Our Family Blog

January 2012

2012-02-10T22:25:00.002-05:00

We have had one of the mildest winters ever so far! Many days we go to the gym in our shorts which is completely weird for this time of year!Here are some pics of Sophia's dance team with Sharon:

It was another one of those days in Greek School for Sophia at the Greek church:

Our cat Fluffy developed an eye infection, so it was off to the Ann Arbor Cat Clinic:

Kostas is back with his United team playing indoor soccer games at High Velocity in Canton:

Sophia gave a short speech at her school for what Martin Luther King Day means to her:

Chinese New Year party at our home, nobody went hungry:-)

Driving in the snow...one of the few snowy days!

Practicing the Greek poems in the classroom before taking the stage at the Greek Church:

Another dance pic with Sharon's girls:

Two videos on youtube from Sophia's dance group performances:

http://youtu.be/HMrHkPsp4SM

http://youtu.be/oAMNOIQ63cI

December 2011

2012-01-11T14:02:00.000-05:00

Kostas had his Birthday Number 14, wow!!We took him to his favorite restaurant, dragon roll sushi time!

Dad decided to burn some Continental miles and sent Mommy to Malaysia on December 3 through December 18. Contrary to everyone's opinions, the family survived!!!

Sophia participated in Randazzo's Dance Show again this year:

Kostas now practices soccer with his United teammates at the EMU indoor facility, it is big and very nice!

Well, Sophia going Indian with a dress a family member in Malaysia gave her as a present. What a cutie!

We drove to New Jersey to spend Christmas holiday with the brother of Mommy's family. We should have more pictures from it but...getting very lazy with the camera and pics lately, sorry!!

November 2011

2011-12-13T22:34:00.006-05:00

Busier than ever!Not much new. Too busy to take more pics and too busy to do the monthly update:-)

Here is a pic from EMU's first mens BB game:

Mommy makes the best hot pot!

Sophia getting the hair treatment from Sharon:

Have no idea whose dog this is or where we are:

This is Sophia's 4th Grade Class room in Mrs. Jogengen's class:

Mommy is going to Malaysia Dec 3 - 18, thanks to 65k Continental miles. And we booked the Carnival cruise for February, all paid with Capital One points, woohoo!

October 2011

2011-11-13T14:03:00.006-05:00

Time is flying by!! Just a few pics for this month:

Sophia participated in a running event:

Mom and dad ran the 5k race again at the University of Michigan:

Kostas has continued playing for his United travel soccer team. One game took us all the way up to Petoskey!

We had a friend gathering in our house mid October.

The last weekend of October Dad went to Chicago to the 2nd annual Chicago DO, a seminar fully devoted to his hobby...collecting frequent flyer miles & hotel points:-) Here is friend Dave presenting his Rookie Bootcamp presentation:

Here is organizer and friend Rick with TV cameras from "Nightline" following him around:

Here is the Godfather, the one who started it all: Randy Petersen

We will send Kostas on a trip to Australia next summer with the People to People program, it should be fun and very educational for him.

September 2011

2011-10-13T20:42:00.007-04:00

The year is sure flying by! And time is short as usual. School started well for the kids. Kostas is a 9th grader now at Huron High School...kind of sobering when u think about it! Sophia is a 4th grader at Allen. Kostas has adjusted very well and loves all his teachers...which is unusual! He will continue with United soccer club as the Freshman soccer team in high schools fell victim to the budgetary ax!

Sophia is continuing with her Chinese dance team (see pic below) and is back at Randazzo Ballet. She also has Greek school, Kumon and swimming classes.

Kostas played several Fall season games with his United soccer team and went to a couple of tournaments in Novi and Brighton:

Our inseparable member of our family, the one and only, Fluffy:

Mom and Dad continue to train with personal trainer James every Sunday and Wednesday in Bootcamp sessions. Here is what we saw once right after a workout:

More soccer games:

May's dog had two puppies, too adorable!

September 2 -5, 2011 Labor Day Weeekend in Quebec City!

2011-09-06T20:20:00.026-04:00

We like to travel somewhere to say goodbye to the summer right before school starts. Since using Delta Skymiles for award tickets is notoriously difficult...we usually wait until the very last minute to book trips using miles..when, magically, Delta gives up efforts to sell these seats and opens up the award seats open wide! Last year we booked 4 tickets to Honolulu the day before we flew. This year we wanted to go somewhere where we can stay at a Fairmont hotel (more on that later). We tried Calgary but no go. So we then saw availability to Quebec wide open and bingo 100k miles and out of pocket cash cost of only about $35 dollars! Booked on Wednesday night we flew out on Friday to spend Labor Day weekend in Quebec City. Que magnifique:-)

It was weird flying internationally on a small CRJet plane out of the small terminal of Detroit. Walking through the tunnel is always a treat for the kids:-)

Took some time to relax in the Delta Skylounge of course:

Approaching Quebec. Lots of green and...surprisingly, LOTS of swimming pools!

Quebec's airport is very nice. Small, very clean w/ large hallways...impressed.

Taxi rides to the city are a flat fee of $32.50 CAD. On the highway to the city:

Views from the taxi:

We got in to Quebec about 6 pm and we made it to our hotel around 7 pm. We decided to spend 35k Hilton Honor points and stay at the very nice Hilton just outside the walls of the Old City. As Hilton Gold, we got upgraded to a nice room with a nice view, access to the magnificent lounge on the 23rd floor, and 4 certs for breakfast the next morning!
This is the view from the Hilton lounge on the 23rd floor:

This is the view from our room, the Parliament Building:

In our room in the Hilton:

Of course we had to try the outdoor swimming pool:

Took a short walk at night, here is our high school freshman planking...apparently is the new craze of people taking pics standing face down....What can I say, whoever thought of that must be brilliant:-)

The breakfast was fantastic!

View from our room again, this time during the day:

Visited the lounge once more:

Checking out of the Hilton:

Dad taking care of the bill...it was almost $10 CAD only:-)

We all had carry on bags of course and we rolled them to our next hotel. We passed by the Fontaine du Tourny:

About to enter the Old City:

Porte Saint-Louis:

Walking down Rue Saint Louis:

Just outside the spectacular Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac

Why here when the smallest rooms cost $250 and up per night and suites over $500 per night? Are we that loaded? Of course not...We stayed here on complimentary nights Dad had as a Fairmont Lifetime Platinum member of Fairmont's President Club. There was a promo earlier this year that about 100 of us "miles addicts" got in that offered lifetime status...it even made national news before it was pulled! So, we are truly looking forward to a lifetime of experiences in these hotels!!
We got upgraded to a nice junior suite that regularly goes for $549 per night and up! This is our living room:

and this is our bedroom:

and this is the view from our room!

