like “we are standing in line”. She laughed and said we could take the table. Gosh, my husband is a genius! We enjoyed drinks and great conversation in the bar and then moved to our table that had a gorgeous view of a lake with a serene jungle surrounding.  The food and the drinks were on point, but the company was even better.

We woke up energized and excited for our last day of adventure. Of course, we just had to go to Egghead Café for breakfast one last time. It’s so stinkin’ good! This time there was actually a table available for us to eat inside. Yay! So much better than eating in our laps in the car. We then headed to Kailua to a bike rental shop called Pedego. I was super excited to rent electric tandem bikes. I’ve always thought they were so cool and this is the perfect time with the boys being still young enough to think it’s cool to ride on the back of a bike with mom and dad. Wesley rode with me and Tyson rode with Marshall. They couldn’t quite reach the pedals so they rested their feet on the middle bar. Whenever we twisted the throttle to go super fast, the boys would squeal with excitement! We rode along Kailua beach and then over to Lanikai beach which both have the most beautiful turquoise blue water.  On our way back, Tyson hopped on the back of my bike and Wesley got on Marshall’s. Marshall thought it would be fun to go off-roading onto the sand. For some crazy reason, I followed behind him and then quickly lost control. Tyson and I flew off the side of the bike onto the sand. Luckily we didn’t get hurt but I might think twice before trying to ride bikes on sand again.

We parked our bikes at the Kailua farmers market and strolled around for a few minutes before returning the bikes. We walked down the street to Nalu Health Bar for lunch. They have delicious salads and sandwiches and of course açaí bowls. Tyson and I are officially obsessed with açaí bowls!

We wanted to get a little more beach time in so we drove to Lanikai beach to chill for awhile. A local boy around the boys’ age with long wavy blonde hair immediately approached the boys and asked if he could build sandcastles with them. The boys gave him a nod and they each grabbed a shovel and started digging away. Tyson and Wesley ended up burying the boy in the sand, lol.

It was getting late in the afternoon and the boys really wanted to go down the water slide at our hotel one last time before the slide closed at 5pm. So we headed back and got our swimsuits on. Unfortunately it started to rain just as we got to the pool, but the boys didn’t care so Marshall and I sat under umbrellas while we watched the boys go down the slide. Luckily in Hawaii it’s still super warm out even when it’s raining!

I had made dinner reservations that night at Tiki Grill and Bar on Kuhio Beach. When we arrived, they sat us at the table with the best view of the beach. Awww yeah! The band was setting up to play some live music for us. Even better! I expected them to play some soft Hawaiian music, but instead they busted out some 90’s alternative music which were totally diggin’! The boys threw some dollar bills in the tip jar to start the trend. Shortly after sunset we made our way back to our hotel to get a good night sleep before flying out at the butt crack of dawn.

We were all thankful that we were able to escape the snowstorm back home and enjoy some warm sunshine for a week. Hawaii is always a fun place to vacay!

The following morning, we were excited for another full day of adventure! We headed over to the sea aquarium that is right on the oceanfront which makes for a great backdrop. As we walked toward the line to get in, we caught a sneak peak of a sea lion show. The boys got a kick out of all the cool tricks they were doing. There happened to be a dolphin show shortly after, so we made our way to the stadium seating that was facing the ocean. This was the most impressive dolphin show I’ve ever seen! Not that I’ve seen many, haha. This was the boys’ first! One of them jumped up into the air with a guy balanced on his nose. A dolphin, not one of the boys. So cool! After the show we found an old boat that was a viewing exhibit for the ginormous fish below. There were glass floors all around the bottom of the boat. The huge fish were swimming all around us! 
 
Once we had explored all the exhibits, we headed a short drive away to Mambo Beach for lunch. We snagged some chairs on the beach and scarfed down our lunch as Tyson was very eager to get in the water ASAP. Marshall jumped in with him and they had a blast body surfing in the waves. Meanwhile Wesley and I had fun building sandcastles and of course crushing them.
 
