We smoked our turkey on the grill this year and it turned out really good.  So good that Lynlee’s father, Bill, went home the next day a smoked a chicken on his grill.  Among the fun for the day: Bill coached Noah on batting and fielding; we played poker with the new poker set Bill gave Lynlee; and I harassed Teri as much as humanly possibly.

Click a pic to see more.

One of the coolest parts of the city is Las Ramblas, a street through the heart of the old city.  It is packed with street performers, shops and weirdos (besides us).

We spent New Years Eve at our hotel having a very nice din

ner.  We capped off the year by setting our table on fire with som

e of the confetti we were given!

They played games like Mummy Wrap and bobbed for apples.

Noah invited a few friends over too.

My friend Phil brought some pretty good fireworks around.  He  also scared the hell out of the girls sneaking up behind them while they posed for a picture!

We hope you had a Happy Halloween too!

Our summer holiday this year was to Georgiopolis, Crete with our good friends the Luckwells. Phil and Carol have been going to the same place in Crete for about 10 years running and are treated like family at the hotel. So we wer on holicay with Carol and Phil along with their daughter Katie and her boyfriend, Eric.

Georgiopolis is a small pretty much tourist town on the northwest end of the island between Hania and Rethymnon. The hotel is about 1/2 mile up the mountain with a georgeous view of the city.

We had a pretty small room with one bathroom between the 4 of us with a shower just inches from the toilet. Mary is going through a very shy time regarding anyone seeing her without clothes on but we had to convince her that if she was going to take 30 minute showers someone might have to come in during it. I am not kidding – I did it and got wet. The plumbing in Crete is a little old fashioned so you couldn’t put toilet paper down the toilet anywhere. Big signs in english reminded you at every toilet. OK – enough about the bathrooms.

The hotel is a family affair with Ava doing all the cooking, her Mike waiting tables and taking care of us and grandchildren helping out as well. One night we told Ava that we wanted to eat there for dinner and she had a couple other people – a Scottish couple and their kids that the Luckwells knew and a couple of old geezers. They set one big table for 20 and we ate family style – no menu just what Ava was cooking that night. That night we had 2 types of lamb, green beans from Ava’s garden and greek salad. She charged us only for the wine that night. There are photos on Picassa web showing this night including the strange drinking game we played called “systema”.

The secound night we ate at the hotel was a lunar eclipse and we had no idea it was going to happen. We had been on the beach until late because we were watching the most beautiful full moon come up. Here’s a picture of Noah on the beach that night.

When we got back we were all too tired to go out so down to the resturant we went. Of coarse the resturant looks right over the city and we were sitting outside that night.

At one point Mary looked at the moon and said it wasn’t full anymore and sure enough one little corner of it was starting to go away. Throughout our evening we watched the moon get smaller and smaller. Believe it or not we were in a place that had a view over an 80% eclipse. Apparently it was complete about 1:30am but I had gone to bed a little bit before then.

Our first day in Georgeopolis we spent the whole day at the pool downtown. Noah and Mary met a couple of kids just their age from Wales and spent the whole day in the pool. Certain parents neglected to put suncreen on their children and both of them got lots of sun that day. The pool was right in front of the beach so you could either stay at the pool or wander down to the beach anytime. There was also a resturant right at the pool which allowed us to let the kids stay in the pool while we ate lunch. That night we got back to the room and Noah was exhausted. The whole group of us was going into Rythemnon that night but Noah asked if he could go to bed – at 7:00. I stayed with him while the rest of the group drove into Rythemnon.

Ava was kind enough to bring me a yummy greek salad for dinner that night along with some of her homemade meatballs. I made the group promise that we would go back to Rythmnon another time due to the fact that the real shopping is there.

The next day we went to a water park and the kids ran into the friends they had made at the pool the day before.

OK – this is a small place. Great pools and amazing water slides. There was one slide that was a total free fall. I got to the top of it and said NO WAY. When we got back to the chairs I asked Ken if he had let Noah go on that slide. I didn’t get a straight answer so I had to go to the boy. And YES he went on it.

One morning right after I had boiled water for my coffee – yes I was using a cafeteria to make coffee – no laughing. Anyway the electricity went out. Ava said that “it happened now and then” and it would come on later. Apparently some type of engery saving measure. We got into town and all the resturants were open but you couldn’t get anything hot or cold. No one seemed at all worried about it. We got to the pool and they had a generator so I got my Diet Coke with Ice – thank you very much. The one grocery store we went to had a generator as well. It was all very strange in that if the electrity goes out in the US – life pretty much grinds to a halt – but here it wasn’t any big deal. As it turned out there had been a major fire that had blown out a transformer. We had light when we returned from Rythemnon were we went for dinner that night because we thought that would be far enough away that they would have electricty.

The last day of our trip we went on a boat ride. They took us to an area where a hermit supposedly lived but we had to swim to the shore and then climb up to his home. It was pretty cool although it was staged. They took us on a ride to another cute beach where we hung out for a while and then back to the boat for lunch.

This was one of the best trips we’ve had in Europe. We didn’t do a lot of sightseeing but really just relaxed and soaked up the sun. On one of the last days Noah was actually mistaken for a local boy because he was so brown.

THE FOOD WAS AWESOME- Lamb, greek salad, gyros and calamari. Did I mention lamb?