July 4th in Greece

Last Sunday, July 4th, we were invited, along with Fr. Panayiotis and his family, to my Byzantine music teacher's house. Manoulis, who is the protopsaltis at the Byzantine Church of the 12 Apostles and now professor of Byzantine Music at the university, lives outside Thessaloniki toward the north (Panorama is toward the east).

With Fr. Panayiotis' 5 kids, and Manoulis' 5 kids, plus other guests, there were plenty of kids for the babies to play with. In the photo above, Paul is looking out at the guys as they grill up the meat, which included some very good Greek buffalo sausage.

Here Phoebe and Paul are swinging with Kh. Sophia.

Paul came to hang out with the guys as we grilled and learn the male secrets. Here he's sitting with Fr. Panayiotis and supervising the grilling.

Here are all the babies having fun with their mom on the swing.

Since it was July 4th, we tried to make it an American celebratory BBQ. Greeks have many such national traditions and are always interested in learning about the few such traditions we have, so Kh. Sophia made a jello-based tribute to the American flag, and we brought some sparklers.

Here the babies were having a conference about the basketball.