We always try the swimming pools in the hotel, this is the first thing that kids ask for!

A benefit to the guests is the free use of BMW bikes. We loved taking a bike ride with my son Kostas!

on the boardwalk, our hotel in the background:

Biking up Terrase Dufferin:

Son asked for a BMW bike. "Son, you need to wait for our next Fairmont stay"

The preserved architecture is just beautiful:

Biking around La Citadelle:

Still biking....we ran into this funky looking car:

Parliament building again:

The hotel was built almost 120 years ago by the local railroad company that kept expanding it and now has 600 rooms! They are working on restoring the roof presently. Lots of history in this castle!!

Planking...again....shaking my head

After parking our bikes, we had to take a pic in front of this Mercedes:

Fairmont hallway:

The elevators are old and kind of slow...it adds to the "feel" of the space!

Walking around Quebec...Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate at all as it kept raining all weekend long, except on Friday the day we arrived!

Artist street:

Can't remember which church is this as we kept walking:

We went to the last Cirque de Soleil (sp?) performance of the summer held in an open space parking lot. I did not know they are originally from Quebec and these free shows is a way of giving back to the city we were told. It was UNFORGETTABLE...BREATHTAKING...especially the finale was something we will always remember! One of those priceless moments in life!

We took a tour of the hotel as the kids stayed in the room. Here is a tour guide dressed..in character:

Our group had guests from China, Australia, Toronto, Germany and New Jersey:

Showing us how the hotel is separated into different wings, its size is massive:

Yep, they do have lots of weddings in this castle, 4 on Saturday and 3 on Sunday!

And now this is the most important room of the hotel. In this room Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met to plan the Normandy invasion. It was a top secret meeting; all guests were told to leave and I am guessing they were walked to other hotels nearby. We were all in awe and looking up and around the room and all the frescoes and art was quite something:

lobby areas:

Front entrance of the hotel:

I just love this pic of the hotel in all its glory and the Canadian flag flowing in the wind:

We did a lot of walking the next day in the rain:

To the Citadel again on foot this time:

Somebody smack this kid!

OMG, what is this thing??

What a view!

Can't remember who but he is French too!

The oldest US Consulate:

Walking at night, very beautiful streets!

Our kids specialize in domestic terrorism, here is proof:

Oh...puulease, for God's sake, can we move on now?

cozying up to mommy, I wonder what they are up to:-)

I think this is a hospital?

Wine definitely goes well when you walk these narrow streets...uphill!

Too much rain...so back to the swimming pool:

2nd buffet lunch at the restaurant, Platinums are treated very very well:-)

Aren't they cute?

Dad always manages to screw up the picture, he never saw a camera he got along with!!!

Thanks Dad for letting us see the world with your miles and staying at the best hotels with your points, we love you!

The bill at checkout was again only $10 CAD...Science or Art, how does he do it? Actually, the two taxi rides cost more out of pocket cash than the 4 plane tickets and 3 hotel nights!!
Wow!!!!

I really like this airport:

We could enter the VIP lounge and we did...small but elegant!

with very nice food and wine selection:

Hanging out by our gate, great views of the planes:

Sometimes when you fly you take some amazing pics of the sun setting...

and the cloud formations:

We landed safely on Monday night. And on Tuesday morning off to the first day of school. Kostas is a 9th grader at Huron High School and Sophia a 4th grader at Allen Elementary School.

I wish we had more time to do more things in Quebec but the weather did not help at all. Oh well, we really enjoyed our hotel stay and we are very impressed with Fairmont and are looking forward to more stays over the years!

If you read this far, thank you and we hope you enjoyed reading about another travel adventure. My favorite quote of all time is:

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."-Mark Twain

August 2011 -Trip to Greece

2011-09-01T21:51:00.039-04:00

We managed to snag two award tickets with Continental miles at 50k each for a round trip to Greece. Only Dad and Sophia went along this time. Mommy stayed behind for work and to keep an eye on Kostas who had an amazing time again at Camp AlGonQuian (sp?).

We left on August 30th from the "Other" terminal in Detroit. It was very weird NOT flying Delta or KLM this time. Instead it was Lufthansa to Frankfurt, Germany.

Flight was uneventful, meals were served, service was typical German style and we arrived in Frankfurt to get on these buses to the terminal.

Our Airbus plane:

Dad used his Priority Pass lounge membership to enter one of the lounges.

Short train ride over to the next terminal to get on the flight to Athens:

Short plane ride to Athens. Lufthansa means it gets there on time, everything works and then you....just forget all about what happened, the definition of German style...no fuzzy feelings whatsoever, it just works!

Arrived in Athens:

Since we arrived later in the evening, dad had decided to spend some Priority Club points on one night int the Holiday Inn hotel at the airport. We took a very short dip in the swimming pool and then we slept for many hours straight...I think 13 hours!!!

Then, courtesy of the mafiozi Greek taxi drivers who decided to go on strike, we had to use the bus to get to our next hotel in central Athens. Not fun hauling our bags in the burning sun!

And of course we blew some more points to stay one night again at one of my favorite hotels, the Athens Hilton.

A highlight of it is always access to the Executive Lounge due to Dad's Gold Elite status with Hilton:

Got a cellphone, did some walking around and met former college roomie friend and then had to take care of some business phone calls and meetings.
Greek guards going to replace the others in Syntagma Square:

In front of the Grand Bretagne hotel (an expensive Starwood hotel) facing the Greek Parliament building in Syntagma Square. You remember all the violent riots on TV? THIS was the place it all took place. There will be more coming soon to the screen near you!

Breakfast in the lounge with view of the Acropolis, never gets old.

Mafiosi Greek taxi drivers were still on strike so the next day we had to haul our stuff to the subway to make it to the train station to catch the train to Larisa, our final destination! Poor tourists who had to endure the taxi driver shenanigans!

Snacking at the Athens-Larisa train station:

On board of the train:

In Larisa now. Enjoying our chocolate-nut crepes, so delicious!

Larisa downtown: Amazingly, the taxi drivers are still on strike, here they lined up the taxis for a protest caravan ride.

As soon as we got to Larisa, the US stock markets started going nuts with extreme volatility. It was opportunity to make some additional purchases for clients and an opportunity to reiterate our long term focus and belief in our strategy of sticking to our asset allocation plan. In other words, initial plans to make it to the beach much more often did not materialize! Thankfully, wifi availability is widespread now so several cafes became Dad's office. This one is Sophia's favorite, Fredeto that made the best chocolata drink for her! As daddy worked, Sophia worked on her youtube skills...she did some reading too!

Larisa Central Square, in front of the court house:

Eating the real gyros sandwich:

Back to Fredeto:

Did a lot of walking every day. Here is "the web" store where son spent some hours last time we visited. Kostas, you remember this??

