Reflections on loss...Carley

    2016 was one of the best years of my life.  Many things had gone amazingly well for me and Kara.  I was doing great at work, we moved into a house that I can’t imagine ever leaving, and of course, we started the adoption process.  Little did I know that Dec 30th I would lose my sister, Carley.  It was unexpected, tragic and devastating.  In many ways, I still don't really believe that it has happened. 

My sis Carley

    Kara and I were on our final day in Greece, spending New Year's Eve in Athens with some of the most amazing friends we have ever had when I got a call from my parents with the news.  She had passed away in the night due to complications from diabetes.  Waiting less than 24 hours for our flight to leave, was one of the longest times of my life.  

    Being in shock I didn’t really know what to do so we tried to go to dinner. Eating just wasn’t working so I went and sat in the courtyard in front of the restaurant, called my family again and cried. I couldn’t think of more to say to them other than apologizing for not being there.  I couldn't imagine what they were going through and was feeling extremely guilty for not being there with them.

The courtyard in Athen that I called my family from.  I didn't want to forget it.

    When we made it home we helped with the funeral arrangements, and then I had the immensely difficult opportunity to speak at her funeral.  What I said wasn't profound, or lengthy but it was meaningful to me. I thought about what I could and wanted to say every day from the time I heard of her passing until about 30 minutes before the funeral ceremony when I finally wrote something down. I was asked to read her Obituary, then follow it up with some words of my own. The following is what I said, its irreverent, possible crude, but reflects a lot of how my family is.

Well this sucks ass.

I don't really have much to say.  I have been trying all week, and haven't been able to come up with anything that seemed good enough.

There never really is a good time for this, but for sure none of us had enough time with Carley, especially Aiden

There are so may things we wish for when someone passes, especially when they go so early in life.  Many appropriately wish for one more hug, one more I love you, one more minute.  I wish I could annoy the shit out of my sister one more time.  Since I can't, I have to find substitutes.  Taylor, you are on notice.

We never know when we will have our last crazy snowmobile ride, our last sunrise, or our final goodbye.  Make the most of it.

    I think it is natural to think about things that people didn't have the opportunity to experience when they pass, which is a large focus of my words to/about her.  My sister wasn't ever able to take a flight to a new exciting destination, she spent the majority of her adult life in Utah. I have many great memories of being with her, family trips, cabin adventures, and her being a bridesmaid in my wedding to Kara.  There is nothing wrong with any of this, she was doing the best she could, and was happy.  She had a 4-year-old son, Aiden, that brought her immense joy.

    I have learned more from Carley since she passed than I ever dreamed possible.  She has taught me that life is fleeting, and we never know when today is the day.  We need to try harder to look past faults in a family and enjoy them while we can. I am immensely sad about the passing of my younger sister, but don't regret a minute that I had with her.

    What does this have to do with adoption?  Well, losing my sister has changed me.  I don’t know if a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about her.  I still have an exceptionally difficult time accepting that it is real. It has also taught me the value of family and knowing the capacity to love someone so much more than yourself. The thought of having a child and potentially losing that child could turn some people away from wanting to adopt, but if anything I think it made me want a kiddo of our own even more. I want to meet someone that changes my life this much. I want to be able to teach them the little I have learned. I also want to show them the love that can change a life forever.

It's all Greek to us-Nafplio

Kara's birthday happens to fall on Christmas so every few years or so we like to get away and vacation somewhere fun instead of having the traditional time with family and friends. We've been to Arizona, Seattle, and Las Vegas a few times where we went to see the Hoover Dam and another time to see Penn & Teller. This year, we wanted to do something extra special so we each wrote down a list of 5 places off our bucket lists and then compared them to see which one had the cheapest flights. The winner was Greece! Just so we didn't back out, we decided to buy tickets immediately so we made sure we made it happen. When we started telling people that's what we were planning on doing, our really good friends from Oregon decided that they wanted to "crash" the last part of our trip with us. OH MY, we're really going to do this and have our most favorite people come with us?!?! YAY!!!!!!

Headed to New York

Good by SLC!

Day 0, December 19th & 20th, Travel and Time Change
The beginning of our trip started with lots of flying, we flew from Salt Lake City to New York then made a very mad dash to get on our 8-hour flight to Rome. After landing in Rome, we had the opportunity to get some amazing food and wine. Then after check-in we were put on a bus and shuttled to our plane to Athens, Greece. After landing in Athens, we got to our rental car where we had to drive 2 hours to arrive at our hotel in Nafplio.

Quick tourist trap in the airport ;)

Rome airport food was so good!

Boarding our flight from Rome to Athens

Rental car in Athens-posted speed limits are a suggestion. The only
really road rule is "always let the locals pass you" per a local taxi driver

Day 1, December 21st, Nafplio

So tired!

First breakfast

 Our sleep had been pretty thrown off with all of our traveling and time change, both of us were up throughout the night and didn't sleep that great on our rock hard bed. But that didn't stop us from the excitement of getting out and seeing the city and starting our vacation. We got up and strolled through the narrow walkway on cobblestone and found us a cozy place to have breakfast. Jeremy had a strawberry crepe and Kara had toast, eggs, and bacon, both of us enjoying some delicious coffee....mmmm coffee!!!!