We continued our adventure to Hato Cave which is over 300,000 years old and is the biggest cave on the island. Luckily, we got there right before the next tour was starting. The tour was 45-minutes long and the guide spoke in both English and Dutch.  It started with walking up 49 steps to the entrance of the cave (Tyson counted every one). As we entered inside, we immediately saw lots of bats hanging from the ceiling. It was slightly creepy, but the boys thought it was super cool. We also saw lots of stalagmite and stalactite formations which were fascinating to see and learn more about.
 
When the tour ended it was time to get back to our hotel to change and get ready for dinner. We walked nearly a mile to a restaurant called Mundo Bizzaro that was located in a random residential neighborhood. The place had lots of character and interesting décor. The couches on the front patio were so worn that they looked like an angry tiger had gotten ahold of them. Maybe that’s the look they were going for? Haha! Across the street was a rundown apartment complex with barbed wire strung all around its walls but strangely not the front gate to get in (clearly didn’t think that one through!) Marshall ordered butter balls which was like a fried meatball but the meat inside was gooey. Looked absolutely disgusting but Marshall said it was pretty descent. The boys love playing cards while we wait for our dinner at restaurants, so we busted out crazy 8s and then played a few rounds of telephone. We all had a great laugh at how botched the stories got by the end of the telephone line.
 

​It was a super rainy winter here in Seattle (so unusual right?) and we were all desperately in need of some serious sun! After a little research and a quick chat with the fam, we landed on a trip to the sunny islands of Aruba and Curacao in the Caribbean! Awww yeah!! The islands are only a twenty-minute flight apart so we figured if we’re flying all the way out to the Caribbean, we might as well hit up two different islands while we’re there.
 
On the night of our departure, we hopped on a red eye to Fort Lauderdale that arrived around 6:30am. Tyson, Wesley and I slept a good chunk of the flight but poor Marshall only nodded off for maybe 20 minutes. We had a two-hour layover which gave us plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast at a café. We thought our connecting flight was in the same terminal but when we checked the screen after breakfast, our flight was nowhere to be found! We panicked thinking we had the wrong flight information (definitely wouldn’t be the first time I screwed something up). After asking around we realized we were in the wrong terminal and had to walk with our luggage a quarter mile outside the airport in the muggy Florida heat to the correct terminal. Thank God we got to our gate just in time for boarding! Phew!
 
After a two and a half hour flight, we arrived to the gorgeous island of Aruba! Bring on the sun, baby! We were hoping to quickly bust through customs and head to our condo rental, but apparently a zillion flights arrived in this tiny airport at same time and the customs line was like 45 mins long. Oh come on! We even tried to play the “but we have young kids” card but they didn’t fall for it and still made us stand in that crazy long line. Grrrr! Eventually we made it through and took a quick 15-minute taxi ride to our condo called Tropical Digs.
 
As soon as we arrived at the condo, the boys wanted to get their swimsuits on ASAP and go straight to the pool! Luckily our condo came with all the amenities of the resort next door called Divi Village Golf & Beach Resort, including a huge infinity pool and a giant blue water slide that the boys couldn’t wait to try out. Tyson went down right away but Wesley was a little apprehensive and would only go down on Marshall’s lap at first. But after going down a couple times he was brave enough to go by himself. And after about 50 times, he was going down backwards and headfirst! At one point another little boy let the boys borrow his round floaty and they were flying down the slide together. It was fun watching Wesley conquer his fear and have the time of his life!
 
After a few hours playing at the pool, the sun was about to set so we headed across the street to Eagle Beach to watch the colorful sunset. We strolled up and down beach to scope out the various restaurants and landed on Beach Bar (No better name, right?!). Tyson and I had a Pokémon battle at our patio table while Marshall and Wesley played in the sand next to the table. The wind was a bit gusty at times and the Pokémon cards started flying everywhere, turning the game into 52 card pick up pretty quickly. I suppose that was our que to put the cards away and focus on our dinner. Once our tummy’s reached capacity with our delicious burgers and hot dogs, we all realized we were exhausted from the long travel day and headed back to our room to hit the hay early.
 
