The Thanksgiving Spirit

While being on Paros during such an important holiday had its appeal, it also meant this would be the first time we would be without any immediate family members. The Metaxa family had invited us to a great dinner with about 20 or so. Everyone was asked to bring a dish and we all ate fabulously. This marked the first time I've ever been indoors for a party at the Metaxa house and it was very festive. 

Before the dinner, we were graced with the Thanksgiving Spirit (Petros in drag) who told of Thanksgiving and the American passage of gobbling food.

He went around the table asking if you were American, while about 3 quarters of the table were not, he would then baptize them with their new American name. Theodore became Johnny, Maria became Sally, Hufwost (sp?) became Roger and so forth.

Jen, Sigrid and myself, represented the "real" Americans in a way (we got to keep our names), as we have done this tradition all our lives, while the rest had maybe a distant connection to the country. It was such a fun evening and there was plenty of laughs and high spirited conversation to last the night.

We ate clam chowder to start, followed by a wonderful meal that had sweet potatoes with marshmallow, stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and home made biscuits. Jen made the mashed potatoes and biscuits, which we now have enough leftover mashed potatoes to last us til Christmas!

To all the family and friends we could not see yesterday, we wish you a happy holiday and many belt tightening recipes!

Aero & Mika

Some new house guests have landed and they are pretty damn adorable.

Aero

Mika

Wonder twin puppies, Aero and Mika, were from an abandoned litter of 5 and the local animal shelter had reached its capacity for storing stray animals, so we were asked if we could care for them until they are old enough to be shipped to good homes overseas once they are found.

They are incredibly soft, lovable and inseparable. Both are deep, deep black with little white paws and patches on their belly. They follow Louloudi around like she is the greatest dog in the world. They love belly rubs and will stretch and stretch to get as much belly love as possible. Aero is the adventurous one and charges head first into all the activities and is constantly trying to steal our clothes on the floor, but is quickly learning what is a toy and what isn't. Mika is the sweet, quiet, gentle one who prefers to watch a little before jumping into play. She is not the one to fight for her food, so we have to give her a space to eat in peace, lest her brother hog the whole thing to himself.

They are absolutely lovely to have and are well behaved. It shall be hard to say goodbye to them when the times comes, but its such a pleasure to have them here.

 Belly rubs are a must

 Barking at the boats

 Mika

 Jumping on the Lou

 Is the new big dog in town

 Puppy swarm!

 Lots of napping

Dog squad

Almost done with all the house repairs!

Haha, of course not, that is impossible, but wouldn't it be funny. This house is in constant need of attention. It's almost like the Golden Gate bridge where there are painters who paint the bridge and by the time they reach one end of the bridge, it's time to start again on the other side. 

BUT...

I have made considerable improvements that should look nice and new for some time. While lots of little things are improved and cleaned, the big milestones recently are finishing all the shutters in the house. Peeling the paint, filling cracks and holes, sanding, de-rusting the hinges, fresh coats of paint and a little extra to help it all keep their luster in the treacherous salty air. 

Before

After stripping the paint

Several new coats of paint

Glyn who has been sanding for about two weeks straight now. I couldn't have done half as much on my own and he is very good at sanding. Everything looked newly cut from the carpenter's by the time he was done. 

Glyn

Sanding the hinges

We got some great new little gadgets to do this right, and I'm sorry to my dear sister Michelle that I didn't have this sooner when she helped me earlier, but we can make dirty, rusted hinges, look like new with our drill bit sander and wire brush cups.

I have a paint gun now, so I can do shutters in 30 seconds and then just brush up the drips. What a time saver!

Dog

After

 Small guest room shutters

 Living room shutters

 Studio wall

Studio shutters

That's just a couple of the big projects that take about a week to do right and I'm glad to say there are no more shutters to do in the house. No longer will I be permanently covered in blue specks of paint and smell of turpentine. Now we can finally focus on fixing a few things like some doors, lights, walls, toilets, cabinets, tool room, stairs, gates, chairs, ceiling beams, etc. etc. etc.... Sigh. It's going to look good. 

BBQ for Loulou and friends

Every now and then when the weather forecast is nice, we throw together a little BBQ. Bunch of souvlaki from the butcher, spicy cheese potatoes from the grill, pomegranate salad, fresh tzatziki, toasted olive oil bread, coleslaw and plenty of sangria. Everything came out fantastic and the weather was a warm 73 degrees for the day and the night proved to be calm enough to relax outside. A short BBQ ended up being a great party with friends over from 2 til about 12. We had such a lovely time with our friends, Sarah, Eric, Brett, who are teachers at the art school and work with Jen. We had Lorin who is Mona's nanny and is one of Jen's best friends on the island. We had Scott and Lisa, friends we play darts with at Selinis who are very fun people and run a local villa rental agency. We had our new friend Sigrid who watched Louloudi for the last few days we were gone, because Eric had to take his students to Turkey. Glyn and Will who are longtime friends and helped with the grilling. Louloudi had so many people that she loved at the party, so she was constantly bouncing from one friendly hand or lap to the next.

 Friends came by around 2 when the weather was perfect

 Mona, who loves to chase around Loulou and pick her up.

Starting from bottom left, Lisa, Brett, Sigrid, Sarah, Jen, Eric, Glyn, Lorin and Scott.

 Glyn

Jen and Lisa

Eric, Loulou's dogsitter getting in some quality time

Tired ladies

Halloween in Paros

Halloween in Paros is a small phenomenon that is not celebrated among Greeks, as they have a similar festival sometime in February instead. But for those Americans and northern Europeans who love Halloween, by God, we're not going to let a little thing like that get in our way of making costumes and reliving our youth just a little. Costume shops are non-existent on the island, so everyone is forced to improvise. We of course waited til the very last Sunday to really get a costume idea together, but brilliance struck when I saw a large recycling dumpster full of great cardboard. I filled the car to capacity and begin chopping away. We quickly made ourselves into the knights of Paros and used cardboard, packing tape and house paints that were lying around.

I asked what weapon I should make for Jen and the first thing she responded with was "nun chucks", so my little lady was going to be a fierce medieval warrior with nun chucks. She got a headpiece, bra protector and "chainmail" skirt to boot!

Glyn chose to be the knight templar with garbage bag armor and shield.

I was the blue knight, solely because I didn't have any black paint, as we all know that I love to quote Monty Python. Regardless of color, I still battled the great knights above and soundly defeated mine enemies. The fight is mine!

 On our quest for the Holy pint of Lager.

 We were joined by brave Sir William Farnsworth in the bar.