Happy Late Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Cyprus!  We have had a busy Christmas week.  Our friends Jan, Mike, Steve, and Carrie came to visit us from Boston.  It was great to have them here and we did our best to show them as much as we could in a short time.  They left yesterday morning.  I'm hoping that some of them will do a post for me about their time here.  We had some computer issues while they were here and weren't able to post during that time.  I will just focus on Christmas day for now. 
Christmas morning Alex woke up at 6:30 and I got up with him.  He was very good and didn't try to sneak in to see if Santa had been here.  By 8:00 he was becoming pretty anxious to open presents and I gave him the green light to wake up daddy and Sofia.  Both kids were excited by everything they received.  Well, except Alex wasn't too happy to get another book from his parents.  We then picked up our visitors from the hotel, and came back to the house to open more presents.  Aunt Diana hosted the entire family as well as our friends for a Christmas lunch.  She had tons of delicious food that was enjoyed by all.  It was a fun afternoon of visiting with everyone, including Alexis and Stephanos who were on leave from the army.  In the late afternoon we headed to the town of Limassol with our visitors to begin our touring for the remainder of the week.  We are truly blessed to have so many special people in our lives.

Opening the stocking stuffers

Alex got the police van he wanted.

Sofia was happy with her play dough ice cream shop.

Winter Celebration

Alex's school had a Christmas party on Monday evening.  The kids spent many days practicing their songs and it paid off.  Alex's group sang five songs and I'm pretty sure Alex did the best of anyone.  He likes to sing and knew all of the words and sang in a loud enough voice that he could be heard.   After the concert, Santa made an appearance and gave all of the kids a gift.  Sofia is usually terrified of Santa, but this one had a beard that covered only part of his face and she willing walked to him to get her present.  There were also some craft activities for the kids to do and refreshments.  A nice evening. 

Waiting for the show to start

In the audience

Alex was reading the names for Santa

Finally his turn.  His was the last present from Santa's bag.

Santa brought her a book.

Being silly with his best friend.

Working hard together.

A friendly tiger.

And a beautiful butterfly.

Nicosia Marathon

Congratulations to Demetris!  He ran, and finished, his first marathon on Sunday.  He put in many hours of training and was in good shape at the finish line.  The Quantum Nicosia Marathon is an international marathon, complete with the flame that travels between marathons.  There were about 150 participants in the marathon, plus others in a half marathon, 10K, and 5K.  Alex and I were able to see him once during the race, and then we picked up Sofia and met him at the finish line.  He's already talking about his next marathon!

Here he comes

The woman behind him is running the half marathon

Waiting at the finish line

At the finish

Alex is holding Demetris' medal

And the winner is.......

Demetris!  He won a 43 inch plasma TV from the local grocery store. He had not even realized he entered the contest.  The store was trying to encourage customers to switch from the regular reward card to a family card.  Apparently he was entered in the contest when he filled out the application.  Honestly, we have watched very little TV since we moved here. Of course, there is the language barrier for me.  We do get EuroNews in English, which we turn on most evenings.  It is pretty repetitive, like Headline News in the US, so thirty minutes is enough.  I really haven't missed television at all, other than sporting events.  Thanks to digital books available through the library I have been doing lots of reading instead.  We will see if that changes now. 

It's Rally Time

The Cyprus Rally is a three day car race through the mountains. Day two began in our village, Salamiou.   About 35 cars participated and the race will determine the winner of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge since it is the final race of the series.  There was a staggered start time since these aren't really roads that could handle a bottleneck. They travel on some pretty curvy roads and let's just say that Cyprus doesn't always see the benefit of guardrails. We watched from the start line. Once they take off you lose sight of them pretty quickly. Alex had a great time, but Sofia hated the noise and she and I ended up watching from further away. The weather was perfect today. Hard to believe this is November when we are wearing shorts and t-shirts.

Getting ready to start

Helicopter tracking the race

Clouds of dust the cars leave behind

The first turn

Alex watching intently

That's the road in the middle of the mountain

Enjoying some ice cream

Happy Halloween

In Cyprus, Halloween isn't really celebrated.  They have heard of it, and there are some pumpkin decorations for sale here and there, but children do not trick-or-treat.  Lucky for Alex, his school is "international", which means they got to have a Halloween party today and dress up in costumes.  It is a bit tricky to find a decent costume here, so we used some things that we already had around and came up with a Handy Manny costume.  He looked pretty cute. 

Sofia and Alex with the cupcakes we made for his party

Handy Manny

At his school

Started doing "work" as soon as he arrived at school

Just Rubbing It In

Another beach day for us today! It was a perfect day at the beach.  The temperature was around 90, the water was calm and warm, no wind, and not too crowded.  Demetris and I got in some snorkeling and saw lots of fish. 
Happy birthday to my sister Kathy, who said she has never gone to the beach on her birthday. 
Enjoy the pictures from Konnos Beach.

Crystal clear water

Is it really October?

This post is dedicated to everyone in the Boston area and the Midwest who are in the midst of cool, autumn weather.  We went to the beach today!  Recently the temperatures have been in the mid 80's and we wanted to squeeze in another beach outing before it does get too cool.  The water temperature has dropped, but it is still comfortable.  At this time of year, the sea has more waves than during the summer months, more similar to the ocean now.  The kids had a great time playing a splashing game with daddy. He would stand in the water with his back to them and they would run up behind him and splash him.  Demetris would turn around quickly and splash them as they ran away through the sand.  They thought they were being sneaky, but they ended up being the ones who got soaked.  They giggled and laughed until Demetris was worn out. 

A cool rock they found

Harvest at the Village

Grandma Electra needed to go to Paphos on Friday and since it is a short drive to the village from there, we headed there for the night.  It was evening when we arrived and the night air was pretty chilly in the mountains.  Sofia wore the "light shoes" she got for her birthday and led us to Emilios restaurant for a light dinner.  Saturday was our mini harvest day.  The village house has a pomegranate tree and we picked three buckets full of large, ripe pomegranates.  We also went to a small piece of land that grandma owns that has some grape vines and almond trees.  The grape vines really aren't tended by anyone, but the almond trees were full.  Apparently the proper way to harvest almonds is to hit the branches with a long stick that makes them all fall to the ground.  Placing a tarp or blanket on the ground makes them easier to pick up.  The necessary stick didn't fit easily into our car so we left it behind and opted to pick them the hard way, by hand.  It wasn't that easy because most of the almonds were too high for us to reach and we resorted to climbing the tree.  In the distance we saw dark storm clouds approaching.  We filled a grocery bag halfway with the almonds and then headed back to the house for lunch.  Once we finished eating, a large thunderstorm arrived and even brought some small hail.  The power also went out.  We waited until the storm was mostly over before we packed the car and headed back to Nicosia.  The power was still out when we left, so hope we didn't leave any lights on.

Cracking almonds with a rock

Demetris picking almonds

The biggest nut in the tree

Here comes the storm

These morning glories were really beautiful