27 November 2007

Busy

Some people have been asking if we are busy or not, well the answer varies. Some days we don't have anyone staying upstairs and only a couple of locals come to drink and eat downstairs. Or sometimes we have one or two rooms full upstairs. Then their are the nights were every room is occupied, sometimes with groups sometimes just multiple people coming on the same day. These days can be on the weekdays or on the weekends, their really is no rhythm or reason, it just happens. Here are a few pictures taken 2 weeks ago when we had 16 Spanish students staying upstairs. They had a very good time.

Getting Dirty



Arthur has been working hard at cleaning the heating system. He did our house last week and the vacuum cleaner exploded on him, so their was black soot everywhere. I didn't take pictures of this incident, but I was able to get a few pictures of him working on the one for KokaRoka. Imagine him 4 times as dirty, not a speck of clean skin showing and rings around his eyes, he looked like a Gypsy or one of those punk rock kids that puts black kohl around his eyes. Cleaning the heating system ourselves has saved us over 100euros, we can eat alot of gyros and pizza with the saved cash.

25 November 2007

Ekaterini Day

Today is Arthur's mom's name day, Ekaterini, Katerina (is what I call her) and the "in the future girl child" will be nicknamed Kat (just to let you know). Name days are more celebrated than birthdays, this is when family and friends call to wish you "many happy years". I think perhaps it is easier to remember a name day versus a birthday, I mean it would be like if you knew a whole bunch of Mike's ( I know at least 5 mikes) and I could call them all on the same day wouldn't that make things easy. Of course then if you have a name like mine "mara" it doesn't have it's own name day so I get stuck in with all of the "maria's" and trust me there are a lot of "maria's" in Greece. To celebrate name days you buy little cakes and hand them out to family and friends that stop by, and they bring you little cakes so then you end up with a whole bunch of little cakes to eat. Last year for Arthur's name day everyone brought us cakes, we had about 6 boxes in the fridge, it was just too much. I think if it was all Baklava I would be able to eat it, but normally it's some vegetable cream concoction that just taste really oily.
If you want to know when your name day is, just let me know and I will try to look it up. Then you can celebrate being you twice in one year.

20 November 2007

Greek Thanksgiving

Arthur and I celebrated our Thanksgiving day today, I know it is two days early. This was the day he came to the States last year and I picked him up at the airport and we ate In-N-Out, since we don't have In-n-Out here I did the next best thing and made a Greek style Thanksgiving. The only time of year that they kill Turkeys is 10 days before Christmas, it is considered a Christmas meat along with little pigs and little lambs. So instead I roasted a chicken, this is a good size for 4 people anyway. I also made Au-gratin potatoes, very delicious, this was the only side I could think of, we don't have cranberries, sweet potatoes, pumpkins or green beans (only in summer when fresh, no can products including mushroom soup). The potatoes and chicken was just enough, no Thanksgiving leftovers here.
I hope everyone else has an enjoyable Thanksgiving and enjoy the food for me ( I wish I could smell Maurine's rolls baking, yummy).

13 November 2007

Who has the Biggest Belly?


Voting time is here, who has the biggest belly? Now both of us are carrying "B" things, I have a 3 lb. Baby and Arthur has Beer and Bread in his belly. So what do you think?

09 November 2007

7th Month of Pregnancy


That's no pillow your looking at.

Olives and Market Day

Olives all types of olives, Dad do you recognize the strainer? You have one just like this at home, should I buy you a container of olives, or would you like to come over to sample all of the different types of olives.
I bought celery and broccoli today, I am getting ready for my doctor's appointment on Tuesday and don't want the nurse to yell at me for gaining to much weight. So Arthur and I are going on a diet this weekend, just kidding. I thought I would make frogs on a log (celery, peanut butter, and raisins) I liked eating those as a kid and Arthur has never had one.
See the Meteora rock behind me, we are in beautiful sunny Kalampaka.

04 November 2007

Sunday Drive

Arthur and I took a nice Sunday drive today to look at the neighborhood and check out the houses. I have seen cats on top of car hoods, but today we saw a dog on top of a car hood. It was the funniest thing, he was one of those hunting dogs, I hope he didn't put a dent in the hood.