Zookeeper's Log- A new addition to the family

Well, another week has passed. This was an exceptionally trying one, as I have been putting in as many hours as possible trying to get the bones done and then having the kids on my own during the evening and weekends (which started today for us as it is Kelsey’s birthday). I have to admit, taking care of the kids on my own for three days is more than a little daunting. I’m telling myself it only seems so stressful because my time away from them is very busy as well and there really is no down time in my day or week. Well, that is not entirely true… 7:30p and I’m free (minus the times E wakes up). But I digress… this post is not suppose to be about me, but about the kids!

It has been a crazy week for them. It started off last weekend with a serious of very unfortunate accidents for Miles. All of the hitting the head variety. Here is one particularly nice knot to show off. The bonk that led to this actually was not very bad, but I think its because he had hit that same spot hard two times previously. So he bounced into a wall (which is concrete), rolled off the couch, fell backwards off the bed onto the tile floor and ultimately hitting the back of his head on the wall, and finally got an elbow to the forehead while wrestling. Bad week for his head. I made the comment that he must be growing and hence the lack of coordination… today I realized he doesn’t fit in several of his pants. Just to reinforce the suspicion, today he fell off of his chair (backwards), fell off of the couch and hit his hip, fell backwards off of the steps outside twice (once hitting the same hip again), and fell off of a laundry basket he was standing on. Ok kid, I get the point. You are crazy and uncoordinated right now… stop getting hurt! Poor guy.

Ellis is not doing much better in the ‘bonk’ department. While she only really got the crawling thing down last week she has already moved onto standing up on things. Particularly things that like to slide out from under her. Remember we are on tile. These kids are going to give me a heart attack. This picture was actually from the beginning on the week and her skills are already far surpassed this stage, but until I get another picture…

Here are some photos from our last weekend at the beach before Ryan left. Ellis has become quite the beach bum… her and Ryan make quite the pair. Miles must be the only kid on earth who does not like the beach. He likes digging, but hates if sand touches his feet and will rarely touch the water.

Oh, speaking of Miles… he is potty trained! No diapers all week (except at night) and only two accidents. So proud of him. He has definitely consumed more sugar than any 2 year old ever should, but we’re phasing it out and he still seems to be getting the point. Hooray! Just in time to start preschool when we get home!!!

Also, I’ve been sleeping in his room now with him (this is what I walk into at night)… How did princess Ellis end up with the largest room all to herself!?! It is actually the first time she has slept alone in a room at night. It’s the only time I’ve ever not slept in the room with her unless I’ve been out of town. It was surprisingly difficult for me. I kept thinking I’d hear her and wake up to go check on her… of course she was out. So I woke up every hour just for fun, basically. Last night, after her waking up every 1.5hrs until midnight I ended up passing out until 6a… I don’t know if she woke up or not but I guess if she did she wasn’t that angry about me not getting her :/ Sad that I felt beyond refreshed after 6hrs of sleep J

Lastly, we got a new pet! Miles and Ellis are both in love. Miles calls him “Mr. Green”. They both spent over two hours just playing on him (well, Ellis spent two hours trying to eat his eyes). Miles even floated around on him in the pool for a while. Definitely a good addition to the family J

Phanourios Cake

The other day, while sorting bones at the museum, I was served this small piece of what looked like coffee cake. Antonios (the museum director and one of the most interesting people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting) brought it out to me saying his wife had baked it, they have it often. Here is the story he then told of the Phanourios cake (in his words):

My wife bakes it often. You lose something, bake this pie and it will return to you.
Usually some gold thing or something (gesturing to neck/necklace).
We have it at least three times a month!


You feed it to seven women, married women, not single, for Phanourios' mother. 


Not sure how to explain it in English... (long pause).
There is no happiness after death, but this, this makes her happy. Brings joy to (gestures to the sky). 




I quite like this story. The cake was delicious too. I was even more curious about it because it was to honor the martyr Phanourios. My hippo species is Phanourios minutus, and the connection struck a cord. So, here is what else I found regarding the tradition, the martyr and the cake:


About the martyr-- not much is known. Ok, thats not all too helpful. His holy icon (classifying him as a martyr) was discovered in 1500 among the ruins of an ancient church in Rhodes. His name, Phanourios, translates to "the Newly Revealed".  People pray to him to help them recover things that have been lost, and because he answers prayers so frequently, the custom of baking a cake (a Phanouropita or "Phanourios Cake") rose as a thanks-offering. Apparently the "thanks" is preemptive :)


The tradition began in Rhodes, where the icon was discovered, and spread throughout Greece. In Crete there are three monasteries and dozens of churches named after him. In places like Crete and Cyprus, young women bake Phanouropita to ask Phanourios' help in finding a husband. In Skiathos, it is baked by a woman who wants a husband for her daughter and in Florina unmarried women place a piece under their pillow hoping to dream of their future husband. 


(http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2011/08/tradition-of-phanouropita-phanourios.html)


I couldn't find much about offering it to married women for Phanourios' mother, but I quite like that part. It's nice to have been a part of such a local custom and to know that I had part in bringing happiness where there is none. 

