Easter egg hunt

The girls had fun at our neighbors' annual easter egg hunt.

Aegina

I just think it's so cool that you can be driving along in Greece, and all of a sudden you see an ancient temple that was built in 500BC, like this one - the Temple of Aphea. Amazing!

We spent today on the island of Aegina. We spent more time waiting for the bus than anything, but it was very relaxing and picturesque.

We rode the metro across Athens to and from. Christy pointed out this sign - remember Barbara Thompson's talk? "Mind the gap"

I had to sneak this picture in - my neice Natalie (almost 2) trying to copy Christy reading to the preschool children. So cute!

Corinth

We drove (and hiked the rest of the way) up to Acrocornith, the ruins of a Greek fortress:



On our way back down the mountain we had to wait for a herd of sheep to cross the road:




And then on to Ancient Corinth. It was very neat to see the bema (platform) where Paul was accused by the Jews of Corinth:


And the Temple of Apollo:

And the Temple of Octavia:

The Acropolis

I made it up to the Acropolis today. It's a serious hike to get up there, but it was amazing. Here's the Beule Gate, it was the first entrance to the Acropolis:



This is the Propylaia, the main entrance to the Acropolis:

The Erechtheion, with the Porch of the Caryatids (the statues of women used as columns) and an Olive tree growing where Athena first planted her tree in a competition against Poseidon:

And of course the Parthenon. Amazing!

Kalimera

Here are my first pictures from Athens, Greece! I'm having a wonderful time visiting my sister Christy and her family. Yesterday we drove down to Nafplio. I loved this very Mediterranean town. Here's what the shops look like:

The Palamidi fortress looking over Nafplio and the sea:

And today we took a beautiful drove along the coast to Sounio to see the Temple of Poseidon:

The Wilton Rose

My lastest cake - trying to learn how to make the Wilton Rose. That's the end of Course 1, but I will keep practicing.

Feel the Flutter

We just got back from a little trip into DC. We saw the butterfly exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. Very cool.

Our Sammy

Samantha has had a couple changes over the past week. She got a darling haircut, and she lost her first tooth!

Bath time

Gary told the girls, "Come on! Time to get ready for the bath!" And Danielle did just that! (She just forgot to get undressed first)

Fluffy

I've finally started the Wilton cake decorating class - I've wanted to take it for a long time. It turns out decorating cakes is a lot harder than it looks. But my first cake turned out alright. We used it today so that we could have a birthday party for Samantha's Webkin, Fluffy. What we do for fun!

Yesterday we endured (I mean enjoyed) a couple hours at Kids N Motion. And that's exactly what it was.

Laundry fun

I found a funny video of Danielle from last month. She has a thing for laundry baskets.

Food Art

Creative Food Art by our very own artist Samantha.

Budding Pianist

Very cute.



Some day I will stop blogging about the snow, but until then, here are a few more pictures. Gary dug a snow fort out of the mountain of snow that used to be our front yard. Danielle was so excited to be a part of what the big kids were doing.

Some scary icicles outside of our bedroom window.

Desperate times

The Blizzard of 2010 continues. We woke up to another few inches of snow today (much better than the 10" we were supposed to get - we'll count our blessings).


Yesterday (beore it started snowing again) I went out with my neighbor - we were desperate to get out of the house for a few minutes. Once we finally made it up the hill on Springwoods Drive (we had to get out and help push a car up the hill) we enjoyed lunch at Panera and then browsing around the grocery store - not because we needed any groceries, but because we needed something to do. It's very sad when you go to the grocery store for some excitement. Even sadder than that: the produce section - completely bare.

Our trash pile is starting to look pretty bad as well. There's no way we can get the trash can around the house, so we thought we'd turn our back yard into a landfill. I'm not sure how the association will feel about that.

Can you see the icicles hanging from our upper deck (and on the air conditioning unit)? It feels like we're in an underground cave.

Our 2-year-old

Can you believe our little Danielle is 2 years old?! She loves her raincoat and umbrella she got for her birthday yesterday. She insisted on going out in the snow with them.

Last night Danielle enjoyed having dinner, cake and ice cream, (and a few presents) with our neighbors.