The life and adventures of Mike and Soni: February 2012

This is Arrecife, Lanzarote. Mike's sister, Melanie, had served an LDS mission 20 years ago in this beautiful port town.

We arrived there Sunday morning, had already planned to go to church and were so excited to meet with the family that Melanie had talked so much about.

I love how people give you directions here, it reminds me of home. So we ask this guy if he can tell us where to find this address and this is his answer: Oh, you just go straight and you won't miss it!

Not only we had to go straight, but we had to make some very important turns to find the church building.

Success!!!!

This is la familia Espozito. Dad Espozito, Spencer and Dacil. We had such a great time visiting with these sweet and very kind people. They took us to their home, and gave us the most wonderful and unforgettable experience. We have always found it amazing how we connect so easily with the members of the church. Dacil was only 12 years old when Melanie was in their branch. She would go with Sister Wood and teach people from home to home. Spencer and her had just gotten married in December of 2011.

This is when our amazing tour starts. This place was called the cooking pot.

Kirsten, on the left side, is from Germany. She has been living in Spain for 10 years now. As most german people she speaks perfect english.We met her at the church and she was so kind to translate for us. She was also an extraordinary tour guide. I wish I would have recorded her or taken notes, she was just fantastic.

This is the balcony. Isn't that just amazing?

Here we are again.

I think this was called El Golfo (I will explain a little bit later why I cannot remember the names of our stops)

Can you tell how windy it was? We would stop, go out, take a quick picture, look at the view and run to the car. It was cold!

This beautiful town was only 10 minutes from Arrecife.

And back to our cruise ship. We said goodbye to our new friends with the hope that we will meet them again one day.
This is our favorite Medusa Lounge. Every night, they had a band called "Guys and Dolls" and they would play beautiful music like, ballroom, swing, foxtrot and lots more.
Mike and I loved going there and seeing these cute adorable old couples that danced like professional dancers. It was just so beautiful to see. We attempted several time to dance, but I still need to learn how to follow and NOT LEAD!!!!:)

Our dinners at Grand Pacific.

Malaga was another fun place to visit, hang around and finally enjoy the sunny day. We visited these two fortresses, went to their local market, had lunch downtown and saw Picasso birth place.

Feb.8 and our last night in this amazing cruise ship. The cruise stuff had put together this great show demonstrating their talents. It was very entertaining. This is our cruise director, Gary, who spoke 6 languages very fluently. We were just amazed. This guy was doing everything; singing, playing the piano, talking to people, directing shows, dancing...etc

They were our dance instructors. In this show, they were spitting water to each other. Very silly but funny.

The singers...

...and the whole stuff singing "You are a Norwegian now"

We ended that evening with a chocolate buffet...literally everything was chocolate. Loved it!
Welcome to Barcelona. Feb.9 and our fourth anniversary. Mike and I had decided to spend those 6 hours walking around Barcelona before we headed to the Airport. No one would think that it was 0 degree Celsius. Pretty cold. Barcelona is beautiful. We had been there 2 summers ago but didn't spend enogh time exploring the city.This is La Ramblas square and very famous for what happens there, even though we had no idea. We had no intent to share what happened that day in Barcelona here in our blog, but decided to, just to express gratitude and count our blessings on how we made it back home that evening.
To make a long story short, we will just say that as we were having a quick lunch at this very small fast food place, as soon as I put my purse around the arm chair, my purse was stolen from me. Didn't see anything, or the person who stole it. We were shocked and panicked. I had everything in that purse; our passports, credit cards, money, Mike's work phone, my IPod, notes that I had taken as we visited Arrecife, drivers licenses, military Id, house keys, and I don't even remember what else. Had no idea what to do. Mike hugged me and said a quick prayer. Our miracle started then. We did not find the person or the purse, but we had divine direction and help as the right people were put in our way to help us write a police report, make it to the US embassy literally 2 minutes before they closed their doors, give us new passports in 45 minutes, money to take pictures as we had no euros anymore. We made it at the airport at 4.30 pm just as we had planned before this happened. As we go there, they tell us that our reservations had been cancelled because Spainair had gone bankrupt while we were gone. Can you believe the luck of that day?! The lady there was kind enough to make us new reservations (non fee applied) and we were on our way to Germany, where our friend Gage was waiting to pick us up from the airport. As we look back to this experience, of course we felt so violated and upset, but the comforting feelings of the Spirit are so much stronger that it makes us focus on the blessings that we received that day rather than dwell in anger. We are grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who watches over us and cares for His children.

Gaudi's crazy architecture....

and another one.

Happy Anniversary to us!!!
Love,
Mike and Soni

One day, as I was getting ready to check my email, Mike's gmail opened up and the bold, unread subject read: "Congratulations on booking with Norwegian Cruise Line". I freaked out. I hurried and closed up the page, no idea what to do, felt guilty for ruining the surprise, but oh well...now I had the time to plan and prepare for our "surprise" anniversary trip.
As you might have already understood, it was that time of the year again, to celebrate our fourth year of sharing our lives together.
This was our Norwegian Jade. What an amazing boat! I had always dreamed to go on a cruise, but I had never thought it possible. It is a wonderful and unforgettable experience. We spent our first two days sailing, eating, dancing, hot tubing, hanging out together, talking with some amazing and fun old couples, watching them dance beautifully, eat some more and seriously the fun was endless. The cruise stuff was absolutely great. They had put together fun activities, different dance classes, like cha cha cha, tango, bachata, merengue and lots more. There was no time to get bored, only time to relax and have a great time.

This was the sun deck. Four hot tubs, two pools, grill bar, etc.

They were always playing live music in this lounge.

Some of the desserts we had...in one meal. So, let me tell you a little bit about our first dinner. We get all dressed up, get in line, washy washy our hands (this was their theme of cleanliness is next to godliness), and then get escorted to our shared table at the Grand Pacific restaurant (this became our favorite restaurant).
Here comes the menu and you can literally order the whole menu if you want or get seconds or thirds...and so on. But we were still a little bit shy, so we ordered only one plate of this amazing lobster thing. But then we remembered our friends's wise advice: I want this, and this and that and....probably make it double, so that's what we did for the next 9 days.