This has been a very busy week for me so far, my mother flew in from Ohio on Monday and my father is flying in tomorrow. They came down for Ace's 5th birthday party which we'll be having on Sunday.

It's soooo nice to have them here. It's so difficult being far from them, so I am always so thankful when I get to spend time together. No matter how far away they are, when we get together it's like we were never apart; we just pick up where we left off. The fact that we talk a dozen times a day may have something to do with it but it just seems like with family you're not really apart.

Yesterday we ran around and did some grocery shopping for the party. Today we're going to the monastery to help with some work they have there. Tomorrow we'll be cooking all day and then leaving our shoes our for St. Nicholas to fill with goodies! Saturday morning we'll attend Liturgy for St. Nicholas and then at night there's a vigil for St. Savva. I'm going to try to take some pics this time to post. The vigils are unbelievably beautiful. Ace loves making artoklasia to take. At the monastery, they pour wine over it before they hand it out and he just loves it! I love that we get blessed with holy oil and get to venerate the relics. They have a piece of cloth that sat in the altar with Panagia Myrtidioutissa for 40 days on the Holy Mountain. When they retrieved the cloth at the end of the forty days it was dripping with myrrh and to this day continues to do so. When they open the case it's in, the whole church smells of the beautiful myrrh. It is so strong sometimes that it burns your nose.

They also have the stole of St. Savva of Kalymnos that they bring out for everyone to venerate. This is especially meaningful for me because my great grandmother (who passed away in '98 at 101 yrs old) was a spiritual child of St. Savva so every time I venerate it I wonder if she ever had it placed over her head after Holy Confession.

I'll post pics of the birthday next week. We usually have his party near his nameday (Nov. 8) and before the fast but this year we couldn't do that this year. We normally have hayrides, bobbing for apples, potato sack races, etc. We make a big campfire and everyone makes s'mores. It's a lot of fun. This year we're doing a Christmas theme, we'll be decorating cookies, playing with homemade playdough scented like gingerbread men and candy canes and painting ornaments. Though we'll still be doing the hayride and campfire towards the end.

All the food is lenten, which is the biggest challenge since many of the people coming are not fasting. But we'll be having grilled corn of the cob, lenten chili, fish fillets, pasta with shrimp, lenten baked beans and salad. I use a lenten chocolate cake recipe and non-dairy whipped icing for his cake, which will (hopefully) be a gingerbread house this year.

Any other ideas?