Celebration!

The reason for our trip, besides a vacation of sand, sea and sun, was to celebrate Baba's 70th birthday with a great, continental bash. We had friends and family from Quebec, Vancouver, Sweden, London, Paris, Crete, Kentucky, New York, California and Paros all celebrating our Dad.

We printed and posted photos from Dad's life around the courtyard.

Chris was in charge of the souvlaki.

Stu kept the wine flowing.

Athena enjoyed her first taste of souvlaki.And the chocolate birthday cake. Yum.
Zoe liked the cake too,
but Athena really, really liked it.
The girls were not in a party mood, however,
They're still a little jet lagged and totally off schedule.

Plus, they've been kept really busy playing with Uncle Stu,
hanging out at the beach,
...and, uh, pole dancing.

But Baba had a great time, which is the most important thing.

It was a fantastic party, he felt honored and loved

and we were so happy to be here

celebrating my amazing Daddy.

Isn't he the most hansomest 70 year old?

We love you Baba!

Island Time

Our hellish 38 hour journey was almost forgotten the second the boat's doors opened and we caught a whiff of that mixture of sea air, thyme, jasmine and pine that is the scent Paros. The moment we stood on the sea wall and looked at the dark sea, we knew the destination was well worth any sanity lost on the trip.

We're quickly adapting to "island time." On the island there is no time. Watches are buried in suitcases and there aren't any clocks in the house. Our day is driven by the course of the sun. We wake at first light, take a swim when the sun rises over the roof of the house, eat lunch with the sun directly above our heads, nap during the heat of the afternoon and wake to watch a beautiful sunset before we head off to town for some dinner of taziki, Greek salad, taramasalada and saganaki.

We are all becoming Greeks.

Athena loves her morning swim with Baba.
Zoe is not yet a fan of sand and water and prefers to "sunbathe."Athena making castles in the sand.Zoe getting the lay of the land.
Athena just hanging out.
Zoe hanging out. Zoe studying her Greek phrase book.
Athena becoming Greek (wearing Baba's Greek fisherman's cap).
Zoe becoming GreekAnd the quickest way to become Greek...hang out with old Greek geezers.

And we off!

And we're off. Our first foray into international travel with two little ones. We're leaving tonight to go and stay at a hotel near LAX. Tomorrow we'll wake up around 5ish, board a plane to Atlanta (6 hours) then a quick two hour stop over before we board another plane to Athens (10 hours). Once in Athens, we're meeting PopPop and YiaYia at the airport and we'll all take a taxi to Pireaus, where we'll wait around for a couple hours and board a boat to Paros (5 hours). So after traveling for around 30 hours. We'll arrive here...

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First Photo

Look there really is a baby in there!

And ONLY ONE, thank God!

Frog hunting

The last couple of nights, just after dark and before bathtime, we sneak out with our flashlights to hunt frogs. In order to find the frogs you must follow the puddles from the evening's sprinklers and look where all the neighborhood cats have gathered to watch the show. When you find this place, you will certainly see several of the little guys hopping and splashing around.

Frogs are not smart and actually quite easy to catch.

We like to name them, photograph them, look at them for a little bit

and then send them back to their Mommys and Daddys.

This is Pickles.

Updates...finally!

I know, I know I've been neglecting the blog. I have alot to update on. First, the bean and I are doing better and (s)he's being less hard on me - it's been rough. I'm still very ill with a few good days thrown in to remind me that this is not forever. And, we're frantically looking for a house and found two that we loved but, for reasons I won't go into, couldn't get either of them.

The girls are growing and thriving and becoming their own little people everyday. Here's what they've been up to (see, I know why you really come here):


Athena surprizes us and speaks like a little adult sometimes. She is Zoe's little Mommy and always correcting her and telling her the rules of the house ("You can't leave the table until you finish your dinner!"). If we're talking and not paying attention to Athena, she'll often say "Mommy, Daddy, listen to my words!" so emphatically it makes us crack up. Her new favorite word is "tricky."


Zoe has a growing fondness for accessorizing. It is rare that I can get her out of the house unless she has her bag, glasses, hat and sometimes a necklace. She doesn't coordinate well yet, but we're working on that.


Athena says she has a mouse name "Cogi" that lives in her belly. When asked what he does there she says "sniffs around and plays with my heart." We use this to get her to eat her meals (always a struggle) as Cogi gets hungry and needs food sent to him. Mommy has a baby in her belly, so why can't Athena have a friendly little mouse?


Zoe is a real talker and will repeat anything you say. In fact, just the other day I pulled my new tortoise shell sunglass from my bag and found the arm had snapped off. Like any New Yorker, I said it, you know the word that begins with "F" and rhymes with "duck", but I didn't say it very loud. No matter, Zoe happily yelled "Fak! Fak! Fak!" all the way home but luckily hasn't added it to her permanent vocabulary.

Athena's becoming extremely independent. She often likes to make her bed (!) in the morning and dress herself. In fact, she'll go through three or four outfits a day because the fun is in the actual dressing. In the afternoons, she likes to don one of her "wedding dresses" for dress up and pretend she is a princess.

Zoe's the sweetest thing in the entire world and sometimes gives me full body hugs and says "I love Mommy alot" for no reason at all. Sniff.

We have quite a bit going on in the next few weeks. We leave for Greece in just five days. I believe there is wireless internet already set up in the Greek house and I should be able to upload photos from there. Keep checking in.

Feeling better...

These last two weeks have been pretty miserable - terrible nausea to the point where I just stopped eating altogether. For that last few days, I've only been able to eat a handful of rice or a half a cup of chicken soup. Instead of the typical 1-2 pounds I should have gained by now, I've lost more than five. Not good.

After meeting with a couple of real losers, I finally found a fantastic doctor who took one look at me and put me on a medication used for chemotherapy patients, but in a much smaller dosage, which has been a life saver. Finally, I can eat again, and I'm starting to feel a little bit better.

I promise to post more photos of the girls with stories soon, as my energy starts to come back. This is just one I took today, to hold you all over. More coming soon.

Mindy and Sandro's wedding

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'nuff said.

Birthday

We celebrated my birthday (and Greek wedding anniversary) with a dinner out en famille, a birthday breakfast the next day and doing laundry for our trip! We leave for San Francisco today where we will do the real celebrating. Think babysitter, good friends, expensive restaurant and buckets of wine (for everyone else, not me)!

So hard to get a good photo of the three of us!

Guess what?

The international symbol for "HOLY CRAP!!!!"

I know it's still very early to announce this but I can't keep secrets and I've been sitting on this information for more than a week now. Anyone knows me knows that in Julie-time that is forever! So after personally informing all the grandparents and aunts and uncles, we can now publically announce Baby #3 due sometime in early March. Yikes!

We are thrilled, of course, but also in shock and kind of terrified.

The reason for my post now is to ask for your prayers. This is the week in the pregnancy that his/her little face is forming. Because of Zoe's cleft, there is a 1 in 20 chance that this baby will also have a cleft. This is a significant increase when you compare it to the 1 in 700 chance for the regular population.

If we happen to be blessed with another cleft baby, we will manage quite well (been there, done that, got the t-shirt), however I pray we will not have to go through that again.

Can you say a quick prayer with me?