July 16 - 30, 2008

Some technical notes first. Dad now has a Treo 755p phone which replaced his ancient Treo 650p. This phone has a much better camera and all of the pics in this update were taken by this phone. In the meantime, the phone does not synch with the desktop for some reason. It synchs fine with the laptop...so for this update, we needed to email the pics to the gmail account and from there get them into the blog..kind of cumbersome...hope the desktop synch issue gets resolved soon!

These two weeks mom and the kids had a wonderful time in Malaysia and Singapore. They attended the party of her parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Kostas had a super time playing with his three boy cousins again and was very sad to leave them behind. Dad had a great time back home and enjoyed the "quiet" time:-) It is kind of weird living in a home so quiet!!! But it was kind of welcome for the change of pace...keeping up with Sophia can be exhausting lol! Hopefully Ellie can send us some pics since they did not bring the digital camear with them. Ellie please send!

The annual Ann Art Fair was here again July 16 - 19. Here are some pics:

Little Jacob "worked" at the Wii booth which was next to Mr. B's piano stage. The lucky kid got to show off his Wii moves all day to the screams of thousands of adoring fans:-) He obvioulsy loved it!

We had another Flyertalk Do in Ann Arbor the weekend of the Art Fair. Flyertalk is a web community frequented by people obsessed with travel and frequently flyer miles/points. The knowledge and tips shared is just incredible! Dave got us to meet in the Pittsfield Townhip Hall at the corner of Platt and Michigan Avenue and I was the only one who biked to it! We have two 4-5 hours of seminars and we also hit the Cottage Inn for dinner, Webers's for Sunday Brunch and a local bar for drinks. Hmm, thinking about doing a DO somewhere else, Seville, Seattle, Singapore or Buenos Aires...with all the frequent flyer miles bonanzas due to this DO even Mars is within reach:-)

Drove back to Toronto with another rented Ford Edge on July 30 to pick up mom and the kids flying back. Here is a pic of the undeground tunnel connecting Detroit and Windsor:

Greektown in Toronto:

Toronto Skyline (on Gardiner Expressway):

Waiting for the arrival....

Drove straight back, got a little lost with all the madness of the I-75 and Bridge construction, ended up driving West on Warren until we hit 39....there, an Allen Park cop got me for speeding 75 on a 55 zone, wrote me up for only 5 over, $115 fine but I think I'll pay the court a visit, got nothing to lose....it has been many years since my last traffic ticket!!

Mommy and Sophia crashed....12 hour time difference!

Got Celine and Chloe, Sam's kids, together at the Canton MCDs...they now live in Nashville, Tennessee.