Losing my mind...

I had a dream last night... I was helping Miles go to the bathroom on the toilet and got super excited that he actually went poop. As I was looking at the poop I noticed that it looked like the distal end of a femur and part of a mandible (jaw). I was, understandably, confused. Did Miles actually manage to eat these large bones or is it just a remarkable coincidence that my son is now pooping bone shaped number 2? I was moving in for a closer look when, thankfully, I woke up.

This dream sums up my life perfectly. Bones and toddler poop. I am losing my mind. Speaking of 'minds', I officially have a 'least favorite' bone. Ok, I'll go a head and say it, I hate it. The cranium/skull. It's kind of funny, I mean the skull is probably the most 'loved' bone. Think about all of the images of skeletons we see, it is always the cranium. Maybe its because without a head we can't really relate to a person or animal. The cranium helps it become more 'life like'. Well, I hate it.

In case you didn't know, it isn't actually just one bone, but there are actually around 22 bones that fuse together at various stages of life (why an infant's head is so soft because the different bones have not yet fused). Furthermore, these bones are very thin and, particularly if they are part of the 'brain case', are very hard to tell apart. So, what I get is 22 different bones each shattering in several pieces and it looks like this:

Trying to reconstruct the number of individuals is miserable. Granted, there are a few key bones that are good estimators, I have to at least sort through them to log cut marks, burning, etc.

Such is life. Pretty hard dissertation in the making... On the plus side (or maybe not) I'm am well over 20,000 bones now. If I were doing a 'normal' assemblage I would have probably been done 14,000 bones ago. As it stands, I think I'm somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the way through. Keep on trucking!

So ends our first month here! Two more to go. On top of everything else, I'm officially solo parenting for the month and trying to get reports written up for a company I work for in Portland. I think I'll need a vacation when this is all over with!

If this is a zoo, am I the zookeeper?

In coming up with a name for this blog, I wanted something that represented our life as a family. While there could be many words or phrases that fit the bill, nothing fully expressed how I personally feel so much as the fact that I am undoubtedly living in a zoo. Yes, the main attractions are my big lion and my little elephant, and they are exactly that. But they are wild and delving into the full fledged reality of parenthood is no less wild. However, unlike a zoo, someone took the bars off this exhibit. Perhaps, however, I'm the zookeeper and I'm in the exhibit myself. I can't seem to tell the difference.

Well, the zoo has moved to Cyprus and now we've been here for about a month. Yes, they actually have a zoo in Cyprus, so I am speaking figuratively. By now you have all been fully (or partially, because it gets really complicated) indoctrinated by Kayla into the reason that we are here. For starters, Kayla is doing her PdD research, my kids will be growing older by three months, and me....well, I'm here to oversee it all. 

Actually, I'm working remotely for my company, Fugro. How, you might ask, does someone get that gig. Well, stay with a company a good amount of time and work really hard and things tend to work out. At least they seem to, for which I am thankful. So what do I do? Well, its complicated but essentially I am in sales, marketing and business development for our offshore survey division. The market I target is geophysical and geotechnical surveying for the installation of submarine fiber optic cables. Yes, the internet, phone, data transmission as we know it globally is fed by thousands of fiber optic cables laid on the seafloor spanning thousands of kilometers across oceans. Quite strange that it is not satellite, huh? Well, that is the common perception, but satellite only counts for 1 or 2% of the total global communication. The rest is underwater. Fascinating huh? Ok, I won't bore you with details. 

So what else do I do? Well, I travel....to go to conferences, to meet clients, other meetings, etc. In the last two years I've been to Japan, China (twice), Germany, and Portugal among other (more domestic and boring) locations. In fact, this summer may be interrupted by a trip to Chile and come Monday (July 30) I will be traveling to Germany and then back to Seattle for the month of August. Yes, it is hectic...but so is having kids and a wife doing her PhD.

What? The month of August in Seattle? Yes, I will be in Seattle in August while Kayla and the kids continue on in Cyprus. But I will be back in Cyprus in September. Complicated huh. Anyway, while in Seattle I will be crashing with my very hospitable friend Ryan, I will be working and hopefully make many trips to the mountains for some climbing, and otherwise enjoying the Seattle summer. Hopefully Seattle will be having a full fledged summer by August. Oh and I'll be skyping frequently to Cyprus and otherwise also reading this blog to keep up on my family's life :)

Zookeeper's Log- Putting the kids to work

Well, we are coming to the end of month one. This week was a tough one… looking at the same bones over and over again is really getting tedious. On a positive note though, the kids are doing awesome. Since this is the zookeeper’s log I’ll stick to that and save my whining for next weeks blog posts.

