Thursday, January 6, 2011

Christmas in Rome

this year we got to spend christmas in ROME!! jonathan was able to get a 4 day weekend, so we left on the evening of the 23rd, and returned on the 27th! we had the most amazing time!


it didn't start out so amazing however.... i will spare you all the details and emotions and just tell you that when i took the picture below it was nearly 11pm, we didn't have our luggage, jonathan wasn't with us, and these two were about 5 min from meltdown.


to keep a long story short, we went out the wrong exit and ended up on the wrong side of security without our bags, jonathan went to go find them (it took FOREVER)... they lost our stroller, and both kids fell asleep on me while i was standing up (holding adam and blake leaning on me trying not to fall off the cart).


we then took a cab to our hotel because the trains weren't running anymore---it was nearly 1:30 by this time. luckily we had the most amazing hotel room, and i was able to forget all my problems! :)

DAY 1 Christmas Eve-

we got a hop on/hop off bus tour for the 3 days we were there to use as our transportation. so the first day we just stayed on the whole time and saw the sights from the bus.



Santa Maria Maggiore


Palantine Hill- one of the most ancient parts of the city


national monument of Victor Emmanuel II- the first kind of a unified Italy (we walked through it a couple days later)

we saw a lot more that day, but it was raining, and we went back to lots of places.... so the pictures are below! for our christmas eve dinner we had pizza and pasta- SO yummy!

Day 2 Christmas Day-


we went to St. Peter's Square in Vatican City to hear the Pope give his Christmas message (in several languages!) it was an amazing sight, st. peters is beautiful, there were tons and tons of people, and the sun even peaked out!



the boys in front of St. Peters


Pope Benedict XVI (this is actually the second time we've seen him, he made a visit to London earlier this year!)


this was a common occurrence on the bus, i was determined to see Rome no matter how wet we got, the umbrella actually worked really well!



of course snacks were a must to keep the boys happy (all 3 of them)



here we are at the Spanish Steps



the Trevi Fountain- seriously amazing and beautiful!



our first Gelato.... in the rain.... at the Trevi Fountain


Christmas dinner was more pizza!

Day 3-

the sun finally came out and it was a gorgeous day!


THE COLOSSEUM!!!!


arch of constantine


my little gladiators



so so so happy!


more pizza... what can i say- 'when in rome!'


the Pantheon... again, amazing!


a little ticked that half of it had scaffolding, but still very cool!


more gelato... this kind was my favorite, it was mint


drinking fountain, we were having lots of fun with this.....

we had such a great time, Rome is such an amazing city. i took over 300 pictures, so it was REALLY hard to narrow it down (if you want to see more some of them are on Facebook), but we saw TONS more things... these were just a few of the highlights.

8 comments:

Pa said...

Love the pictures,love all you guys too.

Bryn said...

So so SO cool!!! I'm glad y'all were able to go.

Vashti said...

What an adventure!! I am glad the trip still went well with how crappy it started out!

Sarah said...

Wow! That looks amazing. I love the picture of your little gladiators -- so cute!

Peter and Lesha said...

how fun suzanne, you guys are so lucy! miss you though. hope kids are loving this experience

Evelyn said...

How fun! I am so impressed that your boys did so well! Did you do Christmas before you left or did Santa find you in Rome? And that pizza picture looks a-maze-ing!

Analisa-creator of hairblingzcutethings said...

that looks amazing! glad you guys had such a great time and that you at least had 1 sunny day! i'm sure your gelato was even better than Menchies! :) miss ya.

Anonymous said...

The pictures are amazing! Love them! You poor thing, with both boys falling asleep on you at the airport :)! Good thing you're strong right! :)