February 28 - March 6, 2005

Dad was in the Ft. Myers/Naples area in Florida over the weekend on business. Had a rental car from Avis which he got from bidding in Priceline. When checking in they informed Dad that no compact cars were available and whether he would like to upgrade to an SUV for only $5 per day. Dad took the offer and here is the Ford Explorer he used for 3 days:


Dad took a 7 pm flight from Ft. Myers to Detroit on Monday night. While in Detroit there was lots of snow coming down. The flight to Flint was delayed for more than an hour while the Northwest crew deiced the plane. Landed in Flint around 12.30 am instead of 11 pm. The Camry car was somewhat buried in snow. The drive back home on highway US 23 was kind of surreal with thick snow falling and mad trucker drivers flying by. Going 30 to 35 miles per hour Dad got home near 3 am!!

Very early Tuesday morning the phone rings and...schools are closed due to snow. Dad and Kostas spent some time at the Panera bread store with Dad working and Kostas doing his homework. We then stopped by at the local Blockbuster store so Kostas can pick out a movie to watch. Here is Kostas picking out his movie:


Yahoo became 10 years old on Wednesday and to celebrate their 10th birthday they gave out free ice cream coupons to all members. So Dad took the kids to the Ann Arbor Stadium Boulevard Baskins Robbins store and got ice creams for the kids, here they are enjoying them:


After taekwondo class, Dad took Kostas to the EMU men's Basketball game of the season. The team is imploding through another long losing streak. The fans have abandoned the team and one of the few upbeat things during the games is watching the Dance team:

They had some mascots and we had the opportunity to have the Detroit Lions' mascot, Roary, take a picture with Kostas. He also got an autograph from Roary, he was excited!


Friday Mom took the kids to visit May.

On Saturday Dad took Kostas to the Greek church where they had a practice for the March 25th celebration the Greek school kids is putting together. After that we went to see the EMU women BB team annihilate Buffalo University by 40 points in the first round of the MAC tournament. The men play Monday at Akron University in the first round of the MAC tournament.
On Saturday night Mom took the kids to Ming's house for a small gathering with her and May.

Dad called Northwest to arrange for tickets using frequent flier miles for Mom and Sophia for next year (January 20 and return February 7). We have a tentative reservation for Detroit-Nagoya-Singapore and, on the return, Kuala Lumpur-Singapore (stopover for 2 days)-Nagoya-Detroit. This is certainly possible; the only holdup is the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore on Malaysian Airlines...they need a 24 hr notice to determine if they will issue space. Dad will call tomorrow Monday to find out if it is okay for the tickets to be issued. Total miles spent:120,000 Northwest frequent flyer miles. The occasion is the big birthday of Mom's father where the whole Lee clan gets together. After this is finalized, Dad will look into getting tickets for himself and Kostas so we can visit for at least a week, due to Kosta's school and Dad's work...stay tuned for that.

Here are a few more pictures from our trip to the winter resort in Canada:

Kostas and Annie:


Us:

This is right before leaving to return to Michigan...you can tell Kostas did NOT want to leave!