Enjoying a late night snack in the square in our neighborhood:

Having some fun in the play land of the main shopping mall in town:

Grandma Sophia and granddaughter Sophia...together...I just can not compete!!

Finally, managed to get to the beach one day and stopped by at my favorite restaurant:

The area is Agiokabos and Velika in Central Greece. Not many foreign tourists, just locals from Larisa, it is an hour drive to here. Been coming here as a kid, it is a special place. But it is also so frustrating to see such a beautiful place that could be very developed and....years later...not much has changed, just more people come here for the day and then drive back to town.

Have seen many waters, nothing compares to the clean water in this place. Hawaii? Don't think so? Tahiti perhaps...mostly because u can see the fish. You don't get to see much fish here but it is as clean!!

Dad was getting some work done every morning in town helping Mother's issues and loosening up some inheritance issues (yes, two years later, greek bureaucracy is....amazing!!!). Dad returned home for lunch and we all had lunch. Then it was off to some cafe to get some US based work done and then leaving some time for fun at night. This is in the old part of town:

Rented this tiny Fiat car for 10 days to get around. Best part about it was how easy it was to park and amazing gas mileage.

Some pics around Larisa:

There is a whole town lying underneath downtown and they managed to at least restore the ancient theater. It is a magnificent site that should draw thousands and thousands....Instead, not even the locals know about or care about it...Sad indeed.

One of Dad's absolute favorite summer activities in Greece is to watch a movie in an outdoor theater. There used to be many of them but almost all closed except one, Milos. Before the movie starts this old guy who runs it gives his unofficial review of the movie and then he usually goes off in different directions...He is loved by everyone and a movie buff, he is an institution here! I hope the place stays open after he goes. We managed to catch two movies this summer here:

Open air, watching the moon, the breeze, the sunflower seeds, the coca-cola...

Managed to get away to the beach a second time, woohoo!

Above there is a map of the ancient theater and below are some ruins, these are of houses...there is a whole city underneath!!

The obligatory visit to the village my parents are from, 15 minutes outside of Larisa. We stopped by here at my cousin's house, a retired airline pilot who returned to his roots. He now keeps busy making honey from bees, a pure labor of love. Here is Sophia tasting some of the homemade honey:

Sophia wanted figs, my cousin got her figs!

Another cafe that was visited frequently by us was the Mikel cafe. It is a chain and I am pretty impressed by the quality of the coffee, great service and very strong wifi!

They will even deliver coffee to you!

Days passed very fast and it was time to leave. This time we did not fly back out of Athens but out of Thessaloniki, the 2nd largest Greek city, 2 hours north of Larisa. We took the bus this time.

On the way, near Platamonas, managed to take the pic of the magnificent castle:

We took the local bus to the airport from the bus station:

The famous site of Thessaloniki:

At the airport, we called the Hyatt to send the shuttle over to pick us up as we had decided to burn some Hyatt points for a night before our flight the next day. We waited for a while only, to our shock, to have a Mercedes from the Hyatt come and pick us up. Wow, very nice touch!

Lovely hotel and Sophia went at it!

This was the Mercedes that took us to the hotel and the next day, amazingly, they took us to the airport. We did not get to experience the hotel shuttle and I think that's okay:-)

Off the next morning for short flight to Munich and then Frankfurt:

This one below was not our plane....but we would love to fly it one time:-)

We flew Aegean to Munich, first time on Aegean, very nice!

very greek breakfast, it was actually very good!

Munich:

Frankfurt:

It was great to see mother who is doing very well. Great to see old friends again & take care of some issues. Not too great to not do as much exercise! The homemade cooking was fantastic as always. The economy is in a death spiral and I am afraid there is a lot more pain to come. I should just stop there.

Kostas did not make the Huron High School JV soccer team after Ann Arbor Public Schools voted to eliminate all Freshman sports teams. So he rejoined his old United U14 team and we played in a tournament in Brighton. Great first game with a 2-1 win:

Another great game the next day but fell 2-1 to a strong team with a phantom PK.

3rd game did not play well at all, deserved the 3-0 spanking. Coach knows what he needs to work on.

The Honda Odyssey Van died and we decided to step up to the plate and get a new car. Welcome to our 2011 Ford Edge SEL, bought on Aug 31 & delivered on Sep 1st.

Stay tuned for more pics of a special Labor Day weekend!

July 2011

2011-07-29T18:26:00.006-04:00

This was will be a very quick update as the summer is flying by and we have been very very lazy in taking pics! The kids are just busy with camps: Kostas doing University of Michigan and United Club soccer camps and Sophia doing camps at the Gym and with Ms. Eileen. Not much else to report, we are all doing great!

Here are some cell phone pics from Sophia's gym camp:

And just a few pics from our neighbor's July 4th fireworks show:

June 2011

2011-07-14T22:54:00.010-04:00

This year is just flying by again. School for the kids ended June 18. Kostas had straight As in 8th grade! Hard to believe the little guy is going to be in High School next year at Huron HS! All the 8th graders in Tappan Middle School went on a field trip to Washington DC! Sophia did really well in 3rd grade and is ready for 4th grade at Allen Elementary again in the Fall.

Dad ended the indoor soccer season with his "Gasping For Air" team winning the championship after scoring the winning goal with just 43 secs left. The whole complex roared along with all of us. Clearly an unforgettable and special moment!! Taking the summer off and continue playing on Monday nights in the Fall and onwards!

Kids' summer camps have been lined up. Kostas is doing EMU, UofM soccer camps and going again to Al Gonquin camp. He will be trying out for the Huron High School soccer teams in August. And he signed up to continue with United soccer team. He also is taking a beginning Lacrosse class. Sophia will be going to the Washtenaw Rec Center camps and again with Ms. Eileen at Ann Arbor Rec and Ed doing writing and other stuff.

Kosta's United soccer team ended the Spring season, here are two team pics from the end of the year party. Coach Jaime will not be coaching this team next Fall and he will be greatly missed. Thanks Jaime for your efforts and the great memories! You can tell from the pics how much fun they had!

Of course we had the annual Yasoo Greek Festival in early June and Sophia was dancing in it!

Sophia's chinese dance teacher arranged a private dance show with the kids for us and then we all had a picnic:

May 2011

2011-06-19T21:52:00.007-04:00

This year is going way too fast, please slow it down!! This will be a quick update and will revolve around the pics I managed to get.

Sophia with her Girl Scouts:

Dad went to the 2011 NAPFA Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. These are some of the enormous buildings the Mormons have built.

Ok, this is the conference hotel.

Mormon buildings

This year we did not attend the Canton Cup soccer tournament over Memorial Day weekend. Instead we attended the Novi Jaguar soccer tournament. The kids played very well but I forgot the record!

