Christmas Trees or Olive Trees

This weekend of Olive Trees is one memory that I will treasure forever.  We were invited by one of the Greeks that work for Sean to come to his home village for the weekend.  Fall into early Winter is when his family harvests their olive trees.  We woke early Saturday morning and drove the three hours to his village near Kalamata.  When we arrived at this parents house the kids got a chance to run around and look at all the amazing plants while we enjoyed a traditional Greek breakfast.  His mother made tiropita and countless other delicious things.  The tiropita, which are cheese hand pies, included cheese she had made from her own goats' milk.  It was amazing!

After breakfast we drove out of the town a little to get to the olive trees.  They had different sections of trees around in the area and we could see farmers and tractors all on their way too and from different orchards.

We immediately went to work helping his father harvest the olives.  The kids thought this was the coolest thing.  They were allowed to climb all over everything and just be kids!

 Of course we had to be shown how to use the machine that stripped the olives off the branches that were trimmed from the trees.

Nets were placed all around the trees that were being worked on to catch as many olives as possible.

Charlotte really enjoyed getting the olives that had fallen and placing them in her own bucket.

Ryan loved climbing the trees!

After Charlotte got tired I put her on my back while I used the racks to try and knock down the olives.  It helped burn off all the amazing food we had for breakfast.

We spent a few hours helping with the harvest then went back to the village.  It was time for the second part of our trip.

Helping to set up and decorate the village's Christmas tree.  They come together every year to light the tree and have a feast to celebrate.

The guys were in charge of helping set up the tree while the kids were encouraged to eat all the cookies the YaYas kept bringing them.  Children here are so loved.  Its amazing to see strangers want to spoil kids just because.  

Once the tree was ready, we all went inside the school to wait for feast to celebrate.  

Once everyone was gathered it was time to go outside and light the Christmas tree!

All the women of the village worked together to provide a huge feast.  The YaYas would just portion out food and it was non stop eating family style.  Everything was prepared from local ingredients and was fresh.  Even the wine was made by someone in the village.  Plate after plate of moussaka, horta, grilled goat, spanakopita went by.

At one point the silverware couldn't keep up and snapped......but you just keep eating!  

It was getting really late but we wanted to see what happened to all the olives that had been harvested that day.  So we walked down to the factory that turns them into oil.  The men working loved getting to show the kids how olive oil was made and watching the our faces as we saw the GREEN olive oil come out.

The next morning we drove to the next village over which was seaside.  We got to eat breakfast and wonder the town before we had to head back to Athens.

This tree was full of Christmas wishes by local kids from the village.

The Christmas tree is a new thing to Greece.  Traditionally they got their gifts from a Christmas boat! 

Home with the amazing gifts from our hosts.  Their olives, olive oil, and fig preserves!

Its the busiest time of year!

The kids and Sean were pretty excited when they discovered we could get a live Christmas tree here in Athens.  We had assumed we would only get a fake so getting the real thing put big smiles on everyone's faces!  

Sometimes Charlotte has a hard time getting up in the morning.  Its pretty funny, I'm getting little flashes of what the Teen Years might look like.

She was not amused by all my laughing!

But once she decided it was an all pink day, things got better.  ;)

 We have been working on potty training, so of course that means a lot of hand washing.  Unfortunately for me, I was busy with dinner this time and she decided that MORE water was better then less.

The US Embassy here decorates and lights up a tree every year.  The Ambassador turns on the tree for the first time and its lots of Christmas Carols and hot chocolate!

 Sean managed to sneak out of work to watch Bryce's school play.  This year they did The Night Before Christmas, and Bryce's class were Rapping Mice!  It was so cute.  He had a lot of fun being in character and explain to us later what it means to be "cool".

2016?!?!?! Oops!

Ohh goodness.  I sat down for a few minutes and quickly realized I was planning our next trips but have completely forgotten to post in months!  I have some serious catching up to do.  

Ok, so looks like I need to start way back from the end of November!

A few months in and the kids seem to be completely settled.  Donuts while waiting for haircuts for the boys.

Bryce has been thriving in school.  He comes home everyday with a different book assigned and his reading is coming along so well!

Charlotte still loves the playground and the swing especially.  

For once she actually let me get a picture of the two of us together!

Since we are so far away from family during Thanksgiving everyone went a little crazy with celebrating.  We ended up having 4 Thanksgiving dinners!  Here is what was left of the food from Sean's office Thanksgiving lunch.

Thanksgiving Dinner number 3 was on the actually day.  We went over to a friends house who has a huge outside space for the kids to play.  I was asked to bring rolls.  :)  I do love to make bread.

Charlotte loved her silly Turkey hair bow!

Soccer field full of American kids!  It was so great to let them just run and play.

Our host Steve with one GIANT bottle of wine.  

Lots of food, kids, friends, made for a very fun evening!

Sean and I found it very amusing to see all the signs for Black Friday!  Since he had the day off from work we went to the Mall to buy the boys their Christmas gifts.

As you can see, even though there were sales, the Greeks have not gotten the memo to shop that day.  It made for some very fast and easy gift buying.

 I wish I would have remembered to get more pictures, but here are the only two I got of Thanksgiving dinner number 4.  We hosted the two Greek families that work for Sean and our neighbors.  Did all our traditional foods. It was fun to show them a little bit of our American culture after spending the last few months of them showing us theirs.