Greece, chapter 3

What?!? More posts of Greece? Sorry guys, there are more pictures coming. There was a general transportation strike one day in Athens, so we planned ahead and rented a van and went to the Peloponnese region of Greece to see Napflion. It was this funny little van thing with a funny name -- hence the picture. It had GPS, which we had never used. The kids named the GPS "Aphrodite," and that girl did save our bacon getting out of Athens!

Our first stop was the Corinth Canal. This is a shipping channel that has been cut through solid rock to connect the Gulf of Corinth with the Aegean Sea. It's more than 6 km long and is amazing to see!

We had this great view on a bridge over the canal. Some of us (won't mention any names) couldn't resist spitting to see how long it would take to reach the water. Remember the old poem by Shel Silverstein, "When You Spit From the 26th Floor?" Ah, but I digress...

Here are Natalie and Shannon on the bridge over the canal. They weren't spitters. Boring girls.


Dad goofing off.

Look who's goofing off again, but with help this time? Natalie and my dad with the statue of General Kolokotronis, a hero of the Greek War of Independence.

This is the Palamidi Fortress! Cool looking, huh? It was built in the late 1600's by the Venetians, but the Turks and Greeks also added to it when they took over. It's sitting up on this big hill overlooking the city of Napflion and the Gulf of Argos. Guess what -- we went to the top!

See the view? Awesome! We cheated, because it was a very hot day. We didn't hike UP to the fortress, but we did explore all around at the top, then we hiked DOWN the hill.

Looking for a cool spot. This fortress also served at prison for General Kolokotronis, whose hero status went to his head and tried to overthrow the new Greek government.

Another great view. See the cruise ship? We're very high up.

Hiking down the 982 steps. Yikes, our legs were jelly when we reached the bottom. Correction, only those of us who aren't 15-year-old hard bodies had jelly legs.

Here we are at step #212. If you don't understand the whole "212" thing, don't ask.


Here we are at the bottom of the hill. Tired and sweaty, we jumped into the ocean!

ICE CREAM!!! It was sorely needed and richly deserved today!

Can't you just wait for Chapter 4???

Greece, chapter 1

We had a wonderful trip to Greece this summer! My parents are there on a mission until March, so we took advantage of our United flight privileges and went to see them. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience! Be forewarned, these next few posts will be photo-intensive and are serving as my journal of the trip. They are NOT for the casual blog-reader! Plus, I have siblings
who want ALL the details! So here goes:


We are jet-lagged in this picture, and we don't ever want to see an airplane again, but all that is forgotten when we see Mama Judy and Grandpa! We stayed at the Marriott, which is a 10-minute walk from Mom & Dad's apartment. A couple of the kids would stay at their apartment each night. This is the lobby of the Marriott.

Mom and Dad wasted no time in showing us around Athens. What an experience it was for my kids to see a place where most people get around on the subway. In this particular metro station, there are ancient statues just sitting there. Only in Greece.




Walking through the Plaka shopping area, we came across Hadrian's Library. Impressive.






Mom & Dad's apartment as seen from the street. Almost every morning, Dad would be watching for us and waved to us from the balcony. I'm not sure why Rachel looks cold. It was very hot in Athens the whole time we were there.




This is at the Church/Young Adult Center where Mom and Dad work. There are classrooms and a chapel, but we discovered that the top floor is the place to be! Here, Dad is creaming Kevin in ping pong while the girls try out the pool table. Notice Hadrian's Arch across the street. People just drive by it like it's nothing, but it's thousands of years old. Amazing.






So, we walked across the street to see Hadrian's Arch, and Kevin artistically captured not only me and the Arch, but the Acropolis behind it in the background. Bravo, Kevin!









Here we are on the metro. It cost one euro to go anywhere for 90 minutes. After one particularly crowded and smelly train ride, Natalie said, "I just don't like my fellow human beings THAT much."

The station we get off at to get to Mom & Dad's apartment. We got a little confused when we had to get around ourselves, so we were pretty proud of ourselves when we were able to get all the way to the port and back for our cruise.







Mom speaking Greek to the bakery lady. She's really good at it, too! The lady understood her! Unlike my father, Mom has really studied her Greek. She says she still doesn't know it very well, but while we were visiting, she finished her reading of the Greek Book of Mormon that she started before leaving last summer! Wow!

Here we are at the neighborhood grocery store. I don't know how Mom understands ANYTHING.

An octopus in the frozen food section. This grossed out Shannon.











Most days ended this way. We have a very strict ice-cream-every-day-while-on-vacation policy. Dad was happy to oblige.

Explanation for my Absence

I'm sure it's not news to any of you that May is an exceptionally busy month. So, in an attempt to explain my absence, I humbly submit the following:

The end of the school year involved some of this...

And some of this...

And this...

And this, too...

And still more....

Then, we were lucky enough to go to Hawaii again, and this time we got to bring Kevin home with us! So, that involved some of this...

And some of this...

Then, add water, and you get this...

We also found a little of this...

And at Natalie's insistence, some of this...

And of course, some of this...

OK, maybe a LOT of this...

But now, we're home, and I've got my Handy Man back. So, we're doing some of this...

And MORE of this...

And some guys delivered some of this...

So we could do some of this...

So we could be hot and sweaty and wear outfits that embarass the family and scare the neighbors like this...

All to get a patio that looks like this... (pretty, huh?)



And now, I need a little of this...

How 'bout them Wolverines?

I'm sure it was bigger news in Utah than it was here, but it was great to watch Utah Valley University on "Dancing with the Stars" last night! Dang, they're good! You may not know that my brother-in-law, Scott Asbell, is the director of the Ballroom Dance Team there. We don't have TV, so we didn't watch it live, but we voted! Scott even got some face time. It's on YouTube this morning; you can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN5hqrf5Rys Depending on the votes, the winner of last night's match-up will compete against Purdue next Tuesday.

Some new pictures...

We've had a busy couple of weeks. Of course, it seems like May is always the busiest month of the year, doesn't it?

Kevin traveled to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas for a conference last week. So, since he was back on the continent, I flew out to meet him for the weekend. We had a great time. We did some of the "Vegas" things, but one of the highlights was a hike we took to Mary Jane Falls, about 45 min outside LV.

When I returned home, we celebrated Rachel's birthday. Can you believe my baby is 12?!? We do "friend" parties only every other year, so this year there were 11 girls here for a "cooking party." They decorated aprons and made pizza and homemade ice cream. It was fun!

We also had the end-of-year band concert at the high school this week. I actually LOVE these concerts, because as opposed to the middle school concerts where they're still kinda learning their instruments, the high school kids sound wonderful! Here are my beautiful musicians.

And, I'll add a picture of Shawnie, just for grins. I just love the guilty look on her face as she sits next to the deflated basketball - haha! Have a great day, everyone!