Day 2: Delos & Mykonos

Today was a SUPER packed day! I’m not quite used to the 10 hour time difference yet so I was wide awake at 3:00am. Thank goodness for 24 hour room service! I enjoyed a nice cup of hot chocolate until Cody woke up. :-) We had a fabulous breakfast on our balcony as the ship was pulling up to Delos. 

YUMMMMY!

We boarded a tender (small boat) that took us to Delos.

Delos is the largest archaeological site in Europe. It is said to be the birthplace of Apollo. It once had a population of over 35,000 people in it’s day! Now, it has no inhabitants, restaurants, or stores- it is strictly a tourist site. We saw a theater, what once were considered luxury houses, and a museum with many of the archeological finds. 

I loved seeing all of the mosaics- many were made of precious stones. The detail was incredible! Cody is a MAJOR history buff so he was totally in his element! 

We boarded the ship for lunch and had a awesome time visiting with other top directors AND brand new National Sales Director, Jeanie Martin. We ate lunch with Mary Strauss (if that name is familiar that’s because she lives in Folsom and many of you saw Mary at career conference this year!) and Million Dollar Director Amy Allgood. Now it was my turn to be in MY element! Amy and Mary were a wealth of ideas, suggestions, and inspiration! I took so many great notes and really got to know them both better. This trip has been great so far but the friends I am making is so exciting!

NSD Jeanie Martin, Top Director Tracey Chavez, and Lia

The food has not been disappointing. We had a amazing feast and ended it with the BEST baklava I have EVER had (then again, this is the FIRST place outside of Costco that I’ve tried it- LOL) 

After lunch (and a short one hour cruise) we boarded another tender and headed to the island of Mykonos. I fell in love with the charming architecture! My favorite color is blue so I LOVED all of the white washed buildings with bright blue shutters and railings. I’m on a quest to find a painting by a local artist some sort of scene of Mykonos or Santorini (tomorrow). The colors would be PERFECT for my living room! :-) 

Lia and Top Directors Kathryn Engstrom and Holly Ennis!

We toured the city for about 3 hours and visited a monastery, fabulous beaches, and even got to sample some of the local food and drinks. 

Can you believe how HUGE this pelican is? He was very friendly and let Cody pet him! :-)

We are pooped so tonight is room service and a movie. :-) We might venture out to the pool later tonight if we wake up! Tomorrow is Santorini and I have been looking forward to this port the most! I am still amazed at how well Mary Kay is rewarding us with this trip. I knew it would be good- but ALL of my expectations have been blown out of the water- this has been BEYOND amazing and we’re only on the first day!

Day 1: Athens, Greece

HELLO FROM GREECE!!!

After 24 hours of travel, we landed in Athens and headed for our cruise ship. 

We are staying on the 5 star Regency Seven Seas Mariner! It's a beautiful ship!

The drive was about a hour and I had a great time getting to know Top sales director Shanna from the pearl seminar. In her VERY FIRST year as a director Shanna and her unit completed $650,000, and they offsprung 3 new directors!

We knew going on a 5 star cruise would be great but it turned out to be AMAZING! After checking in, our stewardess took us to our room. I’ve been on cruises before so I was blown away by our room! She showed us how to work all of the cool gadgets. There was fresh fruit, a complimentary stocked fridge, CHOCOLATE ON THE PILLOWS (if you know me well, you know how cool this is!! LOL), a beautiful bottle of some wine I can’t pronounce and a Huge plate of chocolate dipped strawberries- a gift from my director Lisa! THANK YOU! :-) 

We have our own balcony and are on the 8th deck. I can’t wait to show you the morning views in upcoming posts!

We quickly showered and changed and after a quick “drill” we headed to the First time trip winners and singles reception! It was so much fun meeting up with the staff (and our favorite - SEAN KEY!!) and meet all of the new trip winners. We also saw Mary Strauss (she lives in Folsom, CA ) and Patti Maxwell (San Jose, CA) 

This year the company also had Top sales directors Kim McClure, Auri Hatheway (that’s Auri and I below)

Kristen Meyer.....and many others there to greet us as well. They were SO welcoming and warm! We had dinner with Shanna and her husband, Rebecca and Stuart Milligan, and Kristen and her husband, Randy. Now, my husband..LOVES LOVE LOVES buffets almost as much as he loves when the 49ers are having a good season ( I know, let’s not go there...haha) so he was super excited to see a HUGE appetizer buffet. WOW.....Greek Olives (Lori..I’m working on getting you some!!), fresh grated local cheeses, hummus. HUGE shrimp, grilled garlic, artichoke hearts......OMG and that was just the appetizers!! We all ordered yummy main courses then headed up to see Kristen Meyer’s Million Dollar director’s penthouse suite. Their corner balcony of their room is the size of our entire room! MK really takes great care of their sales director’s...that’s for sure. We visited with Kristen for awhile- she is super sweet, very down to earth then called it a night!

Complimentary Room Service breakfast is on the menu tomorrow then a quick trip to Delos then the rest of the day in Mykonos.

It starts with a Dream. . .

Cody and I are sitting in the Chicago airport and I am so excited!! I was thinking on the plane about how almost 6 years ago we went on our honeymoon as two broke kids to Disneyland for 2 days because that's all we could afford. NOW, 5 years later Mary Kay is sending us on a 5 star LUXURY cruise. WOW! I still have my original dreams list that I wrote as a brand new beauty consultant and on it, I have "To go on a Mary Kay Top Director Trip.", a few lines down, I have "To go to Greece." I have to keep this short because we are boarding the plane to Germany pretty soon, but I wanted to encourage all of my fellow Mary Kay consultants to not give up on your dream. Do not quit, do not stop being consistent....it's all so worth it! I'm excited to blog for you our trip adventures. And did I mention. . . . .I am SO Excited! xoxoxo- Lia

Atlantis Vacation Days 4, 5, 6, 7

Ahh, the final days of our trip our upon us! We have had the most fantastic time and would highly recommend Atlantis to ALL of our friends! The last few days have been super casual. We've enjoyed lazy days on the beach and at the pool.

And yes, we got our tan on!!

We've also been to all of the aquariums over and over again- we just can't seem to get enough of those Manta Rays! They are HUGE and I mean HUGE!!!!

These guys were just plain creepy.

See that little dot out there? No, it's not a Hot cabana boy! It's Cody! :-)

And Look what we found!!! For all of you who know how truly OBSESSED I am with Christmas decor- wait until you see what I have up my sleeve for this year with these puppies!!

You can't see my white knuckles in the photo but I braved a scooter ride with Cody! We had a lot of fun though! My favorite part was bartering with the scooter guys to get the best price!! :-)

No...he didn't let me drive! Just posing here! LOL

And Today was amazing but our battery died in the camera!! We did however have a underwater camera with us so as soon as those get developed- I'll post them!!

We went on a AMAZING snorkeling trip! We visited 2 reefs and then at the very end got to swim with Sharks! It was pretty scary. I thought we'd get to go to some cove and the nice little sharks would be there.

Boy was I wrong. DEAD WRONG. We dropped anchor in the middle of the ocean and they had us hold onto this safety rope and not "make any sudden movements". We did this for the 10 longest minutes of our lives. Then at the end, the guide threw in fish food to show us how the sharks will eat. YIKES. But the weird part is- they have a scuba trip where you get even closer and I really want to do it. Call me crazy. :-)

We head back to Cali tomorrow. While it's been a great vacation, all things must come to a end. We're excited to see our kids (dogs and cat!), and one of us is excited to go back to work! :-)

I need to earn this trip every year! Well worth the work!

Lia