Sophia's graduation from 3rd Grade Greek school at the Church in Ann Arbor:

April 11 - 30, 2011

2011-05-15T15:40:00.007-04:00

We are super busy as usual.

Kostas has continued playing in Tappan's Volleyball team and managed to win the Ann Arbor Schools League Championship by going 7-1. Here is a team pic with the trophy. Sorry about the pic quality, it was with the cell phone camera!

United started its spring season on April 17th against the Tigers. It has been a very rough start as the team had several absences due to illnesses, injuries and travel schedules! First game loss 6-0 as we only had 10 players and had to play one man short the whole game!

Dad finally managed to see Iggy Pop live on April 19th after all these years in Ann Arbor's Michigan theater. It was a legendary show in memory of the Stooge's lead guitarist who sadly passed away several months ago in his Ann Arbor home. Seeing Iggy run around like this at 64 years old made me so happy to realize how young I am at just 43:-) On another note, Iggy Pop went to the same middle school my son Kostas goes to now and his former classmate he recruited to help him run for Class President was on stage after the show to present Iggy with the key to the city of Ann Arbor. He said "Obviously, our careers diverged quite a bit after 8th grade, I became a banker and Iggy proceeded to become a legend of rock'n'roll!".

Second game of the season at Fenton and again playing the whole game with 11 players with no subs available. Another loss 4-0. But kids did not give up like the first game and played a great second half. If we had all kids available the outcomes would have been different!

Kostas continues to excel in school with what appears to be not too much effort. Sophia has improved substantially since we started her getting some help at the downtown 826 tutoring center. And the beat goes on...

Spring Break in Madrid April 1 - 10, 2011

2011-04-13T22:19:00.066-04:00

Welcome to another edition of our family's travel adventures!

Note 1: You can click on a picture to see it larger!
Note 2: Lots of the text comes courtesy of Lonely Planet and Fodor travel guides we used.

This one came together...suddenly one day in early March when my phone started going crazy because of messages from Flyertalk friends due to the Delta Airlines mistake fares to Europe, mainly Madrid and Copenhagen. I managed to snag four round trip tickets to Madrid for Spring Break week for only $293 each! I was just a few minutes late for the $156 RT special to Copenhangen, darn! :-)

This continues our family tradition to travel somewhere together and it was going to be much different that our trips to Los Cabos (2010) and Beijing (2009) etc.

The obligatory pic outside Detroit Airport:

Dad is Gold Elite flyer with Delta and has lounge access due to the latest Amex promo (more on this later on!)...so of course we start out at the main Sky Club in Detroit. Dad loves them olives:-)

This is in the smaller Sky Club by the 70ish gates area:

Dad got upgraded and flew First Class. He always volunteers to "turn right" but he was let to enjoy it...shocking:-)

Nice short flight to Philadelphia. This is in the Philadelphia airport which is very very nice.

We took the shuttle to the aloft Philadelphia hotel. aloft hotels are a new brand by Starwood and we had never stayed in them. They are supposed to be "fun and vibrant" and it was definitely different. We were well rested and the lobby was "happening". Nice dance music. They treat Starwood Golds very well with a complimentary drink at the bar (named wxyz), complimentary coffee drinks, water bottles and of course extra Starwood points.
aloft's hallway:

bathroom:

two bed room:

quality brother sister time:-)

lobby and wxyz bar at the back:

the gym. We worked out the next morning and sadly this was the last day we visited a gym as our feet got quite a workout walking in Madrid!

the swimming pool. Very busy the night before and not warm water!

Yard space between lobby and swimming pool:

lobby and bar's sitting area:

Next Saturday morning April 2nd we took the hotel shuttle back to the Philadelphia airport. We tried to access the Sky Club but it was not open yet as it was still under construction. So, we went over to the US Airways Club which is fantastic. So much different than the US Air flying experience:-)

We flew on a small jet over to New York City's JFK airport. This is a pic from the plane of a ship carrying stuff from China! How do I know it's from China. Well, I don't know but it is a pretty good guess;-)

Approaching JFK:

As I said it was a small jet, no first class upgrades:-(

We all flew with one carry on bag each, no check in bags at all. We are getting really good at this now! Another reason we did so it's to have a better shot at getting bumped which, sadly, it did not happen in this trip!

Outside Terminal 3 (I think) at JFK:

Short bus ride to a different terminal to board our Madrid bound plane.

Delta flight to Madrid was about 6 hours only. This is a Qatar Airlines plane in Madrid Barajas airport, one day I will fly them!

This was our plane.

Heading over to passport control in Madrid Barajas airport.

We took the excellent Express Bus from the airport to Atocha train station in Madrid. About 25 minutes ride and only 2 euros each. As we came out of the train station and looked to find our way to our hotel we managed to be right in the middle of a marathon taking place!

On our way to the hotel:

Front of the El Prado Museum, we will be back here:

We stayed at the Westin Palace hotel for 5 nights. It was an award stay, meaning we spent 48,000 Starwood points. We would like to thank American Express for making this stay possible at this historic elegant hotel:-) We were in room 524 with a premium view. No suite upgrade unfortunately. When that happens we miss Hilton Gold treatment a lot:-) We unpacked and we were off to the El Rastro area, an outdoor flea market that has been opening every weekend and holiday here for the past 500 years!

they were very good and really dressed to the part!

We walked around the city a bit trying to find a place to eat while jet lagged.

Kids finally gave up and walked into a restaurant and we got a meal that was the worst of our stay. Thankfully, it was all uphill from there! We got back to the hotel and we all just crashed and slept until Monday morning!

Monday morning, well more like very late morning, we started exploring Madrid. Our hotel is nicely located on Calle de San Jeronimo facing the Canovas del Castillo Plaza. We walked across Carrera de san Jeronimo going west.

This is Plaza de Canalejas, this city sure has lots of plazas!

Puerta del sol: This is Spain's Kilometer Zero, the point from which all distances in Spain are measured. Thousands of madrilenos gather here to welcome the New Year and it is the true soul of the city.

Back East again on Calle de San Jeronimo. Congreso building on the left.

South on Paseo del Prado street and we cross it at Plaza de la Prateria de Martinez. We visited briefly the Botanic Garden but we did not go in as we had a lot of walking ahead of us.
Iglesia de San Jeronimo El Real was built in 1505 but renovated over the centuries, including several controversial neo-Gothic additions:

Cason del Buen Retiro was originally the ballroom of the Buen Retiro Royal Palace, a building destroyed by Napoleonic troops but rebuilt by Charles III who had the vault decorated with frescoes.

