100 plus fires

Hot weather is still contributing to over 100 fires on Mainland Greece and the Islands. As we drove past Volos we saw an example of the devastation a fire could do, this one was very large and wiped out what looked like a beautiful forest in the past on Pindros mountain. We have had several heat waves this summer and are again in one with weather between 40-45C.

Beach Bums

My first beach swim since moving to Greece was well worth the wait. Arthur took me to his favorite beach and we were the only people on it all morning long. About 400-500 goats passed by with their dog watchers, at first Arthur wanted to leave because some Greek Sheppard dogs can be hazardous to humans, but these dogs just joined us for a nap under the shade of the trees. The middle picture is actually Arthur swimming with my hat on, he forgot his. The lower picture is me standing in front of our private beach, no one lives in the house along the inlet, wouldn't you like to live there it's beautiful.
This day trip turned into an overnight stay, Arthur and I were so exhausted after waking up at 5 am and driving for three and half hours and then swimming till 1 pm that we decided to stay in the small town of Millina. The pastries don't taste so great, but the calamari, schnitzel and french fries were delicious. A great place to stay. The top picture is a beach that we swam at in the morning before leaving to come back home, it wasn't as private as the one we went to the day before but the water was just as nice.

Baby in Blue

The doctor is 99% sure that the baby is a boy, so here comes another baby boy. If he is a boy his name will be Nickolaos Sakkas (Νικολαος Σακκας), the first boy and first girl are named after the paternal grandparents. This ultra-sound was done to make sure that the baby does not have Down Syndrome, and at my age of 31 there is a 1/550 chance that the baby can have Down Syndrome, but with the measurement of the fluid in the neck and being able to see the nose bone (Down syndrome babies do not have a nose bone at fetal12 week age). With these measurements we are know in the 1/2996 percentile which means I'm like a 15 year old giving birth, and they say you don't get younger by the year.
Baby looks healthy and we got to hear his heartbeat at 169 bpm and his brain had the butterfly effect. The only issue was that he slept through the whole doctors appointment, we were there for two hours. The doctor kept poking my stomach and even gave me a pill to take to wake him up, but the little guy sleeps like his mom on his stomach and with no interruptions. At one point I think the doctor poked to hard and the little guy turned around and hit back with his hand, this is when we got the clear shot taken above. I started to laugh and the little guy went back to laying on his stomach. The doctor made a joke and said the baby was still on US time, it was between midnight and 2 in the morning in California. Which this made total sense, because instead of getting morning sickness I've been getting evening sickness, now I know why.

Weather

Well the weather is still hot, but not so bad compared to Turkey 50C which is like 125F. But since we have the heat wave we now have over 100 fires burning in Greece and the Islands, all of the planes are being used and we have even borrowed some firefighters from other countries (Italy and France). The closest fire to us is about an hour away so it's not affecting us, but that is the fire that they found 2 dead people. We are surrounded by mountains so hopefully no forest fires will come here.
Everything is going well here.

Peaceful on the Greek Front

Just wanted to let everyone know that not much is happening here. We haven't had any greek holidays, so I'm missing out on my dancing. Last night there was a DJ at the central square and we could here his hiphop bass booming music all the up to our house. This weekends weather is supposed to be at 43 C, I have no clue what that is into Fahrenhiet, but I know it's pretty darn hot already at 36 C. We get summer showers like New Mexico here, but the humidity doesn't allow it to cool down, unlike NM where the summer shower can cool the place by 10 degrees F. We also have the coolest thunder and lightening, the thunder echoes off of the rocks and can last for several minutes, very loud and totally fun to listen to as long as you're hanging out in a dry spot.

A Visit from Rhonda

Yahhh, Rhonda made it to Greece, our first visitor from the states, Hello Rhonda!We picked Rhonda up at the airport in Athens and drove back to Kalampaka making a stop at a beach town to have some coffee and chocolate.
We took a small break at Varlaam Monastery and had some cookies and water. Rhonda and I hiked from Koka Roka all the way down to Kastraki, as we walked by the lady who sells us our bread that we give to customers I told her we had to stop and say hello. As we left here comes Arthur to pick up some bread so we were able to hitch a ride back with him, I'm so glad he came when he did my legs were killing me.
This is our last night with Rhonda, after eating a big meal of sausage, mutton and lamb chops for the meat selection along with greek salad, bean salad, olives and bread for the side dishes.
From left to right: Nick, Arthur, Mara, Rhonda, and Katerina

White Spider

We have some of the coolest little creatures here in Greece , some of them are scarry looking like the house centipede and some of them just don't know that they belong outside like the millipede and the scorpion. But this was a totally awesome white spider who had caught a bee inside of one of my roses, of course I tried to explain to the spider to eat the bad bugs and not one of the good bees who help pollinate our gardens and make honey.

A Day in the Life of Mara - Part II

Okay so this was a month long nap, but well worth taking. In the afternoons on the weekdays I take a nap, on the weekends I'm busy watching TV series like Grey's Anatomy, Friends, House, Veronica Mars and Monk so I don't take naps.Feeding and talking to guest at night, Mara makes the salads, Arthur takes the orders and Katerina prepares the meat, we all make sure it doesn't burn on the grill. Then it is Bon Appetite.