Seeing Greece Together: Beautiful Santorini

We were so excited about this sunset tour to Santorini. I had promised the kids it would be the prettiest thing they would see.

We took a bus along the winding roads of Santorini, seeing vineyards all along the way.

This beautiful island was created from a volcano. It's beauty, especially as the sun set, was indescribable. I'll let the pictures speak themselves.

And of all the things my darling boy saw, the cannon was what he wanted to be sure we got a picture of!

Santorini 2016

Time to get back on our boat: more drinks (no caffeine, kids!), dinner, and bedtime!

Seeing Greece Together: Tiny Dots

As we sailed on, covering many nautical miles in the 4 days, we would see islands in the distance. We would go back to our room and turn on the navigation channel on the tv. You could hardly see the island except for the tiniest dot on the map. But they looked so big from the boat!

It was breathtakingly beautiful...and windy!

And then we began to see what looked like snow-capped cliffs. As we drew closer, we could see the white houses of Santorini!

Seeing Greece Together: Coming In To Patmos

We immediately began enjoying our time on the ship and the weird sensation of walking around when moving at such a fast clip. Our package included all the free drinks we could want. We are not alcohol drinkers, but with as many fruity drinks and gourmet coffee drinks as my kids put down, they made absolutely no money on our drink package deal.

We went to the excursion desk to price out our side trips and decide what to do. We passed on a couple of them to save money, but knew for sure we wanted to see the Biblical site of Patmos. It blesses me to think of St. John on that island. Alone, but with His Eternal Companion. Stranded, but not forgotten. Without food, yet he was a fisherman. Shut out so his message would be stopped, yet God gave him the greatest revelation of future events ever given to mankind, while he was on this island. And when we pulled up, I looked high upon this mountaintop and saw this cross. The message of Jesus Christ can not be stopped by man's efforts. This cross speaks to that for me.

We drifted in just as the sun was setting. It was beautiful!

We took a small tender boat to the dock, then a bus took us to the cave that has been historically assigned as the Biblical site. It is now a small monastery, and Patmos is considered the second holiest site by the Catholic church.

The wind started to pick up, so I put on my Biblical garb.

We got to hear these beautiful church bells ring. Coming from a land where we hear the call to prayer 5 times daily, it brought me joy to hear them.

Seeing Greece Together: Upgrades?!

I booked us in the cheapest, smallest, windowless rooms possible to save money. I was prepared to stay out of my room all day to cope, then turn out all the lights before entering my room at night so I couldn't see how small it was, perhaps even throwing a Tylenol PM down my throat to survive the thought of a tight squeeze.

And this still brings me to tears when I see this picture. We walked to our rooms, and here's what we saw. There must be some mistake! No, this is your room, he said. After the busiest year in the history of our time in Turkey (2 conferences we hosted, a larger student body than ever, a government inspection, and a re-accreditation visit...with a campus move to plan), God said, "I got this." and gave us this beautiful, spacious room with a view of the ocean. The kids say, "Mama, I thought you warned us we wouldn't be able to turn around in the room!" I smiled, "God did this." 

No one I'd rather cruise with than him! 

My two Turks with Turkey behind them. 

This was just after the big horn sounded and we were off!

Seeing Greece Together: The News

These photos are from February. While CC was gone, I researched some ideas for Spring Break. I found that our entire family could take the short 4-day Greek cruise that I did with a couple of friends last year for the cost of a hotel/gas to one of our normal spots. We are painfully aware that the clock is ticking now with having the 7 of us all together still for vacations. So, I CC up while he was missing us, far away, 8000 miles away. CC agreed that although he's never wanted to go on a cruise (read here: doesn't like them) and although it seemed like a lot of trouble, if I planned everything, we could go.

Realizing it was a stretch for him and appreciating his heart to be willing, I wanted him to be the one to tell the kids. Here are their reactions to finding out they would get to experience a cruise. 

Fast forward to March. We walked out the door to school at 3PM, drove straight to the airport, parked our van, and boarded a plane. Pegasus Airlines is our budget airline here. We flew to the Turkish Aegean Coast round trip for $50 each. I told you it was cheap. Here are the girls eating their Easter treats from Aunt B.

Our flight was only an hour. Then we waited at the airport for a bus to take us the one hour journey to the docks. We were a little tired, but very excited. 

I booked the cheapest hotel I could find that would enable us to just walk to the cruise ship the next morning. (With 7 people, transport is always hard. We can't fit in a taxi all together. So this seemed the easiest thing.) The hotel was...cheap. It's rare to still find hotel rooms that smell like smoke, but we did. We listened to a band at a bar next door, right up until the 4AM call to prayer. Blessedly, they quit once the call went out! 

We had a simple breakfast the next morning. That's always provided in Turkish hotels. 

And we looked out our windows to see this! 

And soon we watched our ship pull in!!! 

This was just before embarkation!