In the past few days Ellis has really ‘grown up’. It is exciting and sad all at the same time. She is good at crawling around and can easily get into and out of sitting on her own. She has started to get super vocal again and is all around a bubbly little girl. She loves being able to crawl to grab what she wants and is beginning to cause mischief. Her two favorite things to grab are a toy bucket (which she uses to drum on, this girls got rhythm) and Miles’ binky while in his mouth. Thankfully he is fairly tolerant. She’s also becoming quite good at taking notes for me J

Miles is also quite the helper. His favorite thing is to help sort the teeth. As he says, Miles is a “good dentist guy”.  He’s become very polite after we downloaded a cartoon about manners… he thanks us so much it kind of drives me crazy. We’ve created a thank you monster. We’ve also started back up on the potty training. I made him a potty chart and finally got him to go pee in the potty today! At home I got him to go pee in the potty quite a lot but for some reason here it is scarier to him. But he did it. Three more times and he gets to pick out a new car. Pooping will be a whole other battle…

We’ve gotten both kids in the pool almost every day this week. They really like it and Miles is getting better at swimming already. I’m hoping in the next two weeks I can get him comfortable enough to swim ‘on his own’ with his float. Fingers crossed.

Oh! I almost forgot! Miles made two new friends this week... here he is trying to show you 'Henry' (the smiley face I drew on his thumb... to match my thumb face). And below you can see his best buddy he met today! Miles and him hung out for a good 30 mins before he "left to go find his mama". He loved 'giving him kisses' and chatting with him. 

Thank you!

So I realize many of you might not know what we are actually doing with the kids during the days here... Originally Ryan and were both going to try to work and have the kids here on our own. By "on our own" I mean that we had this crazy idea that Ryan and Miles would stay in Seattle for the first two weeks, so Ellis and I would work here. Then they would fly out here for two weeks. Ryan would watch the kids. Then Ryan's mom and my mom would both watch the kids for a few weeks, then I would fly home with both of them. It was complicated, put a lot of stress on Ryan, myself and both of our moms.

However, we were so fortunate to receive enough money from my grandfather (with the help of one of my aunts) to budget for an au pair to come out with us. Stress lifted. These extra funds could not have come at a better time! So, we found a fantastic nanny (Kelsey) to travel with us. It is beyond a relief! I don't know how we would have managed without her. So I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who made this possible for us: my grandfather for being so generous, my aunt Krissy for dealing with a bunch of bs, my cousin Kenna who was willing to watch the dogs/cat and house for a few weeks, my mom and Ryan's mom (who both were beyond generous in volunteering their time to watch the kids over here before we were able to budget for a nanny). And to the rest of our family who have always been amazingly supportive of us and my schoolwork (Grandma, Kalimar and Krysta to name a few). Without all of your help we could not have made this trip a reality. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, we are beyond grateful.

City State of Kourion- Part 2, Kourion

It has been quite some time since my Part I post about Korion, so here is Part II, long overdue. There is so much history behind this city and I know I will butcher it if I try to recount everything that was told to me, so this will largely be a picture blog. I'll explain as much as possible as I go along.          Here is the amphitheater. It is currently outfitted for modern day concerts, plays, outdoor movies etc. This picture does not do the size and beauty of the theater justice, but it does show the amazing view of the Sea. The city of Kourion was largely a place for the wealthy to live, the theater, large baths, large square/market. It is speculated that the poor and the slaves lived outside of the city walls.

One of the main features of the City of Kourion was a later building that supposedly housed visitors and families. It has amazing mosaics on the floors... unfortunately for the individuals staying here it was located directly above the sewage runoff (it ran directly over the cliffs). I'm sure not much smelled good in these days, but this in particular was likely a smelly locale.

These mosaics were from the entrance to the baths and one of a bath itself (likely a cool bath as there is no heating floor underneath). 

 This mosaic was from a dining area... note the beautiful 3-d effect in the lower right!

Below is one of the more famous stops.... a bench. Yes folks, it does look like a very important stop on the tour but no, it is just a viewing bench. Aren't you glad you hiked all the way up that hill?

These are some ruins from an older building... if you look in the upper left of the picture you can see a slanted wall. This was likely the base of an older castle/temple/main structure and this would have been a fortifying wall. As it is now, it was incorporated into a variety of new buildings/rooms.

There are several different styles of columns located throughout Kourion. I know nothing about the styles and how they reflect the time periods they were constructed except that they do. So there.

 Here is a round hole. No, seriously, thats what it is! Likely it was a water feature of sorts. Very nice round hole though... these are the things us archaeologists appreciate.

Below is one of the largest and most impressive baths. If you remember the floor heating system I mentioned before, here you can see how thick that heating floor was.

The last photo is one of the few cobble mosaics.

This mosaic is from the house of the gladiators. There likely was no 'gladiating' on Cyprus, but often gladiators would spend time training away from the games. This could have been a training headquarters. It was located between the main city and the stadium (more on that in Part 3!).

And last but not least, the church. Kourion was one of the last places on the island to convert to Christianity. It didn't convert until after a major earthquake in which the city lost its water supply, most of its population and was therefore easy to conquer. 

*Side note, there is a beautiful exhibit at the museum I work at of skeletons preserved from roof fall during the earthquake. Its a man embracing a woman who is embracing a child (~1yrs old). Amazing.

Other notes from the day:

-It rained! Such a nice surprise.
- I wrote this blog sitting across from "The Edge" from U2. Pretty cool and props to Ryan for knowing who he was and recognizing him! (Guitarist for those of you who are U2 illiterate like myself).