10 years!

I can't believe how quickly the time goes! Lina and I just celebrated our ten year anniversary. We met in Wisconsin Dells in 2004 when Lina was on a student work and travel visa and just happened to come into Denny's for a job :) The past decade has seen us both graduate from college, Lina get her masters degree, lots of money spent on packages and phone calls, moving to London, moving to Brighton, and lots of travelling in between! Who would have known that those crazy, sleep-deprived summer nights would bring us to where we are today? 

We both felt a lot of pressure to try to make the anniversary special and I think we definitely succeeded! Our original plan was to go to dinner on Wednesday and then camping from Thursday night after work. The camping unfortunately fell through as we didn't have the foresight to book ahead! So we went ahead with a delicious dinner at a local Vietnamese restaurant that we are in love with and back home Lina had a surprise for me. Since we weren't able to go camping, Lina set up a campsite in our living room and we spent the evening watching our home videos from our tent on the living room floor and eating chocolate cake :) Lina also got me a wedding band (I haven't had a proper one yet!) and had it engraved. I'm definitely one lucky lady. 

We both took the day off on Friday as we had planned to be camping so we spent our morning with our friend, Linas, who was visiting from Italy... then took a short train ride to a nearby town, Lewes, with our bikes. It's was a beautiful day that was perhaps (dare I say!) a bit too hot. We cycled 7 miles to a pub which rents out canoes and went canoeing for an hour. We wanted to practice for a bigger trip we are doing next month! We then cycled the 7 miles back and tiredly made our way back home. We then had a shower and a rest before enjoying a great night out :)

We have both changed a lot over these years, those old home videos we watched as a testament to that!, but I'm blessed to still have such a caring, funny, creative person to share my life with and look forward to watch adventures our future will bring! 

July?!?

These summer months just fly by! It's my favorite part of the year by far with so many great things going on.. But each summer seems to go quicker than the last. Now it's July! 

We spent the last week of June visiting Lina's family and friends in Lithuania. I'll share some pictures and stories from that trip later :)

Back in Brighton we've been spending our time working quite a lot, watching the World Cup, and coming down to the free outdoor cinema on the sea front. 

Last weekend we had a full house of our London friends coming for the weekend. We spent some time at the paddle around the pier festival, played mini golf, had ice cream, and when the weather didn't hold out had lots of food and played games at our place. It is always nice to get to catch up with the friends we don't get to see too often anymore. 

Our friend, Lukas, left from Brighton on his own epic adventure to cycle back to Lithuania! It was amazing to spend some time with him and hear about his plans before he took off. Now we're enjoying checking up on him on social media to see how far he's gotten! 

Now it's more work and this week is our anniversary! Share some of those stories later! 

Bermuda Cruise!

Lina and I had never considered or thought we would find ourselves on a cruise ship, but when my sister decided to plan her wedding on one heading to Bermuda we found ourselves on a new travel adventure.
We went on a 5 night cruise from New Jersey to Bermuda with nearly two days on the island itself.

Here's just a few of our hundreds of pictures but I hope they help you get a feel of the Cruise and the parts of the island that we saw!

In our first moments we got to exploring the boat. It had lots to do and see and the weather was mostly warm and sunny! Here's the deck of the boat and the interior gallery which had shops, art, casino, and at the end a auditorium.

 

Here's our boat just after we landed in Bermuda.

Our first day in Bermuda we went to a nearby beach for swimming, kayaking, volley ball, laying in the sun, and coconut drinks for Rachel's birthday. It wasn't the most beautiful beach on the island by it was close to the ship and the water was beautiful and blue!

 

Every evening we had a formal dinner in the dining room as all of the members of the wedding. We got to eat delicious food, with great service, while overlooking the beautiful blue ocean! On our way back to the states we even saw dolphins swimming outside while we were eating!

The second day in Bermuda Lina and I rented a scooter and visited some further out parts of the island. We visited this lighthouse with great views from the hill. Unfortunately it was closed so we couldn't climb up for an even better view! We then went to Horseshoe Bay which was an amazing beach! There were rocky bits and pink sand beaches! The scooter itself was an adventure as we hadn't driven one before. Lina was the driver for the day and although there were a couple of scary moments we got along pretty well. It was great to be able to get around on our own without having to navigate the bus or ferry systems.

 

 

Back on the boat there was plenty to keep us busy! Lina did rock climbing and her and others in our party took part in a dodgeball tournament. The dodgeball tournament was great as the team were definitely the underdogs and the spectators were cheering for them! Also, imagine Lina's despair when she figured out that dodgeball is played with more than one ball! We spent time in the games room playing Uno and Cards Against Humanity. We went to a sub-par musical with hilarious costumes and spent plenty of time sunbathing on the deck. We played basketball a bit and of course ate lots and lots as there was tons of good food all of the time!

 

Here's a picture of our room, it was a bit surreal being in a room without windows and waking up in total darkness. I think the movement of the boat actually helped us to sleep really well. Some others of us felt a bit seasick in the beginning but thankfully that wasn't an issue for us! Also we loved the towel animals/creatures that we got on our bed every evening. Here's our little Eskimo!

All in all we had a pretty great time seeing somewhere tropical for the first time and our first time on a cruise ship. It's not likely that we will go on a cruise any time soon again because it does feel a bit limiting even thought there is so much to do. We've put it on our list to revisit when we are a bit older and would like a packaged holiday more! 

Like I mentioned we went on the cruise for my sister's wedding and I'll post about that soon! Sorry about the delay in posting about our travels but summer is too great to spend on the computer :) 

more soon! 

x Becky