Day 2 - 1-11-11

As Clay is taking 2 online classes I have been trying to get the kids out of the house to give him some "quiet" time.  I took the kids to the beach yesterday.  The town of Sitia has started the clean up of the beach.  yaaa.  The beach got hit really hard with garbage, bamboo, wood, etc.  So it is much better now.  We ended up spending 5 hours at the beach.  We had a nice picnic there.  Wyatt has been asking to have a picnic here as they don't have any of those black birds that takes your food!  Crows. :)
We got in the car and drove to a town up the mountain called Roussa Ekklisia.  It was small and cute.  It took us 30 seconds to drive through it.  So we kept going up and around the mountain.  We ended up at a church, that I am not too sure of the name.  It was nice and peaceful up there.  We hung out there and hiked around for a bit.  The key was left in the door, so we were able to go in the tiny church.  The church was surrounded by beautiful trees, clovers, mountains, etc.  The road was a little interesting on getting there, along with our car being a little low.  On our way home we pulled over and saw a man riding his donkey down the mountain.  You don't really see that unless you are in the mountains.
When we got home we had a nice barbecued steak, roasted potatos, carrots and broccoli.  A little taste of home.
The kids had a good day on our adventure.

Day 1 of Car Rental

Yesterday, Monday, January 10 we rented a car.  We will have the car for the rest of our stay.  So now we are going to go on small adventures within an hour of Sitia.
Yesterday we went looking for a frog pond.  However, I don't think it is frog season, so we didn't see any.  We did stop at a monastery along the way - Toplou Monastery.  The grounds were pretty neat.  I started taking photos to realize there were signs up everywhere stating no photos.  So I didn't actually get any of the insides.  Apparently, there are only 2 monks that live there now.  We had this one older gentleman follow us around,  and then open the church portion for us so we could see inside.  The kids were a little scared of this man and kept hiding behind me.

I will try to  post short blubs of our daily adventures for the next 20 days.

Take care everyone, see you soon

Happy New Year

2011 is going to be a good year.  We ended 2010 in a way that not everyone gets to do, living a dream.  And we get to carry that dream over in the new year for 9 months.  We are very fortunate to be able to do what we are doing.  Lots of people dream of it, but don't try to figure out a way to do it.
We had a great holiday.  Mary and Al made over here Dec. 21.  They arrived in another town that is about 2.5 hours drive away.  Clay went and them up.  I have to say, it was torcher waiting for them to arrive back at our place.  Every time the kids heard a noise outside they thought they were here.  The following day Tanya and Todd arrived, with a miracle of course.  They were in London at the Heathrow Airport during the big snow storm and were lucky enough to have their plane be one of the ones to fly out.  We did a lot of hanging out, eating, drinking and walking.  It was nice to have family here with us over the holidays.  Tanya and Todd left Dec. 27 to carry on their travels.  Mary and Al left on Jan. 2 to carry on their travels.
On Dec. 28 we left in the morning and went on a road trip with Mary and Al.  We spent one night in Heraklion, then drove right to Chania and spent 2 nights there.  We came back home on the 31st and had a very quiet New Years.
Now we are on our last leg of our adventure in Greece.  We are returning to Vancouver February 2, 2011.  From there we will be residing at Mary and Als place in the suite until the end of the summer.  We are excited to carry on with our adventure on our turf.  We plan to do some skiing in Whistler, hang out around town, and do a trip to California with lots of camping.  We will be around town til May, then off camping.
The kids are excited to see family and of course their friends.  We have a "bucket list" started on things we want to do in and around town.  We plan to do lots of hikes and bike riding with the kids.  I think they have been lost without their bikes for the last 5 months.
I think we plan on renting a car for the last weeks of our stay here and do some short trips in our areas for hikes, etc.  We promised Wyatt on our last trip that that was our last one.  The pour kid gets car sick every time we go on the windy roads, even with car sickness meds.
The weather has been sunny, cloudy a  bit of rain and wind.  The temp has dropped down to an avg of 14 degrees.  We have lucked out with the weather as this winter has been the warmest they have had.  Up until a couple of weeks ago we were still in the low 20's.  We also went swimming on boxing day.  I have to say it was pretty cold.  Wyatt went in a couple of times with Mary and Al, Lydia dipped her feet in and decided it was too cold for her.  I went in to my waist and stood there.  That was all I was going to do, but then I thought when am I going to get this chance again, so I jumped in!  :)
All of our activities start up on Monday again.  They stopped for a couple of weeks during the holidays.
It is hard to believe that we leave Crete in 23 days, then we are off to Athens for 2 nights.  Then our journey home begins.  Wyatt says he doesn't want to fly home as the plane ride is too long!  We agreed with him, but told him that was the quickest way to get home.
Anyways, I am off now.
Take care everyone, we miss you guys lots.

See you soon