Venice Stole my Heart - Part I

Here we go. The Europe Diaries. Part 1 of… I’m not sure…

The first stop on Mom and my European adventure was Venice. We flew out of Chicago around 6 pm on August 11^th, set to arrive in Venice around 3pm the next afternoon. The time change thing was weird… but not as weird as I thought it would be. I was surprised at how… normal I felt. I discovered that my body adapted to the time change because of my surroundings. My watch said 3pm when we landed, so 3pm is how I felt, even though it was really only 9am my time (and little monsters prevented adequate sleep on the plane overseas). 24 hours of traveling later, we were there, and we had the silliest grins on our face when we finally sat down and toasted our arrival.

Disclaimer: I do NOT remember every single restaurant we ate in… I wish I did, but I just don’t, sooo sorry.

Day 1

Besides proceeding to shriek every 5 seconds that we realized we’re in this gorgeous foreign land, we took 10,000 + steps worth of exploring, ate dinner at a quaint restaurant off the beaten path, and finished the day off in Piazza San Marco people watching, drinking Prosecco and daydreaming about the rest of our trip.

Day 2

We woke up bright and early (sans jet lag) to catch a water taxi to the island of Murano, known for the Murano glass factory that we were able to tour as a complimentary gift from our hotel (I’m guessing everyone gets this…), followed by a tour of the factory. Once we were back in Venice, we were STARVING and ready for some Prosecco, which we promptly realized we could buy from street vendors by the mini bottles for between 3 and 4 Euro (this in itself was an amazing discovery). Next up… PIZZA! We sought out a fairly priced restaurant where we could enjoy some bruschetta pizza and iced lemon tea (WARNING: bruschetta pizza in Italy simply means cheese pizza… we learned this the hard way). Once we refueled, we explored more in the one mile radius around our hotel, bought a selfie stick, broke the selfie stick, fixed the selfie stick, used the selfie stick, then ventured off to explore the Castello district of the Venice. We didn’t get very far before we realized we were not only lost, but we had lost sight of any and all tourists and appeared to be in the locals district. Not much to do there, so we moseyed back towards familiar territory for dinner, more wine, more shopping and a little FaceTime session with Courtney in the Square before finishing the night off with gelato (pistachio and Nutella… nom nom!). 

Instagram Life – August 2015

August 2015 was a life changing month. Europe was the most unbelievable experience. I'm changed. Not a noticeable change, but a change I can feel. I like it! Europe aside, August was a big month! Family friends opened a brewery by Grand Valley’s campus, a bestie was showered with baby love, and another lucky bachelorette was toasted on her pending nuptials. August will definitely go down in the books!

** Spent as many afternoon’s as I could working on the patio at GFS

** Trail Point is now officially open for business!

** Can’t wait for Baby Hopping to make their debut!!

** Live music during “Cocktail Hour” at the Downtown Market

** Never a dull culinary moment in Max’s kitchen

** The birds in Venice are no joke

** The Eiffel Tower light show from the second level is breathtaking

** Barcelona beaches are spectacular

** Sparkles to celebrate a job well done Bachelorette weekend

For me, September is the best of two worlds.... Summer weather & Football season! The Michigan State season opener was last Friday and the excitement and joy I got from tailgating in the warm sunshine is indescribable. October is booked solid, but September is a slight break from the busy schedule that always seems to pop up every Fall! This month I look forward to enjoying some much needed nesting time at home (with a wedding, food show and ArtPrize thrown in for good measure!). 

Friday Five!

{game day shoes}

________________________________

Is it just me, or did this week ZOOOM?! I can’t believe that I’ve already been back in the US for over a week. Europe feels like a lifetime ago, but then it feels like I should still be there at the same time. I’ve felt a bit restless this week and I can’t quite put my finger on why… Maybe the long weekend will help! 

Tonight is the Michigan State opener in my hometown of Kalamazoo and we got tickets. I can’t wait to kick off the holiday weekend with Spartan Nation. 

Friday Forte:

{hydrangea’s bloomed while I was gone!}

{theeee best fried rice I’ve ever had}

{summer lake weekends are the best weekends}

{more than a little obsessed with these pineapple chips}

#MegAndMomTakeEurope – Blooper Edition

This post is later than I had hoped. The truth is I’ve had a hard time coming up with the words to a start my post series on Europe. It blew every single hope… expectation… dream… everything I could have imagined.

So, because of that, I am delaying the first official Europe post a little longer. I just need more time. Even if the posts aren’t eloquent, I’ve just got a huge case of writers block at the moment… so in the meantime, here are some outtakes, bloopers, selfies, or all around randomness,  of our travels that I might not have included in the series otherwise…

Enjoy!

{my final farewell to Max from the States}

{selfie stick helper that insisted we take a selfie... plus the umbrella's... EVERYWHERE}

[graffiti found all over Venice}

{another selfie stick helper that wanted to take a selfie}

{sissy facetime sesh from Piazza San Marco}

{decided one morning to wear all of the bling}

{attempting the fancy look-off-in-the-distance-face while taking a selfie... it didn't work}

{mom saw someone artistic taking pictures of the trash... so she tried being artistic}

{fancy cat portraits.... everywhere}

{we shared popcorn & made friends}

{our Grand Canal tour driver who let me drive the boat but it was not documented...tear}

{mom's buddies}

{blurry jumping for joy our first 10 minutes in Paris}

{another local who wanted to take a selfie after letting them take a picture for us...}

{after visiting the home of Marie Antoinette, we now want to study everything about her}

{mom was sooooo afraid I was going to fall while looking over the pier in Barcelona}

{Aussies that were a little too friendly...}

That's all folks. Stay tuned for the good stuff!!