Trip to St. Dionysios Monastery on Mt. Olympus

About 10 days ago, my friend Brendan needed to go out to the Monastery of St. Dionysios on the famous Mt. Olympus, which is about an hour west of here, so my dad and I gave him a ride. It was also an opportunity for me to visit the monastery for the first time.

It was beautiful and quiet, with the monastery tucked away on the mountain and the leaves beginning to change colors.

The photo above is a shot of Brendan and me at the entrance to the katholikon in the monastery's public courtyard. (There is also a private part of the monastery, with the older, smaller church in the center.)

Here I am outside the church.

My dad standing on a balcony overlooking the church and the courtyard.

A photo of the guest house from the balcony.

A photo of the church from the balcony.

A photo of the monastery from the entrance.

Just to the right of the entrance is a well-stocked bookstore, which also contains the monastery's numerous products -- meat, cheese, honey, jams, etc. This mountainous area of Greece is well-known for its meat and cheese, so we seized the opportunity to buy some produced by the monastery itself.

Before we headed back to Thessaloniki, we were also kindly invited into the private part of the monastery to eat lunch, which consisted of some great eggplant, a traditional cucumber and tomato salad, and local bread.

For a few more photos, click here.

The Babies Around Town

Last week, just before my parents came, our friend Angela came over to play with the babies and let us go out and run some errands. We took Paul with us for some special one-on-one time. In the photo above, Paul is walking up and down the ramp into the Rotunda, which was built in 299 and served as a Christian church beginning in the early 4th century.

Here's Paul playing at the entrance to the Rotunda. He found a puddle in a small hole in the marble that he was sticking his foot into.

Pelagia met us there at the entrance and brought a toy she had found at Thessaloniki new (and only) second-hand store (which is a new concept in Greece). It's a wooden click-clack toy that the babies can pull behind them with a rope. They seem especially taken with this kind of toy these days. Paul tried it out here on the well-worn stones outside the Rotunda.

On another day, we took the babies shopping at Carrefour, which is sort of the French Walmart. The babies love riding in the toy vehicles. Here, Paul is preparing to defend Greece in the Greek army.

Here are the babies playing in the new backyard one sunny afternoon last week. The pomegranates on the tree are ripe -- so ripe, in fact, that they're splitting open on the tree. So the babies got to try some last week, and they love them.

Here, Argo is interested in sharing some of Paul's pomegranate.

These photos are from after my parents arrived. A couple days ago, while Pelagia was still working on her painting project, we took the babies to the mall, to have some place to walk around outside the rain. Of course, they love the big water fountain. On the opposite end of it here, you can see my mom and two of the babies.

As we walked around the mall, they keenly spotted the toy vehicles and wanted to get in. Here all three of them are driving, with my parents on the side.

For a couple more photos, click here.

Parish Trip to Serres with My Parents

My parents arrived for a visit on Sunday. Unfortunately, this also coincided with about 10 straight days of rain here, but oh well! On Tuesday, our parish of St. George's here in Panorama organized a day trip to the Monastery of the Holy Forerunner in Serres, and we decided to go along. Pelagia had the "day off" in order to go work -- she had volunteered to help a friend paint her house.

The parish had a full bus of about 50 people, and we tagged along in our car. The rest of the group left early in order to stop for a coffee along a lakeside, but we met them at the monastery at about noon. The sisters, of course, remembered the babies and were happy to see them again.

The whole group of us went into the church and the babies got to venerate the icons, which includes one wonder-working icon of St. John the Baptist, and they got to wander around a bit. Above, Benjamin is walking down a side aisle of the old stone church.

In the back, I showed Benjamin how to light a candle and then gave him one, and he lit it by himself.

Here's Benjamin just outside the entrance to the church. In the background, you can see the frescoed outer entrance to the church.

All three of the babies love water. Here Benjamin found one of the constantly running fountains that comes from the mountain stream.

