First part of trip-Seattle

Here we are at the Athens airport, we had a difficult start since we were flying with Air France but had booked our tickets with Delta, the inept clerk couldn't find Nik's ticket. Finally she took our advice and looked under our reservation number, duh!, but she wanted to charge us 340euros almost the same price that we had paid for our adult tickets, ridiculous.
Nik really enjoyed flying and did very well on the 15 hour trip. Cousin Kelly and Mom picked us up from the airport in Seattle and took us to lunch and then to our hotel, we were to bushed to do anything else.
This is outside of our hotel in Seattle, just 2 blocks from the Seattle Center with the Space Needle, with a Safeway and Dick's a place famous in Seattle (loved the fact it was open till 2AM) across the street.
Some Chili's at the Pike Place Market.
We then went down to the Seattle Aquarium, I might of had more fun than Nik but I think he enjoyed it also.


Arthur found his favorite and only beer he purchased in the States, ESB.
Our hotel, of course called The Mediterranean.
Nik showing what dinosaur's do at the fun and interactive Science Center.

Space Needle

We took the Monorail downtown to the mall.

Our favorite place to shop and have breakfast.

Back from the U.S.A

And we are back, smelling the Greek air and sleeping a whole lot. We haven't down loaded all of the photos from the trip but when we do we will make a few blogs. The last days in San Francisco Nik got a cold so he wasn't feeling so great, but amazingly enough he did pretty good on the flights and only grabbed the flight attendants butt once (naughty little boy).
Hey Jon, we really enjoyed eating at the House of Nan King in Chinatown, SF, and the really cool part was that we got to enjoy that whole morning with cousin Lettie Bridgman. But more of that to come.
Will write more later, I'm going to eat my Greek steak now, yum.

Terrible Two's

That camera is MINE!, everything is mine, followed by a high pitched squeal.

The word NO! has entered the vocabulary along with all of the other new words and he enjoys using this new found word more than any others. He has also discovered screaming and will do so whenever something doesn't go the way he wants it too. He would like to do everything himself this includes dressing, eating and walking where ever he wants to go by himself. He will tell me and any other adult in his vicinity to stay/leave or sit/stand. He's like a little general and I can see him being the playground boss.

IKEA

A new IKEA opened up in Larissa, so of course we had to go on opening day. Larissa is about one and a half hours away from Kalampaka and now pretty much has everything one could possibly need.
Here Nik is enjoying a kiddie bed, no prompting needed he was tired and if there weren't so many people walking by he would have gone to sleep. He also had fun playing with the toys that they had out and he could not be separated from a stuffed dog, so of course that was one of our purchases.
We had lunch in the IKEA restaurant (not very good, the pasta was like rubber) but they gave us a free ticket for some ice cream and they were handing out Fantas when we exited.

I would also like to tell everyone that Nik is speaking a new word almost every day. So far we have: cracker, coke, soccer, asteri (star), jacke (jacket). He also likes to make all of the animal sounds and we go on drives to see chickens, horses, lambs, turkeys and goats. The fun part is when we serve meat he makes the sound of what he is eating, he likes kookoo (chicken), ba (lamb), and moo (cow/beef). He also makes the sound for fish but I don't know how to write that one down.

See you soon.

How old are you?

Practicing for the States when people ask how old he is.
ONE, okay almost two, but we will still get into some places for FREE.
Love being under the age of two.

New Tools

Some new tools for Nik.

He likes to work just like his Greek Grandpa.

The drill is now a little worse for the wear having been thrown several times, but both the drill and saw move and make noise.

Video of Nik

Here's a video of Nik helping out with the washing of the carpets.
Both Arthur and his mom keep telling him to use both hands.
Then a gypsy goes by with some onions.
A typical day in Greece.

What we have been doing

Riding a Watermelon

Working on a New roof

Helping Grandpa get nuts

Climbing a wall

Eating Ice Cream

A whole lot of money spending.

We have been working on our house for a while and now have a new roof including a beautiful gutter that goes all the way around the house and a new tiled backyard. We are still clearing away the debris that the workers left behind but thankfully they finished just before all of the rain that we have been having for the past two weeks and the gutters are working wonderfully. For our next step I will need to try to get rid of the mold that was created from a faulty roof and gutters.