Entering Parque del Retiro or Retiro Park. I must add that the weather was magnificent throughout our stay in Madrid! Early April is an excellent time to visit as tourist numbers are low! This is the park where madrilenos like to walk on Sunday afternoons. It is only 1.2 square Kilometers in the city centre and Retiro means "Retreat". It was originally the hunting ground for Philip II. It is the brainchild of the Duke of Olivares who designed in the 1630s for Philip IV as part of the Buen Retiro Palace-a complex of royal buildings and immense formal gardens that inspired Louis XIV at Versailles (which is a must see by the way).

400 year old cypress trees

The magnificent statue of Alfonso XII at the back and the Palacio de Cristal

After exiting the Park we headed over to Puerta de Alcala, perhaps the city's most powerful emblem. It is the city's finest example of the neoclassical architecture that came as a reaction to previous baroque excesses. It was designed by Francisco Sabatini in 1778. We should have come back here to see it at night lit up but we didn't. It is made up of 5 arches of granite and stone and has 10 columns similar to those by Michaelangelo for the Capitol in Rome. Bullet marks are clearly visible from the 1921 assassination attempt on Eduardo Dato, President of Madrid's Council of Ministers. The lion heads on it are superb, hard to see from so far.

Our walk tour continued on. Here is the Archaeological Museum, closed for major renovations.

Here we are at Jardines (Gardens) Del Descubrimiento. This is a 1892 Jeronimo Sunol statue of Christopher Columbus.

We then walked all over that area surrounding Calle de Genova, Paseo Recoletos and Calle de Alcala and took some snapshots.

Gran Via Street:

And we made it to Plaza de la Cibeles! I just realized that I did not take any pics of the magnificent statue of the fertility goddess, La Cibeles, in the middle of the square!!! You can see it here . The building below was designed by Antonio Palacios in 1904 as the Central Post Office and is now used by the Madrid City Council.

We continued walking all over, I think this is on Calle de Alcala

We then decided to keep walking east on Calle de Alcala to try a restaurant that was recommended to us. On the way we passed over the Plaza de La Cibeles again and took the pic of that statue I had a link above!

We found the restaurant on Calle Alcala 84. Its name is Arcade and specializes on Gallician food. We loved it!

And this is where I lose track of the days...I think this is another day's pics now...

Walking on Paseo del Prado near the hotel and in front of Museum del Prado.

This is a pic of our hotel Westin Palace from far:

This is actually a view from our hotel room, we are facing the Plaza Canovas del Castillo, which has the statue of Fuente de Neptuno.

More walking. Below is the Caixaforum building, now an exhibition and concert hall. A unique building, former power station, looks like as if the mass above it is hovering above the ground. And notice the vertical garden on the right.

We headed next to the Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, Madrid's leading modern art museum. It is the second largest European museum, only Pompidou is larger. It has transparent elevators with great views of the city. We did not have time to get into it that evening but we'll be back for sure.

We walked over to the Atocha train station, which is the main train station for the city. It has an indoor garden:

Agriculture Ministry just outside Atocha train station:

We are back to the Museo Nacional Reina Sofia!

Picasso's masterpiece "Guernica". It was inspired by the Nationalist bombing of the Basque town of Guernica in 1937. It is the 20th Century art's great anti-war symbol. Its bullet proof screen was finally taken down only in 1995!

Another day, starting out at the small Plaza de Canalejas. Notice the architecture so typical of Madrid:

Back on Puerta del sol walking west towards Plaza Mayor. These hats are quite unique:

Plaza Mayor!!It was built in the 15th century as a market square. It was renamed Plaza Mayor when Philip II, after making Madrid the capital of Spain, ordered it rebuilt as the administrative centre of the Court. It was rebuilt in 1790 after a fire. The buildings between the towers are Town Hall offices; the rest are private homes (I wonder how much they sell for....after the real estate crash that has hit this country!). This is a gathering place: where the most important members of the Court lived during the 17th century; it was the site of bullfights, carnivals and some terrible scenes from the Spanish Inquisition era, including one on June 30 of 1680 when 118 offenders were executed in a single day. Hangings were also carried here until the end of the 18th century. How chilling...If you meditated a bit you can see scenes from that movie "I see dead people"...ok, maybe not so funny!

Bronze statue of Juan Gomez de la Mora, who completed the building of the Plaza in 1619.

We then started walking West.

Entering Plaza de Oriente in front of the Royal Palace. This elegant plaza was planned in 1811 under Joseph Bonapartes. The existing square dates from the reign of Queen Isabella II (1833 -1904) and contains statues of the the kings and queens of Spain.

In the middle of the square lies the statue of Philip IV by Montanes, taken from a portrait by Velasquez.

Next, we walked to take a tour inside the Royal Palace which was just magnificent beyond belief! You can sense that the King was right there. They lived well while the masses starved outside! Hard to describe the scale of the palace with its overwhelming pomp! It was begun in 1737 by Philip V. The current royal family does not live here anymore but it is still used for state visits occasionally. It has more than 3,000 rooms and most are never used. We saw some amazing things inside. If you are ever in Madrid you have to stop here!!

Students are given a real history lesson here!

Plaza de Espana with a statue of Cervantes built in 1815. Behind it is Edificio Espana, Madrid's first true skyscraper built in 1957

Walking North West...

We enter the Temple de Debod area in the Parque del Oeste (Park of the East?). Beautiful place for a peaceful stroll. This place was totally destroyed during the Civil War and has been rebuilt. It contains birch, fir, atlas cedar and cypress trees, as well as a 183,000 square feet rose garden La Rosaleda. The Temple below is not Spanish at all as it depicts a 4th century BC Egyptian temple honoring the god Amon. It was installed in 1970 as a gift from the Egyptian government to Spanish engineers and archaeologists who had saved many treasures before large areas of land were flooded after the completion of the Aswan Dam.

There is a cable car ride here, the Teleferico. Some very nice high views of the city:

Okay, now it's time for the fantastic Museo del Prado, the city's pride. It has many masterpieces; Goyas, El Grecos and many others. One of the great art museums of the world without any doubt. It was built in 1785 and opened as a museum in 1819. There are over 7,000 pictures; 115 Goyas, 83 by Rubens, 50 by Velasquez, 40 Brueghels, 36 Titians, 32 El Grecos and 20 Zurbarans. Seeing some works of Goya up front were quite haunting as this guy was obviously insane and had "issues"! :-)

Walking along beautiful Paseo del Prado:

We managed to find this small restaurant a few blocks away from our hotel and we came back here often. It was Champions League day on Wednesday and we got to watch Real Madrid beat Totenham 4-0 on TV while the real game was being played a few miles north of us! Kind of surreal really:-)

Favorite breakfast for the kids: Chocolate con churros. Dad was getting along fine with his limited Spanish throughout our stay.

Our favorite hangout to eat, owned by two brothers.

Next day Wednesday we decided to walk to the Atocha Train station to inquire about getting to Toledo on Thursday.

