Well it is Halloween and we still haven’t seen any snow in the downtown Denver area. This time last year, we had already seen a decent storm putting a few inches on the ground. I’ve been told it always snows on or before Halloween, but I guess this year is an exception to the rule. Global warming I guess? In fact, today will have highs near 80 degrees! Sure it will be a nice night for the trick-or-treaters, but I am ready for the snow to start falling!

I took lots of pictures over the weekend, and here’s the first batch. As many already know, Kim got her hair chopped off on Friday. She had over ten inches cut off and donated to Locks of Love.

We are just leaving Cannes now on our first stop of our cruise. The sunset is beautiful and the long islands are very tasty! We had a great day today exploring Monaco first, then a brief stop in Nice, and a little sightseeing in Cannes on the way back to the ship. Our stay in Barcelona was very nice, but cut a little short due to overall exhaustion from our trip overseas. And we did have a few hours to spend in Paris on our layover and were able to see the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, among other sites. I’d love to start sorting through pictures and uploading some, but I think we forgot to pack the cord I need to transfer them. I’m going to see if one of the shops onboard has anything I can use. I hope everyone who was able to attend the wedding had a good time. Talk to you all after the cruise!

I’m officially a married man! Posting may be a bit slow for the next couple of weeks, but I hope to add some pictures and things while we are out on our honeymoon cruise of the Mediterranean. Try not to be too jealous.

Today is my last day of work for quite some time. I will then have my longest vacation I’ve had since becoming a working adult. If you’ve missed the countless other posts I’ve made about our fabulous honeymoon cruise, this entry has a good summary of events. Who would have thought that our trip to Tunisia would elicit the largest number of comments giving advice (and other ramblings), but feel free to provide pointers on any of our destinations. I’ve pretty much planned out each stop, using mostly public transportation to get from the port to other nearby places of interest, but I’m always open to altering our plans or taking a detour to see something spectacular. Now I just need to get through three more hours…

Sandwiched between two days at sea, is our final stop on our honeymoon cruise, Tunis. Tunis is the capital of the north African country Tunisia. So our cruise involves two continents, among all of the different countries we are visiting. I think the first thing we’ll do when we get to Tunis is to leave. I’d like to immediately take a train out to the ancient city of Carthage and continue on to Sidi Bou Said, a town which is famous for its white buildings with blue roofs and windows. It looks very picturesque!

Once we are done exploring the suburbs, we’ll head back into the center of Tunis and explore the sights in town, including the medina (old town) and souk (more or less the market). Depending on the time, we may also try to take in the Bardo Museum or the Zitouna Mosque. I think it will be neat to just see a country that should be quite a bit different from the others we’ll see during our crusie.

So here is our final cruise itinerary:

• Start: Barcelona
• Day One: Cannes / Monte Carlo / Nice
• Day Two: Livorno / Florence / Pisa
• Day Three: Rome
• Day Four: Naples / Capri / Sorrento / Pompeii
• Day Five: At Sea
• Day Six: Venice
• Day Seven: Venice
• Day Eight: Split, Croatia
• Day Nine: At Sea
• Day Ten: Tunis, Tunisia
• Day Eleven: At Sea
• End: Barcelona

I still have some research to do for Barcelona, since we’ll spend a night there before the cruise, but we are definitely in good shape for the majority of the honeymoon. Now if only I could skip over the next week.

Once again, here is our honeymoon itinerary with all of the stops that I’ve planned. This includes our second sea day of the trip, which will take us to our final port on the tenth day. I will write about that final stop next week.

• Day One: Cannes / Monte Carlo / Nice
• Day Two: Livorno / Florence / Pisa
• Day Three: Rome
• Day Four: Naples / Capri / Sorrento / Pompeii
• Day Five: At Sea
• Day Six: Venice
• Day Seven: Venice
• Day Eight: Split, Croatia
• Day Nine: At Sea

Since I last wrote about Split, we decided what we are going to do there, at least part of the time. We are doing one of the excursions through the cruise line, the Off Road Safari. This excursion involves a little adventure, but still allows us to sit back and relax as we drive vehicles through the wilderness.

And while we were shopping for the excursion, we also added something else to our itinerary, a Mystery Dinner Theater. This will take place on the seventh day after our boat leaves Venice. Kim said that she has always wanted to go to one of these, and I was all for the included special Italian menu and wine. From what I’ve read online, this should be a good time. Now we just need to figure out what to do during our days at sea.

Yesterday a 134 year old Denver record was tied, as we had our eighteenth consecutive day with temperatures at or above 90 degrees. Today it is just a matter of time before the record is broken, with temperatures hovering in the high 80s already. This afternoon we should climb close to 100, and the predicted temperature for both Friday and Saturday is over 100 degrees! And it doesn’t end there, with current predictions having us in the 90s through the early part of next week. The streak will likely end by next Wednesday. That would be a twenty-four day streak, destroying the previous record set in both 1901 and 1874. Fortunately the humidity is low, around thirty percent most of the time, so the heat is bearable. However we still may have to escape to the mountains for the weekend.

Let the honeymoon planning resume. So far I have attempted to plan out the first seven days of the cruise. Here’s a quick recap:

• Day One: Cannes / Monte Carlo / Nice
• Day Two: Livorno / Florence / Pisa
• Day Three: Rome
• Day Four: Naples / Capri / Sorrento / Pompeii
• Day Five: At Sea
• Day Six: Venice
• Day Seven: Venice

The eighth day of the cruise brings us to Split, Croatia, which should be our fifth country on the trip if everything goes as planned. When Split was built, everything revolved around the palace built for the retired Roman emperor, Diocletian. Outside of Diocletian’s Palace there doesn’t seem to be much that interests me in Split. With that said, I’m actually considering taking one of the more adventurous excursions offered by Royal Caribbean. A few that interest me are Canoeing on the Cetina River, an Off Road Safari, or Sea Kayaking in Trogir. Thoughts and/or opinions?

Just over five weeks from the big wedding day. If they haven’t already arrived, invitations should be showing up in mailboxes in the next day or two. We’ve already received some great feedback on the invitations, and obviously we feel that Amy did an incredible job with them. We’ve been putting the finishing touches on lots of things recently. A few that I can remember are the church music, the readings for mass, and picking some songs for the reception band. That reminds me that I’ve yet to receive any submissions in the big Mix Tape Challenge contest I announced months ago. If you were going to put something together, please do so soon so we can get some good music together for the set breaks at the reception. Things are moving along pretty smoothly thus far, I’m sure it will be here before we all know it.