Wow . . . Dad

i am sorry to all those who have been waiting forever.  but, its been a bit busy.  these are some early baby bump pics.  we didn't do a great job of documenting everything (usually my fault) but we got some. 

 we went through like 5 different greens for the room (i actually think it was three).

 so many clothes, so much pink

 not quite a charley brown christmas.  we finally got our own tree this year.  not real, but less death

 

 putting together a christmas tree is weird

cradle and dresser.  our friend loaned us the cradle, and simos painted our dresser.  we went out and bought the knobs, they are all different, really cool. 

 final internal baby picture

 first external baby picture

 dry skin and all, she is ours.

 the new addition in the family. 

Artemis K. Harrington:  Born:  11/12/2013 (european date order)- 3.99 kg. 53 cm. at 11:10 a.m. in the morning. 

mom and daughter, both doing very well. she doesn't look like anybody yet, but i am pretty sure that she has grandpa harrington's (that would be my dad) ears.

 we have also added a few additions around the house. finished christmas tree with ornaments. 

 new book case, it is sick.  it is so wonderful to have spots to show things and to keep my books out. 

the baby station is ready.

thank you all for being so patient.  it has been a very busy week.  absolutely crazy in fact.  I finished up my master's papers. 3000 words on the undermining factors of education in refugee situations, 3000 words on the need for social network policies in the struggle to stabilize the lives of female migrants,  1000 words on the issue of humanity and its effects on the assessment of development policies, and 1000 words on the policy of caring.  it was a very rewarding experience; i can only hope that i was in the ballpark of what my professors were looking for. 

our daughter was born on the 11th, we went in early, around 7, and eleftheria, deciding that she would have none of that long labor stuff, crushed the pregnancy in just over 4 hours.  Artemis is health, cute (a father's review) and coming home in about 10 hours as i write this post.  excited is a strange word and does not begin to describe all of the feelings.

i just wanted to thank everyone for all of your support and love, we hope that in time, everyone will have the chance to meet her, and help her to grow up to be a wonderful part of the future.   

A Bit Scary That I Find This Pertinent, But It Is Awesome!

No Messing Around. I know that it is an ad in the end, but it worked on me.

MIA Posters

random day with nice clouds

dimitri's son.  man do they grow fast.  he is super precocious.  as an adult, you are only a vehicle for quicker transport to things he finds interesting. 

we found this massive oriental rug on the side of the road.  it was being thrown away, but we salvaged it for the new office/play room/escape/storage/future climbing gym/future work-shop that is our basement.  super heavy and i had to walk it across town.

they have recently opened up this sub ground-level area of the roman agora downtown.  super cool.  the city has built a pleasant underground museum as well, it is really beautiful, with cool exhibits and a very nice theater for talks and presentations.

so, between adam being in alaska, keith's new job and master's work, leanna and sarah cranking away at work, mom lost in the wilderness, and dad enjoying his alone time, there has been a serious dry spell in the posting.

i thought that i would take a minute to procrastinate a little longer on my own master's work and pop up a quick post of random picks.  not much new, all is well.  can't wait until everyone is back in posting mode so that i have some new things to look at.  enjoy

A Beautiful Saturday Afternoon

marianna was in town from cambridge for a wedding this week.  She stopped in as eleftheria and i woke up and stayed for a morning coffee.

humans have a very strange relationship with pigeons.  we mock them and curse them, yet we set up houses for them, raise and train them, and in china some are worth 100's of 1000's of dollars.  i never knew it was a thing in greece until earlier this year when i saw them being flown in our neighbourhood.  we saw them yesterday too.  really all i can think about is Ghost Dog.

up in ano poli, where we enjoy walking, the old city wall has been morphed into housing.  some of the houses are very old, some are newer, some are little more than corrugated iron shacks and others are well established.

 this is a beautiful church that we found on our walk.  the church of agias (saint) aikaterini is a unesco world heritage site from the 13th century, not too bad.

 the afternoon was absolutely wonderful

ano poli is one of our favorite places, the old is mixed with the new, the poor is mixed with the wealthy and the fashion is mixed with the function.

 this is a section of the wall much like the 3rd picture.  the mayor of this district is working hard to clear away the old housing and to make the wall into a historic site.  you can see one of the remaining houses in this section towards the upper right end of the wall.

 the evening was beautiful also

 the wall has become a very organic (i know that it is all man made) part of the city.

this is a door in the wall to a house on the other side.  on the door is a "beware of dog" sticker.  can you spot the beast at the top of the wall?

what a wonderful afternoon and evening.  we were out for about 3 hours walking.  fall is the best time of year no matter where you are.  

After The Weekend!

i walked into my classroom today, and behold, a mounted projector with iTV.  let the fun commence.  

so, we had another vaftisi this weekend; however, this time we were involved, super involved.  eleftheria and georgia served as co-godmothers.

 so, eleftheria got to work quickly

this is the bottle that she made to hold the oil.  the theme of the vaftisi was boats; thus, this is the light house for said boats.

here you can see the candle that she put together.  the candle is traditional, and eleftheria bought a plane white one.  she then when super awesome on it and created everything else you see here (she bought the wood boat that she attached to the candle).  she stitched the bow together out of the blue fish net stuff and some of the burlap from our wedding, then tide and pinned the blue twine and attached to boat securely.  a-m-a-z-i-n-g .  i told eleftheria she should get into the business, the candle alone, if we found one decorated like this, would cost around 90 euros.  

 beautiful day for some devil killing.

 all hands on deck. mom god-mothers and priest.

normally this is a rather traumatic experience where the baby cries the whole time, and i just repeat in my head that i will never do this; however, this time around it was casual, if not enjoyable.  the newly named evangelos treated it like bath-time.  he giggled and splashed the whole way through.

 the girls were gorgeous as always.

xristos and i capped of the day skating down the sidewalk out in the village.

it was another quick weekend.  my master's has started, i have 25 students signed up for forensics and 30 for mun which both start this week as well. parents' night on wednesday and a load of essays to grade round out my week.  woohoo!

Giving Names and Boxing Out The Devil

so, eleftheria and i spent a good bit of our weekend in and around churches and monasteries as we attended vaftisis (orthodox christening) on both saturday and sunday.

yianni was the god father (nono) for dimitri's baby, angelos. since yianni moved to germany about 3 years ago and i have had very little contact with him over the years so it was really great to see him, he was a good friend when he lived here.

angelos cried for the majority of the ceremony, but a brief flight settled him down after his christening.

the ceremony was very nice.  there was a bunch of support from school which was really cool.

the second vaftisi, on sunday, was a bit further away, near lake kilkis in northern greece.  i would like to go back because of the wildlife, the first i have really seen in greece other than in the sea.  there were birds everywhere, and while this is not a wild animal, i was about 5 seconds from scooping her up and stealing her from the monestery.

this one was for a set of twins (one of which is pictured here with her father), despoina and dimitra.  Their parents worked with eleftheria in the office where she had been employed most recently

the monestery was super old and really fun to see; however, with all the people it was hard to get clean shots, so i took these picks of the cross beams in the ceiling, and a plaque that was laid into the structure next to the enterance.

after dinner niko, dora, eleftheria and i all when up on the hillside for a coffee. it was a wonderful spot.  we sat under a huge oak and talked about things in the past, present and future.  niko and i have a lot in common; both similar life goals and outlooks, it was fun to see him (he works in london), and to put some things in perspective.    

Happy B-Day Dad!!!

Here's hoping that your love of life, fun and family continue for years to come.  Thank you for all of your love and support.  

We miss you, love you and can't wait to see you,

Ian, Eleftheria and Artemis