There was a huge line to wait but the Chinese folks on the left told mommy that we should take the bus to Toledo instead. We noticed many immigrants in Madrid, same as all over Greece!

Madrid metro is really good.

Back on Puerta del Sol:

We were going to track down a restaurant recommended to us in the Mezon area around Plaza Mayor. It was time to try out some more tapas! We found it, Taberna de Antonio Sanchez, owned by a bull fighting family since 1830.

yum

yum yum, Kosta's favorite:

As I said, it is owned by a bull fighting family. For the record, I do not condone bull fighting, I find it atrocious to kill animals for pleasure!

Seeing Madrid without a tour of Real FC's stadium, the famous Santiago Bernabeu! 16 euros per person, so worth it:-)

Mourinho impersonation, Real's arrogant coach

The tunnel, where the players line up before they come out!

Press room:

Back on the metro

Just some random pics of places near our hotel:

I think this is a great shot!

This was our hangout, great food!

Thursday, on to Toledo. At the Madrid bus station, again very impressed by the quality of the facilities and equipment!

We spent a whole day walking all over legendary Toledo. It was the Spanish capital from 567 to 711 and from 1085 to 1561. Between the 12th and 15th centuries, Moors, Jews and Christians lived here side by side.

Some demonstration going on, welcome to Europe:-)

This is a 13th century Gothic Cathedral, an unbelievable site to look at from so close! It took 267 years to build! (1226 - 1493).

A cute doggie

We ate at one place and this tapa was da bomb!

yummy!

On the way back to the bus station kids wanted a crepe. Very tasty but kids still prefer the crepes in Greece:-)

Some pictures of our Westin Palace hotel.
Restaurant:

Lobby:

Front at night:

Our room:

Thursday night we tried another restaurant and I was the only who absolutely loved this octopus dish. I think it was the best thing I have ever eaten, next time I am in Madrid I am going to have it again, no doubt about it!

Last morning Friday in Madrid we slept over 10 hours!

Hotel bathroom:

5fh floor hotel lobby area:

5th floor hallways

We had to say goodbye to our friends at Neila restaurant, last breakfast here!

Walking over to Atocha train station. Here is this guy trying to make a few euros

At Atocha train staition waiting for the Airport express bus:

We checked into the Hilton Madrid Airport hotel for our last night before our Saturday morning flight back to the United States. Excellent hotel, very new and modern that gives excellent treatment to Hilton Golds!

Bigger rooms, upgraded to the Executive Floor

Executive floor comes with free access to the Executive Lounge with access to drinks and food. We always enjoyed our previous Hilton stays and the upgrades allowing us the lounge access and full breakfasts!

We had a relaxing time at the swimming pool with its hot water!

Saturday morning we all had our free full buffet breakfast, courtesy of dad being Gold Elite in the Hilton Honors program. How about 6 different stations of food!

Lobby area:

The hotel ceiling looking up from the restaurant area:

Bathroom:

The kids had so many Fantas that day:-)

Saturday morning the line for the shuttle bus to the airport was long

Delta flight from Madrid to Atlanta had some issues in the beginning. But after a while, we settled in nicely watching several movies in our 9 hour long flight to Atlanta.

Hanging out at the international Sky club lounge at Atlanta's E-14 gate.

Atlanta airport, on our way to catch our flight to Philadelphia:

We stayed one more night at the same aloft hotel in Philadelphia on Saturday night. It was funny that on our shuttle to the hotel we rode with Kosta's school secretary who was also going to spend the night in a hotel nearby, what a small world!

Nice stay at aloft and on to the Philadelphia airport. This time we got to visit the Delta Skyclub which just opened. Small but beautiful!

Dad and mom got upgraded on the flight back to Detroit and we let mommy and Sophia ride in First Class as me and Kostas took it like gentlemen and rode back in coach:-)

And we were home on Sunday afternoon around 3.30 pm! And another adventure was over and we will cherish the memories!

March 2011

2011-04-01T00:24:00.010-04:00

This is the fastest update ever as it is now 12.35 am on April 1st, wow!! The reason is we start our Spring Break and we are off to another travel adventure, more to come:-) Other than that, life is good, super busy as usual. Hard to believe that one fourth of 2010 is already gone! And we are so ready for spring!!

EMU retired the jersey of NBA player Earl Boykins. It was good to see him again and recall those days of beating Duke in the NCAA tournament!

We went to the University of Michigan Malaysian Student Association annual party again:

definitely different dancing from my days in college!

Kostas the yo yo man! :-)

International night at Sophia's Allen Elementary School:

Sophia and Celine in their classroom:

Kostas playing volleyball with the Tappan Middle School team, home game.

Greek independence day celebration at the Greek church by all the Greek School students wearing traditional costumes:

Opa!

Volleyball game at Slauson Middle School:

Volleyball team is 41 I think, only loss to Scarlett away.

International night at Carpenter Elementary school, what can I say, we dig international stuff:-) And seeing Sophia perform with her dance troupe too!

Kids holding flags of different countries:

This is the Indian Michael Jackson!

Bollywood is in the House!

And here we go again, check out the elegant form:-)

Cindy's birthday at the Ice Rink:

February 2011

2011-03-23T22:40:00.010-04:00

Super busy as usual. Tax time and all! We have Kostas playing with his team indoor soccer, continuing to do very well at school and will be playing volleyball again in March for Tappan. Sophia continues to do better in school as we work on her, she is making steady progress and she continues to get better in focusing...well, what can we say, she is a piece of work:-) Kostas will attend Huron High School next year! Dad managed to get another Spring Break family trip arranged, this time to Madrid, Spain, we can't wait!

Sophia's Chinese Dance team with her teacher Sharon:

Dad and Sophia at Daddy-Daughter dance at the Washtenaw Rec Center:

Here is the one and only...Fluffy!

Dad attended a conference in San Diego in early February. This is Bill Walton, the former NBA star:

Over 2,000 attendees!

Colin Powell

Tony Blair

Here are some January 11 pics from the Greek school performance at the church, Sophia is the 2nd from the right:

Her dance team had a performance at the Allen School International Night:

Allen School kids:

And some pics from her Girl Scouts:

Kostas with his United teammates after a game in Wide World

So much snow this month...but the drive from the north through the woods is so magnificently pretty:

January 2011

2011-02-20T14:42:00.003-05:00

Ok, this update is very late but rather later than never:-) We are all extremely busy with life in general, you know the drill. Just a few pics. Everything is going well and we are all healthy. We had lots of snow in January.

This is at Community High School Orientation. Only 120 students are accepted by draw. Unfortunately Kostas was number 174 so it looks like next year he will be going to Huron High School. Oh well.

Just an icy pic outside the Greek church/school

We went to the annual Plymouth Ice Festival, it was fun and sooooo cold!

