Sweden is great.

No snow :-( but a beautiful landscape :-)

Picking a christmas tree, the old fashion way :-)

Enjoying Stockholm!

We are really enjoying our time in Sweden. We have met friends, had it lazy and nice, celebrated Christmas with the family, traveled back and forth ...
However, not much time for blogging ... :-)
But still more days of fun before heading back to Greece!

Happy new year to all of you!

We are in Sweden!

It's Sunday and time for this week's entries to Lena's sister's daughter photo contest.
This week has been full of travel and fun stuff.
We left our island on Tuesday, spent one night in Thessaloniki with good friends. Found our way to the airport (Tommy was very kind and drove us there) for 3.5 hours flight to London! Stayed two nights with a friend of Lena that she had not seen since she lived in Brussels 15 years ago (he was very kind and picked us up at the airport). It was fun to meet again and especially to see his fantastic wife and charming boys. So the trip continued and now we stay with some friends in Stockholm. Unfortunately, we do not see them because they are visiting family but we are very grateful for their generosity. We are here a few days and then we go on again to celebrate Christmas with our family. So we have a lot of fun that lies ahead.
And so to this week's pictures:

Day 12: Paus

Day 13: Lucia

Day 14: Christmas atmosphere

Day 15: Peace

Day 17: Christmas decorations

Christmas time!

This has been a crazy week. Good but crazy week! On Tuesday we will begin our trip to Sweden! Still full activity in the church, arranging Christmas presents, pack ...
And during the fall, I started helping in a group that helps poor people on the island. This weekend they have a bazaar so it've been a lot to fix for that too.

And then I got my exciting photo competition ...
Evelina post the winning pictures on Sundays. So now I do it too ... so no one steals my good ideas :-) I did miss a couple of pictures this week, but I got most of them.

The theme of day 5: A ordinary December day.

Day 6: Christmas but not too obvious

Day 7: cosy

Day 8: red

Day 10: candy

Happy second of Advent

I did not send in any contribution to the photo contest yesterday. But here are both yesterday's planned contribution and today's actual contribution.
So yesterday was a full day, first of all, I had my birthday! hurray for me :-)
In the evening we played floorball! In about six months we have tried to get the key to the gym hall, and now finally we have it in our hand. We were not a big group but enough for two teams that were struggling with a common replacements.
After floorball, we had a meeting in a room that we have access to from City Hall.
There was an initial meeting to see what there is of interest. We talked about what opportunities we offer and see how we can use the room. It was a nice little gathering, played some games and watched a movie together-August Rush (a beautiful film)/Lena

"an ordinary Saturday in December"

"what is Advent for you."

Foto no 2

Todays theme in my neice foto contest is snow. You may take an old picture or make a new one.
The option of taking a new one with real snow is to far fetch to me. To make something with cotton etc is as well... But two years ago we had lots of wonderful snow and I took this picture!
We are going to Sweden in two weeks and I realy hope to get some snow when we are there! Last year they had crasy much snow! It was snow for 5 month! This autum however has been the warmest in 130 year! So we will see what will happen...

A photo contest

My niece has a blog.

Now she has a challenge, an Advent calendar.
Every day you get a theme that one should take a photo of.
Best photo wins and will be on her blog.
So far, I think I am the only contestant ... so today I think I will :-)

Todays theme: What is December for me.

Το ψαράκι της γυάλας (The fishbowl's fish)

So "our boys" was also doing a film for November 17,

based on a in greece well known novel by Marios Hakkas.

The film is absolutely briliant.

Thanks Thomas for letting us be part of your creative ideas.

Here is a link to more films by Creativity films.

Ok, so most of you don't know greek.

I'll try to give you a short summary of what I have understood of it.

It's all taking place on Nov 17 in Athens with the riot of the students in the background.

This man has gone out to buy his bread and stops in front of the camera to say:

"I'm a peaceful man and now I'll go home to my house."

He thinking to himself if he should involve in what happens, but think that what different will he do. Instead he decides that he must go home and change the water in the fish bowl -hence the title "The fishbowl's fish".

So I guess the film leaves us the question, since we all must make our choices in life:

What is really important?

Note also the scene when he eats his bread. On the shoe sole you can read "Politeknio" which is the University of Technology where it all took place on this day in -73. In greece there is an expression "To have it on the shoe sole" -which is, as you might guess, to say that you don't care.

November 17

Ok, now finaly you will get som pictures of something that took place almost two weeks ago.
It was the day to remember the student uprising that took place in 1973. Read more about it in the blog from last year (here).
"Our boys" was participating -playing in band, showing a film they made and so on... We where proudly watching them.

Waiting for things to begin

full house

The higher classes were having their gathering first.
Read some... readings? it was all greek to me. All I understod was something about "locking the door with the key" this is how good my greek is... But I asume it was about what happend and what we are to learn from it.
And they were singing some songs, traditional greek songs and modern rock songs.

