We won a trip to Isla D'Elba from our school raffle. It is a five star hotel on and island off the coast of Italy. Interestingly, it is where Napoleon was exiled the second time. Packing was easy - we brought our adult juice boxes and some snacks of course.
... and obviously as you drive through Tuscany, there are castles on every hillside
... and finally we arrived at our ferry. Lily couldn't stop saying "boat! boat!" for the entire drive or days leading up to our ferry ride.
We drove right on and had a nice hour or more long ride on a big boat. Lily loved it.
Yay! No more carseats
Our first time on the Mediterranean.
Enjoying the boat ride
... and finally we arrived at Hotel Hermitage. It was gorgeous. We went for a nice sunset walk on the Mediterranean. No biggy, just a normal Friday night.
Then we all had a GREAT night's sleep. The hotel had two nice cribs waiting for us and a separate, dark, silent room for the girls which meant they slept in. It was splendid. The next morning, this is what we woke up to when we opened our door.
The view is great, but man look at Lauren!
... and here is our view from breakfast
Then it was off to the pools and the beach
Lauren is looking great!
Sisters are so cute together!
... and yeah, that's just gonna happen ...
... and then all smiles
Chloe's favorite things to grab are: hair (facial hair included) and glasses. She can't get enough.
What a life it would be to own this boat. "Oh it's Saturday, what should we do? Let's pull into a little cove on Isla D'Elba. Ok"
I love this photo
That is our hotel. Pretty much every building you see. The white building is the restaurant/lobby and all of the houses on the hill are the rooms.
The hotel has a very nice, small breakfast and then a ridiculous, five-star, luxury, gourmet dinner. They do not serve lunch. We went to the local grocery store and for just 20 euros had an amazing picnic - a bottle of wine, stinky cheese for dad, brie for mom, strawberries, apples, a whole roasted chicken, some sliced meats, a baguette, and more. The left-overs were great for the ride home the next day too! What a great picnic that was. It was while the girls were napping, just lauren and I on the porch with this view, drinking wine and having delicious Italian snacks. Ah, this is the life.
Then Lily woke up from her nap and joined us. Lily only took a three hour nap (awesome). Chloe took a four hour nap that day.
Then back to the beach!
We then found a little whole some people had dug in the sand, and little did you know a whole in the sand can be hours of fun.
... and then it was time for dinner. This is the view from our dinner table. We had about twelve people serving us at any time. One person to walk us in the room to another person, who then seated us and then our server came over with the menus. Another person came over with our water and was in charge of pouring our water. Another person came with our wine, did the whole fancy song and dance of showing us the label, pouring it for a taste, asking if he could pour more, and then keeping our glasses full all night. It was wonderful, though I couldn't stop saying thank you. I probably said thank you 100 times.
The servers were great, and everything had already been paid for by the school. The servers just kept talking us into more and said they could make anything we wanted for the girls. We eventually settled on just pasta with red sauce and pasta with pesto sauce. The pesto went to Lily and the red sauce went to Chloe. They both LOVED it. The pasta was out of this world good.
... and after dinner, we went for a beautiful sunset walk and took a few beautiful photos.
Lily loved the view
Here is Lily saying, "cheese"
This was the first time Lily started posing for photos. I would ask Lily to 'go stand over there, so I can take a picture" and she would say yes and go stand in the right place. This is her shouting, "cheese!" Then she would excitedly over to me and ask me to show her on the camera, and then I could ask her to go run over and take another. New tricks every day.
On our walk back to the room, we stumbled across this little guy. Lily went crazy for the frog. It was the first live frog she had ever seen. It is one of her favorite animals to see in books and on her clothes!
... then sadly, Sunday morning we had to go. This is the view from the top of the hill as we drove out of our private little cove. It was amazing.
... but going back is just as fun. Here are Lily and dad enjoying a gelato and waiting for their "boat! boat!"
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