The One With The European Honeymoon

When catching up with people this past summer a lot of the time we were asked how our honeymoon was. Our response: "Great!" It was a 2 week vacation with stops in 6 different cities- so we couldn’t go into too much detail and we usually just left it at ‘Great’. Well, with a blog, I can now tell/type as much as I like and you can read whatever you want. So here goes the story of our honeymoon….

A quick background: We flew into Paris and stayed 2 nights. Then we took the train to Nice for a couple of days and then headed to Monaco/Monte Carlo for one night. After that, we left France and took another train to Monterosso, Italy- which is one of the 5 coastal cities of Cinque Terre. After a few nights stay, we were off to our final destination, Florence, where we stayed for our last couple of nights. While staying in Florence, we did sneak in one last city with a day trip to Rome.

As you can imagine, we have tons of stories and pictures to share, however, we thought it would be best to highlight our favorite things and stories and share a view words of wisdom when traveling in Europe.

Favorite Dessert: Crème Brulee Waffle at restaurant Bouillon Racine in Paris. Seriously. Amazing. We’re usually huge fans of chocolate anything- but this dessert was incredible.

Favorite Wine Bar: Enoteca da Eliseo, in Piazza Matteotti in Monterroso, Italy. We loved coming here in the evenings before dinner (and sometimes before lunch!) to have a glass of their house red wine which was served with peanuts, capers and THE best olives.

Favorite Pasta: Pear and Gorgonzola Cheese Ravioli in Monterosso. Sounds bizarre, but it was so good that we went back the next day to have the ravioli for lunch as well! I can’t remember the name of the small restaurant, but it was down the alley in the picture below.

Favorite Hotel View: La Spiaggia Hotel in Monterosso. No explanation needed- just view photos below:

Favorite Memory Overall: Hiking the 5 cities of Cinque Terre. The cities are all located on the Italian coast overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The trails have incredible views, each city is unique and fun to explore, AND with the hike being 5 hours long, it was a great way to work off all the wine and food we had consumed so far!

Best Spot To Leave Your "Mark": On the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. The Ponte Vecchio is the oldest bridge in Florence that’s lined with jewelry shops and in the middle of the bridge is a statue with a gate around it. The legend is that you and a loved one should attach a lock to the gate and throw the keys away in the river- forever “locking” your love to the bridge. Well, it’s actually illegal now to place locks on the bridge, so we had to be sneaky about “locking” our love- see pictures below:Most Random “Character”: Security guy at Frankfurt Airport. Our 2nd flight home was on an US Airways plane leaving from Frankfurt and heading to Philadelphia. When we reached our flight’s gate we were greeted by a security guy who looked kind of like Al Pachino, but totally acted like the dad from ‘Meet the Fockers’. These were only SOME his questions for us:

- Hello, my name is Pierre Something, have you been inspected for customs? No? Allow me….

- Where are you coming from? (Answer- Florence)
- What was the temperature in Florence- colder/warmer than here? (Brad says warmer, Lindsey says colder at the same time- oops, strike one)
- Where did you pack your bags this morning? (In our hotel)
- Who packed your bags this morning? (We both did)
- Did I tell you my name? (Yes)
- Has anyone approached you and asked you to carry something aboard? (No)
- No one gave you a cell phone or other electronic device to carry? (No)
- Do all the items that you are carrying belong to you? (Yes)
- You sure? (Yes)

At this point we began to wonder if we looked like terrorists to him, but once we were finished and through security, we saw the same guy grilling an elderly couple. I think it’s safe to say he takes his job seriously.

