Great America

For the first time, our whole family made a trip to Six Flags Great America. It was a blast! Anna went on her first real roller coaster, so now ALL of us love them. What a great day....

Camp Okoboji

This is our second trip to Camp Okoboji in Iowa--a FABULOUS Christian family camp. HIGHLY recommended!! Outstanding family time.
Here we are with our wonderful counselor, Jon, who we loved!

Jon, Kaleb and Will at chapel

On family free day, we went go-carting. Anna with Ted and Kaleb with Jon.

What camp experience is complete without dish duty. Why don't they like this at home?

Family devotion time. But Anna needed a water break.

A HUGE contingent from the Mt goes to Okoboji. The week we went, there were 8 other families from our town.

Visit to Elkhorn

We went to Elkhorn recently and had a great time.

We celebrated "Regliar Yaya's " birthday. She is well loved!

Yaya Jen and Kaleb always have lots to talk about

Of course we needed some time with our friends the Webs and Gs.......

The Gentlemen

Sum Sum Summatime!

So much going on, so little time to blog, but here's a recap:


We spent Father's Day with two GREAT Dads--mine and my kids!' (At Grampy's)

Look at those cute plaid shorts. What fashion sense my boys have!!

Ted did the very-crazy (in my mind) "Horribly Hilly Hundreds" again--a 100k bike ride around our area. Here he is with two friends from Elkhorn, who also came up to do it. Poor guys, there aren't many hills in their native land!

Here is our biking hero, after the ride, SKIPPING to the car with the kids. He ROCKS these hills, I tell you.

We made a trip down to Elkhorn and had breakfast with our sweet Klug cousins!

What summer visit to Elkhorn is complete without a swim in Uncle Jeff's pool?!!

Here's Ted and Kaleb on a ride at the Mt's "Summer Frolic". No, this isn't amazing photography by me, the ride is stopped.

As a thanks to my Mom for being our super-star child-care-provider while we were in Greece, I took her to a spa. SOOOOO relaxing. Wow, I got Greece and the spa! What a blessed woman!

One of many end-of-the-year field trips....Kaleb in the middle of a forest, writing poetry. Can you feel the tranquility? I love this shot of him...

I also love this shot--this is Anna and Kaleb playing in the lot next to us. Now this could end it, but the usual transition time of having us all together 24/7 has been really good this year!

And finally, the un-official start to summer, Memorial Day weekend at the lake. YEA SUMMMER! Hope yours is off to a GREAT start like ours!!

Happy 14.....

Yup, that's how old we were when we met. LOVE JA. I tried to scan a wedding pix, but I can't get it to work. I need my tech support...

Happy Birthday, Kaleb!

Happy 9th, Bubba! You have grown into such a sweet, caring guy. I'm glad you still like to hold my hand and sit on my lap. You're a great dancer too. Hope your day is Fantastic. We love you!!

GREECE

Did I mention that Ted and I took a trip to Greece? I came up with this brillant idea a couple of years ago....the year we turned 40, we should go to Greece. Ted's grandma is the first-generation born here and we keep in touch with the relatives there. Thanks to Panos' persistence, we did it. And what a trip it was! Ted's grandma (Yaya) was able to make the trip with us, and we stayed with cousins that lived in Athens. Panos and Soula (3rd cousins our age) took Ted and I on a four day trip out of Athens to different spots in Greece. We drove 600+ plus miles on our excursion. Here is just a sampling of this once-in-a-lifetime trip!

COOL VIEWS

A small, well-known feature in Athens (ie The Parthenon on top of the Acropolis)

View from on top of the Acropolis

Ted and I on a beautiful, deserted beach in Elafonesos. While Ted and I were frolicking in the water, Panos and Soula sat on the beach in their jeans. At 80 degrees, it wasn't warm enough for them!

One of the spectacular views from the many mountains we drove over! Thanks to Dramamine, I had no car-sickness... This is Monemvasia....a fortress that was built while Turkey occupied Greece. It's now a resort, and UNBELIEVEABLE. There are 34 unique sleeping rooms.

The view from just outside our room at Monemvasia, having our regular morning frappe's, seaside

Hiking up the mountain at Monemvasia

And the breath-taking view, from almost the top

While in Athens, Ted and I had our own apartment on the 4th floor of Nancy's house (Panos's sister). This was our view from the patio (Acropolis)

OUR HOSTS

I must say, Greek hospitality is overwhelming. Frankly, Americans can't hold a candle to it. We spent many evenings at different cousin's homes, where they had dinners for us. And by dinners, I mean DINNERS. FEASTS. Like the one-time-a-year-Thanksgivings here. They REALLY liked for us to eat. A LOT. They couldn't understand that it wasn't physically possible for me to have third and fourth helpings of everything. Ted, on the other hand, did just fine. I did pretty well with the wine though :)

This is where we spent a lot of our time in Athens, on Nancy's patio with her parents, Vaggelis and Katina. In this photo is Vaggelis, Yaya, Nancy and Ted.

One of the dinners mentioned, where all available cousins gathered to celebrate our visit.

During our time out of Athens, one of my favorite things was to visit the family "villages". This is where families used to live before many of them moved to Athens. This is Soula's family village, where many of the locals stopped by to visit and chat with the "Americanos". Even though Ted and I couldn't speak Greek, and only Panos could speak english, we had a great time drinking frappes, greek coffee, and getting to know each other!

One of our days by the sea, with our INCREDIBLE tour guides, Panos and Soula. LOVE THEM!
Again, one of the family dinners. Please notice the food. The entire, 20 foot table was COVERED with food.

One of our shopping excursions with Ya in downtown Athens. Of course, we had to stop to eat!
Here is Panos, Soula, and their children, Katerina and Vaggelis. WE LOVE YOU GUYS!

So there it is. It was hard to pick which pictures to post, because the whole trip was such a great experience. To the entire GIANNAKOPOULOS family, thank you, thank you, thank you! When are you coming to the U.S? We're waiting!!!!