December 2010

2011-01-08T17:17:00.020-05:00

We spent another Christmas apart as a family which is really hard. Dad had to go back to Greece for almost all of December to tend to his mother and a bunch of family business tasks that needed to be done. Kids had school up until December 18 and instead of dragging them on to Greece for less than 2 weeks they all instead went to New Jersey to their uncle's house and had a "heavenly" time (as they said) playing with a bunch of cousins for the holidays.

Dad of course went to the Larisa AEL soccer team's new stadium which is a 5-10 minute short walk from the family home. It is the best stadium in Greece. Unfortunately, the team is on a gigantic losing streak and it looks like it will be releagated to the B Division...which is a MAJOR bummer and an unbelievable turn of events from the expectations for this year. Clearly this has been the season from hell!!

Grandma is doing fine, health is decent and emotionally she is doing better and better after the loss of Grandpa in July of 2009. She is a trooper!

On the way back I made a one night stop in Athens (photo is from the Athens Hilton) and got to see my old roommate at EMU, Socrates. Hard to believe it has been 18 years since we graduated!

These two pics are in the Athens subway...just a very cool moving picture of birds...I should have made a movie but my darn camera was not cooperating at the time!

This is a picture from outside our house in Ann Arbor and it was taken around December 19 when Mommy and the kids were on their way to the airport for their flight to New York's La Guardia airport.

They had a great time of course.

With old friend KC and her daughter Annie

Kids went skiing a lot!!

check out the form!

Christmas dinner at uncle's house:

Simon observing:

and can't help himself but attack!!

Kostas with a toast??

oh oh Sophia on her modeling kick once again:

More skiing!

November 2010

2010-12-04T15:48:00.005-05:00

This will be a short post as we have not done a good job of pic taking this month at all!

It has been a very busy month as usual. We spent Thanksgiving in Adrian like usual. Kids are busy and doing well in school. Both our cars are still running and we are definitely looking to buy at least one another car in 2011. We refinanced our Ann Arbor home mortgage to a 15 year @ a ridiculously low interest rate of 3.99%!

We started taking Sophia to the 826 tutoring sessions in downtown Ann Arbor on Liberty & Main. The quality of the tutors is fantastic and she loves it!

Annual checkup for our cat Fluffy. He may need a dental procedure to extract two teeth. At least no braces:-)

Dad will soon update the blog with pics from his Star Mega DO 2010 trip courtesy of Lufthansa Airlines!

October 2010

2010-11-07T15:28:00.007-05:00

First some pics from the James concert at the Royal Oak Music theater that Dad and Mom attended courtesy of WCBN FM radio station. Excellent concert, very intimate venue and the band mingled with the fans!

Two pumpkins:-)

At the Greek School 2nd Grade:

Some pics from a Tappan soccer team game:

Pics from the October 2nd United soccer home game, 2-1 loss to the Ann Arbor Tigers:

Both Mom and Dad ran the $5k race at the annual Big Heart University of Michigan race:

Mom and two coworkers showing team spirit

Another Tappan soccer game:

The one and only Fluffy on Haloween:-)

Some other notes: In one United Game Kostas scored 3 goals and the team beat Van Buren 9-0. Only to travel to Wayne the next day and lose 3-1. Dad missed both of these games as he attended a Flyertalk seminar in Chicago. On October 23rd United lost at home 4-3 to the Dearborn team that was unbeaten. The kids played their heart out and went up on them three times but they just could not hold on at the end, a heroic effort! I think the season ended 3-5 or 4-4.

October 18th marked the 11th anniversary of the passing of Dad's favorite and beloved cousin George Papadopoulos. Healing is still in process after all these years!!!

Dad won a Lufthansa contest on Twitter and was packing up to embark on a week long Travel Adventure with other Flyertalkers through Germany, New York, Houston, Phoenix and Seattle, woohoo! Pics to come soon!

September 2010

2010-10-11T20:44:00.010-04:00

I think we are going to a one post per month in addition to special postings (such as vacations, etc.). Appears fair as time to do the updates is always limited!

I think we stayed home for the Labor Day weekend, we needed to unwind from our Oahu trip. School started on September 7th!

On September 8th Kostas took off his braces after about 2 years! Check out that smile!

For the weekend of September 10th we took a short trip to Sandusky, Ohio to the Kalahari Water Park. We had a great time there, this was our 2nd time there. After seeing this place twice I think we have had enough of it:-)

I can't believe we did not take any pictures INSIDE the water park!!!!!!

Some bridge in Ohio

We are back to some routine now. Kostas is in 8th grade at Tappan Middle School and Sophia in 3rd grade in Allen Elementary School. Both kids do Kumon, Kostas has his soccer practices with United on Tuesdays and Thursdays and is in the Tappan Soccer team with practices every day except Fridays and 8 games total this Fall Season. Sophia does swimming and two dance classes along with Greek school.

We attended a Malaysian Professionals and Students Association Meeting at Gallup Park:

United season started with a win 2-1 vs. Jabob's team, the Flash. Kostas had the winning goal!

But they lost the next game at Farmington Hills 2-1, both very close games.

Tappan soccer team also won its first game at Scarlett 8-3.

That's all for now, see you all later!

August 24-31 Our trip to Hawaii's Oahu Island (Honolulu Waikiki)

2010-09-06T13:57:00.039-04:00

We tried to get to Greece using our Delta SkyMiles but could not pull it off as getting flights out of Athens proved impossible! Then we tried to use some miles flying to either Seattle or San Diego and take a drive up or down the California Coast (especially the Pacific Coast Highway) but this also proved not doable at the lowest award tiers. So, since Honolulu was wide open, we decided to fly there:-) Total out of pocket cost was just $30.00 plus a total of 160,000 Delta Skymiles (@40,000 per ticket). So, Honolulu here we come:-)

On the outbound we had to connect to Atlanta on an early am flight on August 24th.

The flight from Atlanta to Honolulu was over 8 hrs long! It was like flying to England from Detroit! We watched several movies on the Airbus 330.

At Honolulu, Dad used his brand new National Car Emerald Club Executive Status (thanks again to Flyertalk for the tip!). We had booked a Midsize Car (total for the week after taxes & fees: $241) which entitles us to at least a double upgrade and a shot at ANY car on the Emerald lot! We were aiming for the Convertible but the guy just before us managed to get it:-( So, after looking around at the cars available, we settled for a very nice Ford Edge!

First two nights were at the Hawaii Prince Hotel on a Priceline rate of $75 per night, total after taxes and fees $180. The hotel is a Category 4 and caters to mostly Japanese clientele. We got a sea view but it is right in front of a small harbor in Waikiki. Here is the view from our room:

We got to our room around 7 pm Hawaii time and we were going to take a short nap before we went out for dinner....Well, our short nap lasted about 14 straight hours!!!! I guess our bodies needed it after the long flight and the 6 hour time differential.