The next morning, we were ready for an adventurous day of exploring the island! The best way we found to do that was by UTV – a four person dune buggy. We picked up our UTV and drove straight to a coffee shop I had researched that was known to have amazing blended coffee drinks, simply called Coffee House (Aruba sure knows how to name things). It was a cutely decorated shop with a European feel and eclectic choice of furniture. We each ordered a delicious blended drink. I had a caramel Frappuccino, Marshall had java chip, Tyson had cookies and cream and Wesley had dark chocolate chip – no coffee in them, of course. But the boys’ drinks did come with whipped cream and sprinkles on top. Yum!
 
We jumped back in our UTV and stumbled upon a beach where kite surfers were training and had to stop to watch them. We all had our swimsuits on already except Marshall for some odd reason.  Since there was no public restroom, Marshall had no choice but to change in the “car”. The UTV didn’t have any windows and there were tourists walking all around us. I had a bright idea to drape up a towel on one side of the car to shield him. Clearly that was pointless since anyone could have just walked around the other side and had a nice little peep show. Anyway, as we were walking to the beach it started raining really hard out of nowhere. Noooooo! We looked around for shelter and only found one random beach chair under a palm tree that we all snuggled under with towels over our heads. I’m sure we looked like lunatics to the locals, but oh well. We enjoyed taking turns telling knock knock jokes to entertain the boys until the rain let up.
 
When we had a chance, we ran back to the UTV to try to beat the rain, but it started to rain again just as we started driving. And unfortunately, the UTV also didn’t have a front windshield to block the rain! Seriously, who the heck designs a vehicle without a windshield?  We had to somehow shield ourselves, so Marshall put on his sunglasses and held his t-shirt up over the bottom half of his face while the kids snuggled up nice and comfy under their towels in the back seat. I just so happened to bring a jacket, yes in 85-degree weather, which clearly was a smart choice in that moment. I draped it over my head and face as I had to protect my makeup from smearing and my hair from turning into a giant frizzball. Priorities!
 
Luckily, the rain let up and we made our way to the farthest east point on the island where there was a beautiful white lighthouse. We walked up 117 steep, windy stairs all the way to the very top to check out the views. Although it was super windy, there were gorgeous views of the ocean which made it worth the crazy wind struck hair. On the way down I started filming the boys climbing down the staircase and that’s when all of a sudden Wesley lost his grip and tripped down a few stairs. Our poor boy was crying hysterically the rest of the way down. As we exited the lighthouse there was a brightly colored party bus jamming out to “who let the dogs out” which made a great distraction. Thankfully Wesley forgot all about those mean stairs and was ready to continue our adventure.
 
We were all hungry for lunch and headed to a nearby beach that had a little food stand where we ordered chicken skewers to nibble on. While we were waiting for our order number to called, the boys started climbing on a little wooden boat that was part of the restaurant’s decor. There was black goo (poop of some kind, no doubt) splattered on the boat that Wesley’s hands magically found. YUCK! There happened to be an outdoor shower nearby so we ran over to it, only to be stopped by a random lady sitting next to it collecting money. She was charging people $1 to rinse off sand from the beach!!! We didn’t have a dollar on us, so I asked if Wesley could just rinse his poopy hands and she said that was okay. Good thing!
 
We brought our lunch down to the beach and claimed a couple of beach chairs. Wesley and I enjoyed building sandcastles while Tyson and Marshall had a blast body surfing. We were all having so much fun that we totally lost track of time. We realized that we needed to return our UTV in a few hours and we were still on the complete opposite side of the island from the rental place. Whoops! We pulled out our GPS and found a road that looked like it would get us back to town at a decent time. We quickly realized was that it was a rocky dirt road full of massive potholes along the north, extremely windy side of the island that isn’t developed AT ALL.
 