Then it was time for the "gymnasio" (7-9 graders?)
More musicians on stage and more guitars to tune.

And then Tsaki lost a string on his guitar...
"What are we going to do!?!" -Well we just have to get a new one.

And here we go -rock it!

old chair need some love

About a year ago I was asked to fix this chair.
About four month ago I arranged special import of natural, fitting rope.
Now finally, I have started to sandpaper and actually fixing it...
better late then never they say :-)

Looking forward

I just realized that it's less then a week left to first of advent!
In three and a half week we are going to Sweden
and in about a monthe it's Christmas!!
I'm very excited about all of it :-)

Olivepicking day

This is the road leading up to our house. I just love to walk this bit.
Today I (Lena), and I think Kenneth too, will be picking olives
Dimitri has four trees and today is the day when we will harvest the fruit of these trees.
Looking forward to it. I'm sure Harald will like it too, he love to climb trees and will for sure be curious of all the falling, rolling olives...

National day

A day for parades, flags, crowds and friends.

A day to celebrate the nation.

Read more about it here

It's about time for a new post on our blog.
We both been a bit slow lately in the sense that we don't feel like doing anything. A bit low, a bit homesick...

At the same time I think we are both doing more then ever. We see new doors opening, contacts made and ways to serve and work. Kenneth is spending a lot of time at the computer since he found a course that is helping him improve the home pages he promised others. Lena has got in contact with a group of women that are helping the poor and needy on the island. It's great fun to be able to serve in such a concrete way. And it's also a good way to practice her Greek because the women speak Greek among themselves.

The church has also been open more since we start to be there in the daytime -because of that the young ones are dropping by more often, they come and play music and stop for a chat -it's fun to see. And for a few weeks now we have had “club” for the teenagers. We are not experienced in this matter so it's a process for us but we are happy having such patience kids that support us. I hope we will find a way to do it “properly” before they give up on us...

But in the end God has it all in his hands. We got to trust him for speaking into the young lifes, only he can speak to their hearts as we have to open ours to hear him speak to us.

Snow!?

No wonder I feel like having lots of candle lights,
a cup of tea and a nice blanket.

Happy birthday Kenneth!

Had a great fun day yesterday.

It started at 1 am. Kenneth came home from the bible study in Potos.

Our caravan was decorated with balloons, candels and a garland saying "Happy Birthday".

Kenneth got to open his presents in the night. Presents that I bought at the market... -super glue, lighter, batterys and other fine things... :-)

In the morning we had cookies and fellowship at the Thursday prayer in church. And then when the kids finished school they came by, got some cake and later we all went up to "our house" to play games! First the Swedish game "kubb" and then other relays -a real birthdayparty :-)We ended this beautiful day with a film at Pelidis house.

So my hunny bunny have celebrated yet another birthday. He doesn't like it because he doesn't want to get old. But what does age do when you're such a striking handsome man as my husband, with such a good heart and a creativity greater than a young man! All my love to you my beautiful one. Looking forward to many more years together.

Some thoughts early in the morning.

Greece is hanging on a thin thread from falling into total bankrupt.
The talk about crisis is heard in many other countries.
Here in Greece I hear them blame either the Germans for things happening in ww2 wich they according to them never given them economical compensation for.
Or they blame international investors for using Greece situation in making money by different transactions and making the situation worse. And so on, and so on...or maby they should start blaming no one else but them self.

I don't know, it might be so, but still looking at facts, there is nothing new under the sun, the rich ones get richer and put the money in their barns. I hear politicians in Sweden talking about how we need to save money at the same time they are raising their own salaries. We live in a world of hypocrisy and sin, a world full of selfishness and greed. There is nothing new under the sun.

We who have read the bible knows what is coming and should not be suprised.
I remember for example that I have read in the bible that goes something like this: There will be a day when people will give away all their fortune for a little piece of bread.

I have many other thoughts to share but what is new under the sun? The thoughts I have have allready been thought by millions of others through out history!

Kenneth

Day 22

Day 20

Let us present to you the ongoing project: Our porch,

Not so much to see right now but it will look nicer when it is finished and we hope that it will keep our caravan free from some mud.

Day 19

It smells natural when taking our bikes from the caravan to the Chruch.

Our new curtains- use to be the cover for our kitchen chairs

Our nice cherry-wood floor.

Kenneth has designed and made our new lamps. Cool huh. We try to find ways to recycle, for exampel are we making our "porch" from old pallets as we did with the bed, we have cut the old cushions to fit the new seats, in process of making a table from an table top we found in the garbage...

Day 13

Pictures from yesterday. Now we are getting ready for a new day :-)

half our new bed

Harald was very brave the whole day. Didn't hide down by his tree as the other day- but was exploring and making himself at home. At the end of the day he got chased by the other cats and was balancing on the balcony above the dog.