We decided to visit Pearl Harbor the next morning. We made a mistake driving to it and missed the left turn as we were admiring the Aloha Stadium on our right! But we had the fortune to see a double rainbow this morning!

We had to turn back and still managed to get our tickets around 7.45 am with entrance scheduled at 8.30. We watched the great little movie introduction and then we were off to the USS Arizona Memorial:

The wall has the names of all the dead sailors who perished from the Japanese attack in Pearl Harbor

Remains of the ship underneath us:

Leaving the Memorial by boat:

Then on to the USS Bowfin Submarine!

Going down inside the submarine:

From this room, 44 enemy ships were sunk in the Pacific:

The cafeteria

If you were afraid of enclosed spaces you would go insane here!

what is this???? :-)

no airconditioning!

It was very cool going through a submarine!

A small area with guns and bombs and stuff:

We took a short bus ride to the Battleship Missouri, the last battleship built at the end of WWII:

The ship's nickname is the "Mighty Mo"...it is HUGE!

On September 2, 1945 the Japanese signed their surrender on this ship a few yards away from this spot

We naturally (as we always do) searched and found Honolulu's Chinatown and let mommy guide us to eat something with the locals:

Entrance of Chinatown:

We took a walking tour of Chinatown as laid out in our Lonely Planet guide book.

Here is the bank lobby of the First Hawaiian Bank with its antique wooden teller cages. What is so unique about this bank lobby? Well, apparently, this is where Kate's bank robbery scene in the TV show "Lost" was filmed.

Wo Fat Building

Fresh piggies for the market:-)

A statute of the Chinese revolutionary Dr. Sun Yat-sen in front of the Chinatown Cultural Plaza.

As we drove through downtown, we decided to park the car and Dad and Sophia went out to take some pics as Mom and Kostas napped inside the car.

This is Oahu's oldest Christian Church, the Kawaiaha'o Church. It was built in 1842 and it is made of 14, 000 coral slabs. The clock was installed in 1850 and still keeps accurate time!

This is the tomb of King Lunaililo, the short-lived successor to Kamehameha V.

Wow, what a tree!

The statute of Kamehameha the Great in front of Ali'ohani Hale building which today houses the Hawaii Supreme Court.

This is the royal palace building, known as the Iolani Palace. It was built by King David Kalakaua in 1882. This building served as the the capitol of the Republic, then the territory and later the state of Hawaii. In 1969 the government finally moved into the current state capitol leaving this building in shambles. It has been painstakingly restored to its former glory. Too bad we did not have time to see the interior.

This is a banyan tree:

This is the current state capitol building

Queen Lili'uokalani statue, Hawaii's last reigning monarch:

Statue of Father Damien, the Belgian priest who lived and worked among the patients with Hansen's Disease (formerly called leprosy) who were forcibly removed to the island of Moloka'i beginning in 1866.

Another shot of the State capitol building:

Took a walk in Waikiki and here is me in front of the Hilton Hawaiian Village. We had enough Hilton points to stay here but it is not worth it as this property is old & requires too many points.

In the bathtub of the Hawaii Prince hotel!!!!!

Another view from our hotel:

2nd day we were off to Diamond Head early in the morning:

Sophia has never encountered a tree that she did not want to climb on:-)

it was a long hike up to the top!

Overlooking Waikiki

Then we took a drive a bit north at Lanai Lookout:

Drive back to the hotel for checking out, here is a front shot of the Hawaii Prince hotel:

the lobby:

Then we drove just a few miles north to the Sheraton Waikiki. We had an award stay here for a total of 5 nights. It is normally 12,000 Starwood points per night but there was promo going on to "Stay 4, get 5th night free". So, total points were 48,000 points. After a polite complaint regarding the service (it took 3 phone calls to bring a broken coffee maker & add'l bath towels!) we were credited with 7,500 points, so total Starwood points spent was 40,500 for five nights. Not bad! Great location right on Waikiki beach, just remodeled hotel. Here is our room:

Here is outside of our room. Walking on Waikiki felt like a busy New York street, very city feel like!

We enjoyed the rest of the day in the hotel pools and walking around Waikiki.

Next early morning we were off to Hanauma Bay. We did not realize that if we get there before 7 am we escaped the entrance fee; we got there at 6.45 am and kept $30 in our pocket:-)

Hanauma Bay is BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The coral reefs below are over 7,000 years old. We snorkeled and saw so many fish and, the highlight of the trip, a giant sea turtle! This is a MUST do in Oahu!

Halona Blowhole, you must see it to understand what happens here!

Then we went on a long drive around the island. Halona Cove:

Here is where I start to lose where we are....we are driving North now:

stunning small beaches everywhere:

Ko'olau Range

I can't remember where we stopped here but this tiny place was recommended in the Lonely Planet guide for its Shave Ice treats, they were delicious!

Enjoying the Sheraton Waikiki's two swimming pools, this is the pool for the kids:

The world famous Waikiki Beach!

Saw this Lotus car parked outside a nearby hotel:

This is the hotel's Infinity pool, no kids allowed, adults only!

We visited the annual Greek Festival and had some mean gyros:-)

Apparently there are 65 Greek families living here

At the hotel bar

Sunset at the bar drinking $5 Mai Tais in happy hour:-)

Driving through Waikiki

We decided to take the scenic drive up Tantalus Drive overlooking Honolulu

there she goes on yet another tree!

Then we did a hike up and around Makiki Loop Trail, it was magnificent!

Back to Honolulu's Chinatown:

Last night at the hotel bar. We met a nice British couple. The guy is an Everton fan and we had fun talking about the games between Everton and my hometown Larisa team in the Europa League a few years ago:

Sheraton had this Hawaiian dude wowing the ladies:-)

Took a long walk up Waikiki beach with mommy in our last morning as the kids beat themselves up in the swimming pool:

Surfing time in Waikiki

Note: Don't eat your breakfast on the beach!

Look at the joyful expression on the surfer's face!

yoga time on Waikiki beach

We did not get the upgrade to the beach view, we only got upgraded to the mountain view. The Gold status (thanks again Flyertalk) got us some other goodies at least.

Gold Starwood status got us on the Preferred Floor, yeah:-)

hotel lobby

Some more hotel pics:

yes, this is Sophia's feet!

At National Car waiting for the shuttle to the airport

Checking in at the Honolulu airport for the direct flight to Detroit:

More movies on the return. I got to watch the movie "Damn United" with the story of Derby County and Nottingham Forrest teams' football coach Brian Claff...It was fantastic. I think Kostas did not sleep, watched five movies straight!

At home....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz