After Rome, we boarded the Celebrity Galaxy cruise ship for a 14 day cruise back to the good 'ol US of A. After settling in to our little, tiny inside stateroom. We took a long nap and got ready to pig out for 14 days and have some fun. Our first stop was Malaga, Spain. This was a pretty city with a lot of history.

We wanted to go see a bull fight, but none were happening on that day. The arena was huge, though.

We got to meet a lot of cool people on our cruise. Our first friends that we made were Fred and Stephanie. They're from Galveston, Texas. We had a lot of fun with them our first port day in Malaga.

We spent the next day or so at sea just cruising to our next destination port, Madiera, Funchal, Portugal. Madeira was a fun little city on the island of Funchal. In Madeira, we took Fred and Stephanie's advice and rented a car so that we could drive around the island. It was a pretty small island with many waterfalls and beautiful cliffs.

There was a big group of us that caravanned around the island and saw the many sites.

On the southwest tip of the island, there were some wading pools that we visited. At first we thought that they were hotsprings, and everyone was excited to go. But when we got there, we found out that they were only salt water pools that the natives liked to go to. COLD!!! This was also the first day that we hung out with our other new set of friends, Jonny and Jenny Lee.

After returning the car and getting back to the ship, we all met up in our room and had afternoon tea. On a little side note, Amanda and I went down on the sea day and decided to try our luck at bingo. Can you believe it? We won! And not just some measly little hundred dollar prize, we won an upgrade to a Sky Suite, fully loaded with a jacuzzi tub, a huge private patio, and a butler named Ivo. Aren't we the luckiest?

They are the coolest! They were there for a wedding anniversary, and they actually met each other working on another Celebrity cruise ship! We basically spent the rest of the cruise joined at the hip!

Our sea days were so fun! Who would have ever thought that you could keep so occupied on a little ship for six days straight! Trivia, bingo, pictionary, and battle of the sexes!

Jonny and I would spend our time beating up on the old people in ping pong and shuffle board. We stopped counting how many prizes we had won!

The nights were filled with eating and partying, with side trips to the casino to try our hand at a little black jack.

Formal nights were the best because it meant Karaoke!

Rome, what a place! Luckily, after getting a crazy, law breaking, road raged shuttle driver, we got to our hotel in one piece. We walked around the city and went down to the Coliseum while we waited to check into our room. Taking a tour around the ancient Rome was very helpful in putting a little history into what we were seeing. There were men dressed up in Roman Soldier outfits for people to take pictures with. There were soooo many tourists.


After a little nap in the afternoon, it was off to St. Peter's Cathedral. It was so big inside, it was gorgeous. The ceilings were all vaulted and there were statues of all of the previous Popes throughout the inside.

The marble and the sculptures were magnificent. One of my favorites was Mary holding the crucified Christ in her arms. We listened to a little bit of a service (it was in Italian, so we couldn't understand any of it) and we looked around some more. Unfortunately it was Sunday, so the Museum where the Sistine Chapel was, was not open.

We went instead to the Spanish Steps which was packed with people. It was so fun to be around so many people in the streets and parks.

We made a stop at the Pantheon and sat at a fountain watching all of the people, and ate a little pasta for dinner.

By then it was dark out and we made out way to the Trevi Fountain. It was so beautiful at night with all of the water lit up. It was a lot larger than expected and was beautiful in our pictures. After having a couple helpings of Gelato, we decided to head back to the hotel. We walked all over the city, and when we saw a beautiful building we would stop and take pictures. There were many more than we had thought. The Roman's sure do know how to build a building. The next morning we made our way to the Bus Terminal to meet our bus for the cruise. We had a little pizza, how could you not when you're in Italy, and were on our way. Europe came and went a little too quickly and oh how beautiful it was. We will definitely have to do it again.

We arrived in Athens quite late and were greeted by President and Sister Ludwig, Shauna's parents. They are serving as mission presidents there in Athens. We went straight to the mission home which was a beautiful three story house with lots of marble, wood floors, and beautiful decorations. The next morning we slept in a bit, and woke up to a pancake breakfast prepared by Sister Ludwig.

Hey everyone! Mike and I are having a blast touring Europe. We started out touring the Normandy beaches where all of the D-Day events occurred. It was amazing to see where so many people died for freedom. It seemed unreal. There were bunkers still intact up from the beaches. Some were noticeably bombed. We explored the bunkers and were amazed by all of the people’s names on the monuments who died there. There were craters everywhere in the ground from where the bunkers were bombed. It was amazing.


Next on the list was Mont St. Michel. It is this huge cathedral that was for monks. The church is at the top of this big island/rock. All the way up to the cathedral was uphill with lots of steps. There were tons of little restaurants and shops all of the way up that were probably where people lived back when Mont St Michel was populated like a little village. After our tour of Mont St Michel we started the drive to Paris.




Paris was exciting. There were tons of people and everyone was in with the fashion....shoes....scarves....jackets and blazers. All of the girls were so pretty and thin. It seems hard to believe with all of the pastries! The buildings were spectacular. Huge buildings made so long ago. It is amazing they were capable of such buildings in a time that they didn’t have the machines that we have today. It took 200 years to build Notre Dame. Mike and I did a lot of walking. I learned after the first day to wear tennis shoes and even then my feet were sore and tired by the end of the day.



We met up with Mike's old mission companions Marc, and his wife Suzie, and son Nathan. We joined their friends for a dinner to celebrate a birthday. It was fun to sit and visit and get to know people in France. They are not rude like people say they are. French people are actually very polite and friendly. They all tried to speak English so that I could understand. And when they couldn't Mike would translate. By the end of the night, it was as if we had known them for months. It was sad to say goodbye.

Paris is so enormous and when we went up in the Eiffel Tower the city extended as far as the eye could see. France is definitely a place that is worth coming to again.