Perfect for off-roading! Yeehaw! Marshall was going crazy cruising around on the windy and super bumpy terrain. The boys were squealing in back seat with excitement and threw their hands up in the air like they were on a roller coaster. We passed by several cliffside private beaches and a super rocky area next the ocean where there were a ton of stacked rocks everywhere. So awesome!
 
After we had been driving along this dirt road for nearly an hour, we looked at our GPS and the dot had barely moved. Clearly this road was not going to get us back to town in time so we searched on our map to find a nearby paved road that got us back much quicker. Thank goodness! We actually got back a little early and had time to stop in downtown Oranjestad for an ice cream treat for the boys. Woohoo! The quaint town had some beautiful old buildings and while we were strolling around, we found our Aruba Christmas ornament. As you know, we get an ornament for every country we travel to so we can reminisce each Christmas about all our adventures and great memories we’ve made as a family.
 
After returning our UTV, we headed back to the hotel and asked the boys what they wanted to do next. Guess what…we went straight to the pool! The boys were so excited to go down the waterslide again. We had bought these cheap little blow-up tubes in town after the little boy had let Tyson and Wesley borrow his the day before. They were having so much fun trying all different positions to go down (backwards, head first, train, etc.) I swear they went down like 100 times before we finally said it was time for dinner. This slide was seriously the highlight of the whole trip for them.
 
That evening we hopped on a shuttle to nearby hotel called Casa Del Mar for dinner right on the beach. The boys enjoyed playing in sand while we waited for our dinner to arrive. At one point I looked over and didn’t see Wesley anywhere! I panicked for a second and started searching all around the beach for him. I finally found him quite a way down the beach where he was checking out a big hole another kid had dug in the sand. Phew! Nothing like an experience like that to remind you to never keep your eyes off these kids! At that point it was time to eat so we reeled the boys back to the table where we enjoyed a lovely dinner while gazing out at the sunset before heading back and getting some well-deserved rest.
 
The following day was our last full day in Aruba. I had found a breakfast café called Dutch Pancake House that served crepes which the boys are completely obsessed with. The boys ordered a Nutella crepe with strawberries and bananas and I ordered a peach crepe with Gran Marnier sauce. The crepes were ginormous and mine even came with the sauce on fire! So cool!
 
After our scrumptious breakfast we walked a few minutes down the road to a hotel called Renaissance. I had planned a fun day trip to a gorgeous private island that is owned by that hotel. There’s an indoor canal that you wait by for a boat to come through a tunnel to pick you up! When the boat arrived, I couldn’t find my email confirmation and the boat driver would not let us on the boat unless he could see it. Dang it! We had to go to front desk to have them resend me the email confirmation and then wait for the next boat which thankfully came every 15 minutes.
 
After a short 8-minute ride, we arrived at the private island and it was obvious there were two distinct sides; one for adults and one for families. The adult side has a beautiful secluded beach with gorgeous pink flamingos walking around freely and several over water cabanas for rent. It’s designed to be a romantic beach for lovers, so kids are only allowed to be on that side of the island from 9-10am each day. The boys were excited to see the flamingos and feed them! We grabbed some bird food and followed the flamingos around in the water to try to get them to come close to us. They didn’t seem very hungry (or didn’t enjoy being chased around), so the boys just fed some other pigeon-like birds instead. Regardless, we got some great shots with the flamingos in the stunning turquois blue water! This is definitely a must-see place in Aruba!
 
When our hour was up, we strolled along a sandy trail to the family friendly side of the island where we snagged a few beach chairs right in front of the water and the boys immediately grabbed their beach toys and started digging. Tyson and Marshall dug a ginormous hole that went below the water table which Tyson was super proud of. Meanwhile, I built lots of sandcastles and Wesley enjoyed stomping on each one. Haha!
 
