Home from Greece ... but not for long!

Well, Peter and I are back from our cruise through the Greek islands ... we had a fabulous trip! The ship itself was amazing; there were 4 restaurants on board (64 chefs!), the 'Marquee' was where there were shows every night performed by the ships' dance troupe ... also there was a casino, several shops, a cyber cafe, the Blue Bar and Connexions which was where the art auction took place, as well as stand up comedy. In addition there was a grand piano in the 'Village Square' which was where reception was, and Charlies' - the coffee bar ... but about the piano, there were lounge type performances there several times. AND, there was Top Deck which was where the two pools were, hot tubs, the Splash bar - which you could swim to to get a drink, there was also basketball, shuffleboard, golf, and a giant chess board .... needless to say there was LOTS to do! Oh, and there was a cinema where we saw 3 movies while onboard - a great time filler between other activities. We spent out first day on the pool deck lounging, we even ate breakfast out there - since this was a sea day we stayed on board all day and just relaxed, swam and read. The second day we were in Dubrovnik, Croatia and then each day after that we were in a new port: Corfu, Cephalonia, Katakolon and then Piraeus which is closest to Athens. Each day that we were in port we got off the ship and did as much exploring as we could ... my favorite day was when we were in Cephalonia. We did an 'Action Ashore' activity which are preplanned trips that you can go on from the ship ... so we went to Drogarati Cave, Sami, which is a small town where 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' was filmed ... and then finally to Melissani Lake which is a tiny lake that used to be inside a cave, but the 'roof' came off during an earthquake. It was spectacular and the water was the clearest blue I've ever seen! Athens was also really cool ... other than the fact that it was 40 degrees .... but seeing the Acropolis and Parthenon was a very incredible thing to do. There are TONS of pictures, so instead of posting them on here, I'm in the process of posting them on www.flickr.com/photos/teampm ..... so check them out there. Here's a few as as an appetizer ; )

In other adventures ... Peter and I somehow managed to get all the pieces of the househunting trip together (so not in our hands!) and we are leaving tomorrow for Edmonton! We will be back on August 27th and will be new homeowners by then! We are really excited, there is one house in particular that we really like and it seems pretty perfect in all ways .... so hopefully it will work out for us to purchase. As always, we'll keep you posted : ) In the mean time ... I am looking forward to going to Alberta and finally getting to see Cold Lake (we drive there from Edmonton). I've never been further west than Waterloo, ON. so I'm anxious to see some of Western Canada, as well as the new city that we'll be living in for the next 4-6 years. Oh, and in case your wondering ... Cold Lake qualified as a city in 2000, but it still only has a population of 12,000!

As a sidenote, for those of you wondering about Fletch ... Peter's classmate at school told us that his mother-in-law often dogsits for them, so we gave her a call and she was more than willing to take care of Fletch for us for both weeks that we are away. She has a huge back garden where he played ball all last week, and she also has a dog of her own. I think he got a little spoiled though since he wouldn't eat his food until this morning since we brought him home on Thursday evening. Her dog is quite old, so we're wondering if she put something over the food that she gave to her dog ... anyway, we're heading back to her place this evening to drop Fletch off again for the coming week. She is really nice and gave Fletch lots of attention and play time, so we were really happy to leave him there rather than in a kennel.

Team PM