Shooting Sports Competition

 We were thrilled when we heard that Kylan was joining the Shooting Sports program at his school!  And were hoping that he had a competition nearby that we could attend - Jaime called one day and said he had a meet at the Olympic Training Center in Co. Springs - perfect!!

Glenn and I arrived and found the building where the competition was - neither one of us had ever been to something like this so it was quite interesting to watch and learn!

Each individual had 60 shots to make over a one hour period - some kids finished quickly - Kylan took almost the entire hour to do his shots!

He took a couple of breaks during his shooting!

Scores were shown on an overhead screen and it was interesting to watch where the shots occurred on the target!

Great job Kylan!!

It was so fun to watch him shoot and I hope we have another opportunity to watch him!  Points will be accumulated over the season for each shooter.

A Free Day in Athens/Headed Home

 It was luxury to sleep in, even though we didn't sleep in much!  But just the THOUGHT of it made it special!

Our last breakfast was eaten as tomorrow morning would be VERY early and the hotel was giving us sack lunches for breakfast to eat on the bus on the way to the airport!

These were the back stairs that you could climb to get up to the 7th floor to eat!

After breakfast we headed to the Parliament Building to watch the changing of the guard - we arrived at the perfect time so had a front view of it!

The guards would do a procedure with their legs and arms - very interesting to watch!

Check out those shoes!!

It was a really cool ceremony and I'm so glad we got to see it!  It is done every hour on the hour day and night!

We walked to the shopping area and first on the list was coffee and pastry at a sidewalk cafe - LOVED IT!

We shopped in a few of the little shops and found EVERYTHING we had wanted to purchase!  Lunch was again at an outdoor cafe - we loved our glasses of sangria and shared a gyro with fries!

We went to our hotel room for a while in the afternoon and then ventured back out late afternoon - stopped at a crepe place and had a banana crepe with chocolate and whip cream - delicious!

And then it was pack up the suitcase again for our long journey home!  The next morning was an early one and I snapped this photo as we got to the airport in Athens!

Patty took this picture since I was on the opposite side of the bus - it's called "The Runner" and is made out of glass sheets!!  Beautiful!

We travelled from Athens to Zurich, Switzerland - from Zurich to Chicago - and Chicago to Minneapolis!  WHAT A LONG LONG DAY IT WAS!  But the plane rides were fine except for the fact that I couldn't sleep!  We arrived in Minneapolis at 9:30 at night - said goodbye to all the friends we had made and had our hotel pick us up!

Unfortunately, I woke up about 2:15am, very sick!  Vomiting and diarrhea every 15 minutes till dawn was absolutely miserable!!  Patty packed up and went downstairs to wait for her shuttle since she left a couple hours before I did - I felt so bad that I didn't know if I could make my plane or not!  But I decided I needed to get home so slowly got packed up, on the shuttle and to the airport - only got sick once more there and althought I felt horrible, didn't get sick on the plane to Denver!

Jessi and Gary were out of town so Evan picked me up and took me to my car at their house and I drove home - how I don't know as I felt pretty tough!!  But I just wanted to be home in my bed!!

Besides getting sick at the very end, it was one fantastic trip of a lifetime!!  I'm so glad I joined Patty on this trip and we both have so many great memories!

I had to take a picture of the cute sacks you get which you purchase an item - no cost either - just cute bags to remind you of Greece!!

My 4 new Greece ornaments are now hanging on my "Travel Tree Christmas Tree" and I'll be reminded of this trip every year when I hang them!

The Road Back To Athens

 By this point in our trip, I think we were all getting a little weary of the early mornings and riding the bus!  But we knew this would be our LAST sightseeing day with a LONG drive back to Athens - and we all knew we had a FREE day in Athens the next day - we were all looking forward to that!

In the morning we visited the graves of Phillip the 2nd and Alexander, the son of Alexander the Great.  Their grave and others were discovered in the 70's along with many artifacts that we saw in the museum!

This museum was VERY dark and it was almost hard to see where you were going at times!

