Italia! - {Venice}

For our anniversary this year, we had been discussing a possible trip to Italy.  And because my husband loves me and spoils me, in April he booked our plane tickets and called and said "we leave in 1 month!"  So, we started planning a preparing to leave for a week away.  The time came and because I have the greatest mom on earth, she drove up, picked up my kids, and took them to Blanding to babysit while we were gone.  I happen to be making a wedding cake the day before we left, so my mom so graciously offered to take the kids down the day before to give me some peace and quiet to work my magic in the kitchen.  Can you say mom/grandma of the century?!  Ya, she's the best.  Anyhow, the cake got made, the bags got packed and Thursday morning we were off to the airport.  We had a 4 hour flight to NY, then flew from NY straight to Venice (I think that flight was about 9 hours).  We landed in Venice at 11 AM Italy time (which was 3 AM Utah time).  Needless to say we were exhausted.  We took a taxi to our hotel and even though we were super excited to explore Venice, we he had to take a little nap.  So we slept for a couple hours, then went exploring.  The advice I got most for Venice was "just get lost".  Luckily, that was not hard to do.
 
(Don't mind the guy on the boat checking out his abs)



That's about the happiest face I get from him in a picture :)





I got to enjoy my first gelato (of many!) sitting here, with this view... not too bad





It didn't seem like we could go to Venice without taking a gondola ride.  Our guy didn't sing to us, I was kinda disappointed about that lol









The first of many $5 cans of CocaCola light...






We didn't stay on the island, our hotel was actually over by the airport.  By the time we finally made it back to the hotel, we were exhausted.  It really is amazing to see this city surrounded by water.  Much bigger than I had imagined.  We only had a few hours there, I kinda wish we would have had a little longer.  Maybe just a few more hours to explore.  Nonetheless, Venice was awesome.  Next stop... Florence!  (which was an adventure to try and drive to in our tiny little European car on the autostrada where everyone drives really fast in their little miniature cars!)