Since I've been extremely busy, I've decided to do a quick post to let all of you in on why I haven't posted in a while. It was my second week home and I'm back into the swing of things.
Here's a little of what's been going on around here.





We began our week with Kosta appearing TV early Sunday morning. It was a lot of fun to watch, his sense of humor is amazing. I did record it, however, not all of it. I missed the last half of the interview because I ran out of tape. Yes, I have an analog video camera so I'm still doing things the old fashioned way. You can hear Gigi barking and the kids whispering, it's classic.





As soon as he returned home that morning, we set off for a picnic. The weather was gorgeous, the kids played games and we enjoyed live music. Beautiful day.







Within the week, we explored in our yard. The weather has been so beautiful, we've already started to eat outside.









We celebrated Foti's fifth birthday. He brought his favorite lemon cake to school to share with friends and we had another waiting for him at home. I love that he wanted me to bake his cake!

I've noticed that the figs have already started to grow.

Our lilacs are in full bloom.

Asproula is happy here. We are keeping her. Kosta was out shopping one day and he came home with a collar. She's ours. She loves it here and we love her. The nicest part of this whole story is that she chose us. We're lucky.

The kithonia(quince) trees have blossomed. Out of all of the fruit trees that we have, these are my favorite blossoms.

We've had a few visitors and have seen a lot of our neighbors, especially since the weather has been so nice. We've been lucky enough to receive a lot of gifts this week. What gifts?

Well, when you live here it's typical to give and receive on a regular basis. For instance, if a neighbor has extra eggs from their chickens, they usually share them. I like to give my lemons to the neighbors and friends since none of them have their own lemon trees. In Milwaukee I have excellent neighbors that share as well, it's just that none on them have chickens! I'm so thankful for all of the generosity that we're surrounded with. Here's what we've received this week...

4 loaves of tsoureki

30 eggs

5 heads of marouli (romaine lettuce)

tangerines in syrup

a bottle of homemade white wine

How's that for genorosity? All of this came from 5 different families.

Since tomorrow is Easter, my in-laws are going to be arriving with even more goodies. I'm sure that there's another tsoureki on its way and hopefully, a karythopita!

Have a fantastic weekend and KALO PASCHA!!

Well, it's Saturday afternoon. I put the kids down for a nap, put a chicken in the oven and logged on to see what's up in cyberspace. I have two million things to do but I much prefer to veg-out online. I think that it's the few quiet moments like this that I use to gather my strength for the next round of the day. It's hot, but we have a light wind breezing through our wind chimes. The sound is cleansing. Gigi is on the couch and Kosta is working in his office. Finally, some time for me.

We've all been sick, since last Friday -the 1st of August. It started with Alexandra, then went to Iza, then Foti and finally, me. We spent this last week fighting sore throats and fevers and now we're all fine. Luckily, Kosta escaped this round.

I haven't had much time to do anything important but I did manage to walk around the property to see how the fruit trees are doing. Our peaches are ready and delicious. I think that they're more delicious than any I've ever had because they're ours. :)

Most of the figs are ripe and ready to eat. It's fun to go back and pick them randomly. I have yet to make anything with them. I really wanted to make spoon sweets (sikalaki gliko) with Lulu's recipe, but they were ready for that right as we were nearing the baptism. Sometimes I just want to do more than I can- realistically. But, I did pick a bag and MIL made spoon sweets for us with our figs. So, we do have our spoon sweets. Maybe next year I'll surprise her by making my own. I've found a great marmalade recipe so I'm motivated to make some of that, since it seems like I can fit it into my day. (ok, I know- I've fit blogging into the day why can't I fit more cooking in? --because it's just that-more cooking) Anyway, here's the fig tree...

It's huge and the birds love it. We've given bags of figs away. So, if you're in the neighborhood, I bet that you can guess what you'll be walking away with. I'm glad that I can share because we certainly can't use all of them. Here are a few shots of the figs...

As you can see, some of them are overripe. These are fine to eat as long as you make sure that there aren't any little bugs inside. They're very sweet!

We have tomatoes coming out of our ears so I've preserved some and also given tons away. The cherry tomatoes are perfect for snacking on, the kids and the dog usually help themselves. Our green beans are finished and we're planting some leeks and celery this week. My eggplants have finally appeared! I've really been waiting for those. Our honeydew melons are growing amazingly, we've been giving those away too. I have a neighbor that made a melon sorbet once, I'll have to ask her for the recipe.

So, I've wasted a little time and given a little garden update. Now, it's time for me to wake up the kids so that they'll sleep tonight -as well as throw some BBQ sauce on my chicken. I hope that everyone is enjoying their weekend!

Figs

Fresh figs. Honestly...I'd never had a fresh one until last year. The only fig that I ever knew before that was our lovely cookie back home called the Fig Newton. These figs were given to us by a neighbor yesterday. We do have a fig tree but it isn't ripe for the picking yet, we still have a few weeks in front of us for that. These figs are absolutely delicious!