There were free kayaks to rent and I thought it would be fun to take each boy out for a ride around the island. Wesley and I went out first and as soon as we paddled out it started to pour down rain. Go figure! We made our way to an over water cabana and hid under the dock until the rain let up. Luckily in Aruba the weather is bipolar, it pours down rain one minute and then it’s sunny and beautiful the next. We paddled near some mangroves to check out tons of pelicans in the trees and then headed back to the beach to let Wesley off. Tyson then hopped on and we pretty much did the same loop again.  I was surprised how sore my arms were after paddling the boys around for an hour. Definitely a great workout!
 
We were all getting hungry and when we ordered lunch our server told us our tickets came with lunch and an exotic cocktail. Score! We ordered some pizzas and salads along with some interesting drinks with cantaloupe juice in it. The boys even got fruit punch served in a fancy pink flamingo floaty cup. So fun!
 
After wrapping up lunch, the boys were ready to head back to our condo so they could…you guessed it, go down the water slide again. Right now these boys have a one-track mind! You’d think they’d get burnt out of doing the same thing over and over….and over. But nope!
 
We got all cleaned up for dinner and grabbed a taxi from the hotel lobby. I had read about the most photographed tree in Aruba called the Divi Divi tree and had to see what the hype was all about. We asked our taxi driver to stop at the tree on the way to dinner to take a picture. The taxi driver pointed to a tree by the beach so we ran over to it and snapped a few pictures. On the way back to the taxi I noticed several people taking pictures of a tree right next to the one we just took pictures of. Shoot, I think we took pictures of the wrong tree! Oh well, it still looks cool and nobody will know the difference (except you guys now that I just told you). Turns out, a lot of trees look the exact same along the water…we for sure looked like dumb tourist to our driver!
 
I had researched interesting restaurants to check out in the area and came across Wacky Wahoo’s. The first thing I noticed when we walked in was all the hilarious signs hanging around the room. My favorite was “BOOBS – the proof men can focus on two things at once.” Haha! The restaurant was completely booked with reservations for the evening, but they said we could wait at the bar and they’d seat us if a reservation didn’t show up. Tyson and Wesley grabbed a couple of barstools and we ordered some drinks while we waited. Apparently kids are allowed to sit at the bar in Aruba!? After about 15 minutes, a table was ready for us. Marshall ordered their famous barracuda dish and I ordered a chicken dish that I shared with the boys. I know you are all just so shocked at my dinner choice! The food was delicious but we made sure so save room for their yummy chocolate brownie for dessert! 
 
After returning to our hotel, the boys wanted to take a jetted bath in our room. We filled up the bath water just barely over the jets and then turned them on. After a really loud rumbling noise, the water started spraying EVERYWHERE! Wesley screamed and immediately jumped out of the bath while Tyson was just busting up laughing and enjoying the sprayfest. We quickly turned the jets off and filled up the tub with a whole lot more water. Then Tyson had a nice relaxing jetted bath all to himself while Wesley snuggled with us in bed before we all went to sleep.
 
The following morning, we went to a cute little nearby café for breakfast called The Coffee Table. Man, Aruba really has some creative restaurant names! We sat at, yup – a coffee table – and ordered a healthy breakfast and sweetened it up with some yummy drinks. The boys sipped on hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles and I had a caramel blended coffee drink. Yum!
 
We were hoping to take the boys rock climbing by the beach after breakfast, but apparently kids need to be over 8 years old. Bummer! I guess playing on the beach instead isn’t such a bad tradeoff. It was nice getting in a little more beach time in before packing up and heading to the airport.
 
Aruba is an awesome place for a family vacation with plenty of great beaches, restaurants and entertainment! We’d highly recommend it if you’re headed to the Caribbean.
 
Next stop: Curacao!