Russia

The next day on our honeymoon, we woke up in St. Petersburg, Russia! At every port, there are options to take excursions. We chose not to sign up for any except for in Russia. This was because in order to get into Russia, you either had to have a visa or be on a tour with the cruise line. Therefore, off we went following the blue, numbered circle everywhere we went.

The first day we went on a tour of The Hermitage.

The second day we started out by touring the Pushkin Palace.
It is amazing all of the wealth and detail that are in these buildings- on the outside and the inside.

After a traditional Russian lunch, we went to St. Isaac's Cathedral.

And The Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood.
I adored seeing the building- so colorful and beautiful.

The Neva River.

After two wonderful days in Russia, we were back on the boat and cruising to Finland.

Awards...Why Thank You!

I have been pleasantly surprised by receiving 3 awards! Well, the same award- 3 times! :)

The Superior Scribble Award!
The lovely Bama Belle in the Big City , the fabulous Mrs. from Simple Yet Classic, and the glamorous Katie from A Hokie and A Wahoo all passed on this award to me.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! You are all too sweet!

The rules of the award are as follows:

1. Post the award on your blog.

2. Link me for giving it to you. (I linked all 3 above.)

3. Link the originating post here.

4. Pass the award on to five more deserving people.

5. Post these rules for your recipients

Without further ado, here are my 3 recipients (yes, yes, I know it's supposed to be 5...):

1. Monogrammed Teacher- for being the first follower of my blog
2. Learning to be A Wife- since we are both from Michigan
3. Remembering Who I Am...- for being my newest follower

H-Moon Recap

I realize that none of you are waiting on the edge of your seats for me to post wedding pictures since I started blogging after our wedding. But, I am trying (really hard!) to wait patiently for our pictures to come so that I can post them. In the mean time, I'll start with the honeymoon, or the H-Moon, as we affectionately call it.

The day after the wedding, we slept in, stopped by our house to make sure it was still standing after about 15 of our friends stayed over night there (no, it is not that big- I have no idea where everyone slept!), gave a tour of our house to Dan's grandparents and any other friends that stopped over, and then finally went to my parent's house to open gifts with both of our families.

And then it was off to Chicago for the night so we would be ready for our flight to London!!!
We chose to go on a 12 day Baltic Sea cruise. Dan's not a huge fan of laying in the sun for a week and we both love to travel, plus we met each other on a trip to Europe, so it was perfect.

After a few days at sea, our first stop was in Estonia. Although there wasn't a ton to see, it was wonderful to be back on land and walk around in the sunshine. We had a fun day of exploring the city- looking at all of the buildings, colorful doors, and eating and Estonian lunch (okay, actually we weren't that brave- we just had sandwiches)!


Next stop...Russia!