Words of Wisdom: Pack Light. Seriously. Even if you’re going to a high fashion place like Paris or the French Riviera- pack as little as you possible can. We had 3 rolling suitcases (1 large, 1 medium and 1 small carry-on), a duffle bag filled with shoes (I’m not kidding), a garment bag, plus Brad had a backpack and I had my purse. So basically, we were traveling with 7 (SEVEN!) pieces of luggage. Now imagine having to walk to a train station (on uneven and sometimes unpaved roads) and load, store and unload all those pieces of luggage onto/off of a train. It’s exhausting and your husband will not be happy when he has to carry all the heavy bags. And even if you take a taxi, they charge you for every piece of luggage you have. My suggestion- take a backpack or good traveling purse and one large, rolling luggage. You’ll have to be creative when packing and planning outfits, but you’ll have a better trip when you travel with fewer bags.

That was our honeymoon- in a nutshell. We took about a million pictures (okay, more like a thousand), but instead of posting them all, I've created a slide show below of some of our favorites. Enjoy!

The One With The Honeymoon Pictures

The One Where We Play Catch Up

October has surprisingly turned into a busy month for us, so I’m just going to try and list all our most recent activities in this one post. Here goes….

We celebrated Chelsea’s birthday in the beginning of the month by going to a Brad Paisley concert in San Diego. And yes, we made her wear that birthday hat all night long!



The 2nd Friday of every month is dedicated to Supper Club. This idea was suggested by our friend Chelsea and its where a group of us gets together once a month for a potluck dinner. For October, Brad and I were responsible for hosting the dinner at our house and providing the main dish. Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of the group or food, but I did get a picture of our dining table being set for its first dinner party.


Also in October, was Alex’s bridal shower which was hosted by her sisters at her childhood home. Alex looked adorable of course and the table setting was just as cute! November 20 is her big day and we can’t wait!



Another big event this month- a new car! In an attempt to be responsible adults, we traded the very fun and fast (yet gas guzzling) GT Mustang for a sporty, easy-on-our-wallets Mini Cooper S. We’re hoping this turns out to be a wise decision, but at the moment, Brad is still mourning the loss of his girlfriend- I mean- mustang.


Those are all the pictures I have to share, but there are a couple of other “honorable mentions”:

- We celebrated Scott’s (Brad’s brother) birthday on October 10th by visiting Kobey’s Swap Meet and having lunch in Little Italy at Mona Lisa. They have delicious and cheap lasagna! (Mona Lisa that is- not Kobey’s!)

- We also attended a party at Chelsea and Jeremy’s new house on October 18th where we celebrated both their birthdays and new home with family and friends.

That’s it for the start of October. Up next is Copper’s graduation from intermediate obedience school (tonight!) and Halloween! Stay tuned…

The One With The Awkward Run-In

As I headed to my car yesterday in the grocery store parking lot, I walked passed a man who was loading his groceries into his car and he turned, smiled and said hello to me. I said hello back and kept walking. It took me about 3 steps for me to suddenly realize that the man looked familiar. I turned around and sure enough the man was the manager of Chevys restaurant in Del Mar who hired me about 5 years ago! We said hello, had a quick chat and then parted ways. As I drove home, I thought about how funny it was to run into him and then I remembered a time when it was NOT so funny when I ran into another Chevy’s manager a couple of years ago.

I think it was about 2 years ago when Brad and I decided to try Ruth’s Chris for dinner one weekend. We had never been there before since we’re usually not steak people, but it was restaurant week in San Diego and we had a gift certificate- so we gave it a try.

As soon as we sat down at our table, a man walked by and said, “Hiya folks, I’ll be with you in just a minute!” My jaw dropped as I instantly recognized the southern accent of my last manager at Chevys. And yes, he was going to be our server for the night!

Now I know some people would LOVE the idea of having their former (or current) bosses serve them, but I actually liked this manager when I was at Chevys, so I was beyond mortified. My old boss, being the very loud and outgoing guy he is, just laughed and rolled with. However, it was still incredibly awkward for both Brad and I to be waited on by him all night.

In the end, the dinner went as best as it could- the food was actually really great and we drank THE best glass of Riesling wine. However, to this date, we still have not gone back to Ruth’s Chris. It could be because it’s not a cheap restaurant, but I’m guessing it’s because we don’t want to figure out how much to tip my old boss again.