And that was the LAST of our sightseeing as a group!  We headed back towards Athens and had a LONG days' drive ahead of us!  This stop for coffee and a donut was a great place!!  Patty and I split this large donut and it was excellent!!

Another thing I observed in the bigger cities when you were more in the "downtown" area was that the gas station was basically right there on the sidewalk as you drive by!!  And there's no way a bus or anything larger than a car could fit to fill up!!  STRANGE!!

We got to the edge of Athens and it was rush hour so we were prepared for extra time to get to our hotel - the same hotel we stayed at in the beginning of our trip!  But who knew it was going to take us 2 1/2 hours to go approximately 8 miles in the city - oh my gosh - we couldn't WAIT to get off that bus!!

This time we got an extra nice hotel room for the next 2 nights!!   (And yes, it's still 2 twin beds pushed together with a bedspread that covered both twins - NOT a king bed!)

Inside this frame on the wall was the tv - Patty and I NEVER turned it on for our entire trip!

We had a later dinner that night on the 7th floor, again with that fabulous view!  It was a "plated" dinner and it was lamb - I can now officially say I have eaten lamb but I didn't care for it!

It was SO NICE to head to bed without setting the alarm!

Thessaloniki

 Today was a sight-seeing day as we drove to Amphipolis to see the famous lion statue.  The sun was sure in the wrong spot for these pictures but the lion was HUGE!

I'm sure there were Starbucks in Greece although I think I only saw one!!  These must have been the alternative because every city we went through had "Coffee Island"!

Just a cool picture at one of the harbors!

We arrived at Philippi where Marc Anthony defeated Brutus and St. Paul first preached the gospel in Europe.  This is the archaeological site where we saw the ruins of two basilicas, and the theatre.

And finally, this is the place where Paul spent time in prison.

Then we were off to St. Lydia's Baptistry - the place where Paul baptized the first woman in Europe - a beautiful setting!

The inside was a lot of marble - everywhere you looked there were paintings - it was just gorgeous inside!

Here is the river where Paul baptized Lydia and others.

Another Pastor was there with his group doing a reading.

And one of the highlights of the trip was when one of the girls got water out of the stream and Pastor re-baptized us - a very moving, emotional time!

Here's an olive tree with hundreds of olives on it!

We headed back to our hotel - it was nice to have 2 nights at this place and a nice dinner was served!  Once again we were very tired from all of the sightseeing and tomorrow would be another early morning time to set our suitcases outside our door before we headed to breakfat!

Hanging Monasteries

 Rise and shine - early of course because this was just a one night stay and you always have to have your luggage downstairs early to get loaded on the bus!  Breakfast was buffet - excellent croissants!

Today we were headed to Meteora to see the "Hanging Monasteries" - I was very intrigued by this and couldn't wait to travel up even higher in elevation to see this!

On the way there, we stopped at a spot where we watched painters explain the process of how they paint these religious plaques - very interesting!

And then we were off to drive up the mountain and see the monasteries!

The complex of Meteora is composed of massive stone pillars rising from the mountains, near the town of Kalambaka.  On the top are six active monasteries, which makes Meteora the second most important monastic community in Greece.

These rocky formations were created over 60 million years ago due to the constant blow of wind and waves which formed thse unique shapes.

But it wasn't until the 12th centry that the monks decided to establish the monasteries on top of these rock formations.

Some of these monasteries were so isolated tthat they could only be accessed with scaffolds or by climbing the rocks.  Later the monks resorted to using ropes and nets with hooks and even a basket that was pulled all the way up by the monks!

This is one of my favorite photos of the trip - it was just intriguing to imagine these monasteries built this high back in the day!

We did get to enter one monastery but no pictures were allowed.  Skirts were required and they had hooks with many, many skirts hanging so you would just grab one and put it on.  

After we descended the mountain, we drove by a lot of olive tree groves and grapevines - very pretty!

We actually stayed at a Holiday Inn that night and the next - who knew they had these in Greece?