We also spent money on our trip for the States and have all of the flights arranged and even a car rental. I bought all new clothes for Nik that he has actually been wearing for the past week since it has been so cold, but Arthur assures me that is will warm up again. I sure hope so, I don't think I can enjoy a winter that has already started and would continue for another 6 months, ughh!

We are getting super excited about our trip, Arthur will be happy to meet everyone and I will be happy to do some shopping and see family and friends. Nik who has no idea about the trip will have a lot of fun being able to touch some animals and play with some kids. But here is my warning about our little bundle of joy, he's fast. He can run and climb very quickly. Today not only did he scale our ladder in the backyard with ease but he was hanging over the edge of the second story balcony while I thought Grandpa Nik was watching him, almost gave me a heart attack when I saw him leaning over. He likes big trucks and building equipment, he likes to go on rides in the car to go get ice cream and bread. If he could touch every cat and dog that we see he would as it is I have to catch him sometimes giving hugs to our cat, very cute, but we have now found two ticks on him. He doesn't watch much TV but if he sees a boat or animals it will grab his attention for a little while. His favorite food has now become pepperoni sausages (from his fathers genes) and ice cream (from his mother's genes).

Bryan and Valerie are here

My cousin Bryan and his wife Valerie are here on a visit from Austin, Texas. It's so great having some company come and visit, what are you waiting for? You must come too!

Come Fly with Me

Air France is having some super hot deals right now, you can fly into Athens for around $700 dollars, round trip. So come on over for a visit and we will give you a lift to the airport if you leave on the same day as us, Nov. 7th a Saturday.
Check out Delta too! we got our tickets from them.

We're On Our Way

Here We Come!

The Dates are settled we have our plane tickets!

Nov. 7 - Nov. 16 Washington

Nov. 16 - Nov. 22 Colorado

Nov. 22 - Dec. 2 California

We hope to see everyone!

Nik will be ready to climb anything!

Arthur will be ready to drink a beer with you!

and me, anyone want to babysit?

SEE YOU SOON!!

First Night Lefkada Vacation

There are 3 Blogs make sure you read them all.

We took off quickly on Sunday afternoon after a baptism for Lefkada Island, you can drive onto the island via a underwater tunnel and then a bridge. The picture above and below is a quick pit stop for some coffee and so Nik could run around and eat some chocolate from the baptism.
This is a view of Lefkas village and the mainland in front.
You can see the bridge to the left.
We stopped in Kathisma beach at a hotel called Sirios, it was the best place we stayed at, the view was absolutely "far out" (Arthur's favorite words during this trip) with wonderful sandy beach, unfortunately the waves and wind were to rough for the baby so he swam in the pool.
View from the room
The hotel
The sunset
Beach at sunset
Swimming in the pool, we could only stay one night, they were full for the next night. A total bummer, especially since we didn't find a nicer place. They had even provided us with a cot for baby to sleep in, very nice hotel.

Second Night

On the second day we drove down to the tip of Lefkada to a beach called Porto Katsiki (goat door), as you can see from the photos, it has beautiful waters and a wonderful beach. We would have stopped except Nik was sleeping so well that we didn't want to wake him up, so we continued.





We stayed in Vasiliki a small village the second night, here is Nik in the swimming pool again. Boy did he love the water, beach or pool, he wanted in immediately.

We ate dinner right at the port, a little windy but Nik had plenty of room to run around and watch boats.

Third Night

This is a view of Nidri, Lefkada from above the town we stayed in on the third night.
We are called the Fanella Family (wife beaters aka. fanella)
The extremely rocky beach, that required shoes.
But Nik had a whole bunch of fun throwing rocks.



The view from this room, gave us some great views of the water and islands surrounding the bay.
We had a room right next to some fellow Kalambakians, this is Andreas and his wife cooked us dinner, very nice.
Sunrise view from the room, Yes Nik went to bed late and woke up early enough for me to get these photos.
On our final day we drove back up to Parga, were we had spent one night last week. We went to a different beach this time, it also had small pebbles but we didn't mind much better than slippery big rocks.


We then enjoyed a really nice lunch, Nik had chicken kebab, Arthur Mousaka and I had pork with bar-b-q sauce (the first time I have seen it on a menu in Greece and boy was it good).