Outside the bookstore and museum, the babies stopped to smell the basil plant. Then Fr. Alexios came out with a present for them all -- icon bracelets.

Here are the my parents and the three babies at the entrance to the monastery, which dates to the 13th century.

After the monastery, the group headed down the hill to a quiet, picturesque square of restaurants located alongside the waterfalls at the end of the mountain stream. There we had a nice, traditional Greek lunch. After we ate, we took a walk outside with the babies so that they could see the small waterfalls up close. In the photo below, our table was right behind where I'm standing, inside the glass panes. That way, we could see when they brought the desert, which is about the only thing that could tear the babies away from the water. They were only too eager to wolf down some revani and kataifi with ice cream.

Pelagia took a break from her painting work to meet us back home and put the babies to bed after an exciting adventure. Here, Benjamin was having great fun getting a ride in a bucket.

For a few more photos, click here.

Babies at Play

Here are a couple shots of the babies playing in their new yard this week. In the photo above, the boys are honing their soccer skills.

Here they are playing with mom and a bunch of plastic planters next to the pomegranate tree.

On Tuesday afternoon, we met our friend Kalliopi and her son Michael at a park in Panorama called Platanakia. It has woods, hiking trails, and a small zoo along with a cafe. Here the babies are in the swinging seat.

Here's Benjamin driving the rocket ship. The great thing is that the babies actually like these toys more without putting in coins for them to move. In the background, you can see the cafe overlooking the stream, and some ducks just beyond the bridge.

Here Paul is driving the big truck and trying to grab my camera, while his friend Michael rides the horse and looks on in the background.

Here's everyone feeding the goats some of our stale bread.

And here's Phoebe riding the Harley.

For a few more photos from the day, click here.

Souroti with the Tishels

On Sunday afternoon, our friend and fellow American student here, Michael Tishel, brought his mom up to our house for a visit. His parents are in Thessaloniki visiting, but unfortunately his father was down and out with a cold so he opted out in order to keep a safe distance from the babies (thank you!).

Pelagia made a nice lunch, as always, including some of her famous peppermint cheesecake. Paul couldn't get enough of it, and in the photo above he is demanding more from his godfather.

After lunch, we took Mike and his mom to visit the women's monastery founded by Elder Paisios in Souroti. The photo above was taken at the entrance to the newer church dedicated to St. Arsenios the Cappadocian.

Vespers was being held at the older church dedicated to St. John the Theologian. Here we are walking to the back of the monastery to reach the church. Mike's mom, Presvytera Paula is holding Paul, and Mike is holding Phoebe.

Here we are in front of the church, just as Vespers was beginning.

Like many monasteries in Greece, there is a loudspeaker system so that people can sit outside the church in the courtyard and here the service. The babies found that the best place for them was in the courtyard's water fountain, as you can see above.

Here the boys found a gate they weren't supposed to go through, so naturally they were trying to figure out how to open it. Eventually, Paul just crawled through.

Presbytera Paula in the courtyard outside the main church. In the background, a line waits to venerate the grave of Elder Paisios.

Here are the boys on the ride home.

Here's Paul and his godfather, Paris, at our house after we got back.

Extreme Yard Make-Over

Pelagia has been hard at work renovating the yard for the last several weeks, in the hopes of making it more fun for the babies. Her dream was to have some nice grass (which is in short supply in any city, but particularly Greek cities) in the back yard.

Some devout parishioners somehow found out about this and insisted on helping Pelagia make this a reality for the babies. After we had cleared the central space of our yard (see above), they arranged for someone to come in and lay down sod (see below).

This night-and-day difference occurred, literally, overnight.

Here is a photo from the babies' first time playing on the grass. You can see in the background next to the pomegranate tree that they had been on the grass and had gotten all the plastic planters out and spread them around. In the photos above and below, they were up on the balcony looking down at their new yard.

This is just a nice photo that I caught the next day just after these two woke up from their afternoon siesta, and just before they headed out to play in the grass.