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

Independence Day

The past couple of weeks have been relatively routine for us. Alex has really been enjoying school. He had to miss a couple of days last week with a fever. Sofia also had a brief fever, lasting only 24 hours. We were lucky it wasn't anything more.  Also this week, the US embassy sponsored an absentee voting day held in the UN buffer zone. It made voting from afar an easy process. Plus, that is an interesting area of Nicosia with many old buildings and some still abandoned since the invasion more than thirty years ago. We spent some time driving around to explore the area a bit more. Yesterday we made it to the pool for a final day. As of today it is closed for the season. Cyprus weather is incredibly consistent. Currently the high temperature is around 90 degrees and pretty much sunny every day. I rarely even check the weather forecast, especially during the summer. I think there were only two brief rain showers during the summer. So imagine my surprise when we woke up to a cloudy sky this morning. Usually a rain shower would be welcome but today is Cyprus' Independence Day (from the British in the 1950's) and we literally didn't want it to rain on our parade. No need to worry, the little sprinkle lasted only about ten minutes. The parade was very different than those in the US. It was primarily military vehicles, such as tanks and missile launchers, and various companies of soldiers marching. There were also ambulances and police along with two military bands. No floats or candy thrown in this parade.  About half way into the parade Alex asked, "Are you sure this is a parade?".  Once he got used to it he did think it was neat to see all of those big trucks.

Very proud of the new shirt from his school

Trying to quickly catch some raindrops

Small Cyprus flags lined the parade route, but look at the cloudy sky.

Here come the tanks!  They were loud.

Cyprus has the cutest little fire trucks.

My little Cypriots.

And the soldiers

More and more soldiers

Finally, a band.

Some kind of missile launcher