Our second day in St. Petersburg was just as long as we boarded the bus at 7am so we could make the hour ride into St. Petersburg. When we arrived we walked down to the canal for an hour canal tour. St. Petersburg is considered the Venice of the North because of its many canals that lace through the city. We passed under many decorated bridges and saw, from afar, many of the cathedrals we had seen or would see during our stay. 
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| Peter and Paul Fortress, from afar |
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| Passing under many decorative bridges |
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| Typical golden domes that dot the skyline of St. Petersburg |
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| Waiting for our time to enter the museum |
From the canal, we walked a few blocks to the Hermitage museum, an incredibly large museum that includes Peter the Great's winter palace and a collection of the works of famous artists such as Rembrandt and Da Vinci.
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| The Hermitage Museum |
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| The room of heroes |
After the Hermitage, it was time for lunch at a restaurant where we were entertained by locals singers. From lunch, we were off to visit two more cathedrals - Isaac's Cathedral and The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. Isaac's cathedral is famed for its single large golden dome. It's beauty inside is marked by the many icons depicting the Savior's life, highlighted by a stained glass window of the Savior in Red. |
| The Famous Golden Dome Cathedral |
The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood is the icon of St. Petersburg. It is a famous cathedral build on the exact spot where Alexander the II was murdered, hence the name Spilled Blood. The outside was designed after St. Basil in Moscow with its colorful ice cream cone domes. The inside is all done in mosaics, little pieces of tiles individually placed to make the pictures that don every wall and copula. An amazing edifice, both inside and out.
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| Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood |
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| The main altar |
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| Typical mosaic found throughout the cathedral |
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| Looking high up in one of the copulas |
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| Red marble |
St. Petersburg was everything we had dreamed of - beautiful and historical. A quick note about Gary's yellow hat. He wore it continually and our guide used him and his hat to recognize when the last of our group had arrived into a room. Gary, because of his knee, was always bringing up the rear of our group.
From Russia we sailed across the channel to Helsinki, Finland where we would spend the day. We boarded a bus for our tour which took us, first, to the center of the city and Senate Square. Here we took pictures of the statue of Alexander II. He was well respected by the Fins. Even after he conquered them, he was a reformer and brought much progress to the country. This is the Alexander who was assassinated were the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood was built.
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| Paul wanted a picture of the bird that stayed on top of Alexander's head |
We drove a bit further to the unique Sibelius Monument, dedicated to famed Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The monument is made up of organ pipes representing the forests of Finland which inspired much of his music.
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Our tour then took us through the countryside of Finland to the village of Porvo, Finland's second oldest city, established in 1346. It was a village of wooden buildings and a church on top of a hill. This town was once an important trading center. It was raining so we were grateful to get inside a candy store where we could taste the different types of candy made there. Of course, we had to buy some, too. Paul and I braved the rain and walked up the hill to the church but when we got there we found we could not enter because there was a funeral in progress.
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| The village by the river |
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| The church on the hill |
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| Inside the restaurant |
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| The gift shop |
We were told, as we drove, you can always tell the master's home from the servant's quarters in the country. The main home is usually done in a color, often yellow, and trimmed in white. The servants quarters, barns, and animals stables are painted red. Interesting.
Our last stop in Finland was at the Church in the Rock. It is a church, literally, built inside a rock cavern. It's roof is made of copper and there purposely are no stairs. It is believed that one shouldn't have to climb to find God. There is a cross above the entryway that is said to open the way to heaven.
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| The cross that opens the way to heaven |
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| Inside the church - all the walls are the rock of the cavern |
As we drove back to the ship, our guide told us about the Finnish people. She said they are 'coffee-holics.' Typically, they have coffee with breakfast, at a 10:00 break, for lunch, at a 2:00 break, after work, and after dinner. Sometimes they even have coffee before they go to bed. It would be interesting to know how much coffee is consumed in an average year here. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Hellsinki, Finland.
Our last port on the cruise was Stockholm, Sweden. This had to be our favorite city if we were looking for somewhere to live. It is made up of 14 islands all connected by canals. It was clean and beautiful with its mixture of old and new architecture. Here we did another canal tour, visited the Old Town, and toured the royal palace. 
In the old town, we visited the church where the royalty holds their weddings. It is located within walking distance of the royal palace.
At the royal palace, we toured the beautiful rooms done in baroque style. This means the decor is designed to look like real marble and three dimensional sculptures but in reality are only painted to look that way.
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As we left the palace, we were fortunate to be just in time to see the changing of the royal guard at the palace. It was very crowded so our view wasn't the best but we could enjoy the music of the military band and watch the guards standing at attention during the ceremony.
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Once we docked in Copenhagen, it was off the ship, a transfer to the airport, and then a flight to Amsterdam. We were only to have a short lay over in Amsterdam but we were delayed. After we boarded the plane for LAX, we were told that a fuel pump was not functioning properly. They said they would have to replace it so we sat on the tarmac for over an hour waiting for clearance to take off. The delay caused us to have many delays once we got LAX - the customs lines were long as were the lines to board our shuttle back to the Fly Away location where we had parked our car. Once we got back to Valencia, we grabbed In 'N Out for a quick dinner and then went home to bed.
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The next day, we said good bye to the Fullers and drove to Bakersfield to see Mom and Dad. We had a good visit in the afternoon and then took them to dinner that evening. The next morning, we said our good byes and started our drive home.We drove to St. George, spent the night and drove home the next day. Of course, we had to stop in Lehi to give Aria her new Husky dog and to see our newborn, Avery.
Before we left on our cruise, we had a houseful of company. Don and Dana came to stay with us so they could attend Bryce's graduation from UVU. Dana's dad and daughter, Carly, and granddaughter came to stay in our home a day later. After graduation, Whitney and her family joined us along with Bryce and Brandon. Yes, we had a houseful. They all left by Sunday morning and we left, after church that same day. We love opening our home to family.
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| Whitney and Allen and their family |
The Saturday night before we left, we went down to Todd and Kailee's to take them dinner. I made lots of chicken enchiladas because we all thought that Kailee's mom and sister and family would be coming to eat. As it turned out, it was only the 4 of us plus Aria as the rest of Kailee's family made other last minute plans. There was lots of food for leftovers during the week.
When we got home from Todd's, our garage door wouldn't open. Paul tried everything to fix it but to no avail. He rigged up a way to keep the garage door from being able to be opened while we were gone on our cruise. Quite ingenious, for sure.
We were glad we returned home from our cruise when we did because the first Sunday back was incredibly special. We arrived at church a bit early and noticed the Bishop and his wife and the Stake President and his wife were in the foyer. We wondered if it was a ward conference but when we looked at the program we knew it wasn't. It wasn't too long after we sat down that we all stood in silent reverence as President Russel M. Nelson and his wife, Wendy, walked into our chapel. Talk about receiving an instant testimony that he is a prophet of God!!! The chapel has never been so reverent. Both he and Sister Nelson took some time to speak to us. Sister Nelson testified of the importance of family history work and President Nelson talked about the Book of Mormon and the gathering of Israel. He told of the time just recently when he was with a delegation from the NAACP. He wanted to give them a gift and decided that the best gift he could give them was copies of the Book of Mormon. That tells us how important the book is to him. It was a once in a lifetime experience to be in the presence of a prophet of God and feel of his spirit.
The next day was Memorial day and we spent it helping with a community fun run and motorcycle ride. We had been serving on a committee for this event for several month and Memorial Day was the culmination of much planning. We were in charge of decorating the stage area and then just helped setting chairs and handing out time sheets for the runners. We stayed around for the patriotic program and were so glad we did. The mayor, the governor, and a career Navy admiral all spoke to us as they paid honor to the many veterans who have served our country. The balance of the program was a children's choir singing a medley of patriotic songs. We were sad when they had to cut their program short due to rain and wind. It was a wonderful way to spend Memorial Day.
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| There was even a fly over from the US Air Force |
We traveled down to Todd and Kailee's later that day to have dinner with them. They had invited Kailee's family over as well as Cam's (Kara's fiancee) parents to dinner. Cam is from Bakersfield and his parents know my dad really well. In fact, Brian Taylor is Dad's stake president. Brian was friends growing up with all my brothers. Small world.
On the way to Todd's we stopped at the Pleasant Grove cemetery and put flowers on Paul's parent's graves. We try and do that every year.
Dinner of smoked brisket was wonderful as was the company. A great way to celebrate Memorial Day.
The last two days of the month, we planted our garden and our annuals. It is always good to get those projects done.
And then there's Aria and Avery.......
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| Loving her 'Sis'. |
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