Fortress in the sky

The beginning of the stairs

Stopping for selfies

After breakfast, we decided we wanted to see the Palamidi Fortress....just 999 step up a mountain, no big deal and it was totally worth it! The views were AMAZING and you could see so much of the city. We wondered around for a few hours seeing all sorts of things: a prison cell, all the little windows that were used to shoot out of, lots of little-arched structures for storage and such,  the 3 story Governer's Mansion, a BUNCH of stairs, and a little church where we lit a candle for our hopeful one day Baby Sabin. Neither one of us are religious, but felt it couldn't hurt to put some good vibes and wishful thoughts out into the world for our potential birth mum and kiddo.

Our candle on the right

This place has amazing views!

Kara loves this photo

So windy and gorgeous!

These porthole windows were SO amazing

The sign at the bottom of the stairs

After coming down from the Fortress, we decided to wander the city a little and find some lunch. We found another church and went inside to check out the architecture and lit another candle for Baby Sabin. We decided to stop by a little delicatessen shop and pick up some cheese, meat, and wine to take back to our hotel and eat on our little balcony.

More candles for Baby Sabin and our birth mum

Some cool street art

SO many cats all over, they don't spay/neuter them

The deli where we found our afternoon snack lunch

Sitting on our balcony having lunch

Sitting on our balcony having lunch

After coming down from the Fortress, we decided to wander the city a little and find some lunch. We found another church and went inside to check out the architecture and lit another candle for Baby Sabin. We decided to stop by a little delicatessen shop and pick up some cheese, meat, and wine to take back to our hotel and eat on our little balcony.













































Afterward, we took a much-needed nap then decided to wander the city some more and find some delicious dinner. We picked a seafood place called Arapakos. We had the most amazing grilled octopus, Greek salad, seafood with pasta, and grilled fish with risotto with some delicious local wine. After our meal was over, the waiter brought us some traditional Christmas cookies (Kourabiedes-a butter cookie and Melomakarona-walnut cake). After dinner, we wandered the streets some more and looked at the city lights hanging and went back to the hotel and watched Beauty and the Beast in Greek.

Grilled Octopus-SO GOOD!

Merry Christmas from Nafplio

Walking around was so beautiful

Hotel breakfast was legit!

Day 2, December 22nd, Nafplio
We got up and had the hotel bring us a traditional Greek breakfast which was amazing then drove to see some amazing old structures surrounding the city. The first stop was Tiryns (check out more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiryns), some believe it to be the birthplace of Hercules. It was amazing to see these huge boulders carved and stacked so perfectly. It was super windy and cold walking around, but it was nice that we were the only ones out there like crazies walking around.

Tiryns

It was SO windy and pretty cold, but so amazing to see.
The rocks were stacked so intricately!

Selfie!

These stairs were practically straight-so steep!

Seriously, it's so amazing to know how old these
were put together and still standing!

He's pretty cute when he's looking at things.

We almost didn't go see this because it was so cold,
but SO glad we did. It was an awesome hallway!

Windy selfie

Lion Gate Entrance, this picture doesn't do
it justice-it's SO BIG!

Then we drove to the Acropolis of Mycenae (http://www.ancient.eu/mycenae/) where it was even windier because it was at the top of a hill. The fees to both of these places were so cheap for what you got to see, only $6-$8 each! The Lion Gate entrance was SO amazing and impressive. This place was SO big and you could see all the way to the Medeteranian. Fighting through the crazy strong wind was totally worth it, Kara's favorite part was the walk down the creepy dark stairs 60 feet underground water cistern. We didn't make it all the way down, we only had our camera flashlights and it was pretty crazy to be under all those rocks in the dark all alone. Jeremy's favorite parts were the Lion Gate entrance and the Lion Tholos tomb.

The walkway to the Visitors Center

The death pit

The stairway to the underground sistern

Inside the stairwell it got really dark and a
little creepy thinking of all that weight.

Side entrance and gate

Rock bowls were pretty impressive

Exit to Lion Gate

Lion Tholos tomb

Lion Tholos entrance

Then we took a short drive to the Treasury of Atreus, WOW.....just WOW. You park your car and walk up a short hill and turn the corner and see this:

Love my pirate hat

Amazing tetris

On our drive back to Nafplio, we stopped at the Silo Art Factory (https://siloart.gr/en/) and met Stelios d. Marangou. After walking through the small gift shop, he started chatting with us and showed us his enormous workshop in the back. He was SO kind, he saw that we were freezing and had his lovely wife make us some coffee while we strolled through his workshop. Seriously, so nice! We ended up buying two of his mugs and while we were chatting we told him it was our first time in Greece so he sent us with a package of dried figs and a bag full of oranges from his orchard in the back. The figs were SO good, Kara had to cut Jeremy off from eating the whole package so that we could find ourselves some lunch.

Loved this guy-such amazing art!

A Trojan horse he made

For lunch we had Kastro Karima-grilled feta, tuna pasta, grilled fish, and more local wine. They also gave us some of the same Christmas cookies after our meal. After lunch, we walked around the city and were super tires so we went back to the hotel and took a little nap and then enjoyed some reading on the balcony with the wine we bought the previous day.

Christmas cookies

Best pasta EVER!

After a nap, we had booked an Ouzo tour at a local distillery, Karonis (http://www.karonis.gr/). Where we met a 5th generation Ouzo distiller. Ouzo is an anise-infused alcohol, anise is the same flavoring of black licorice to give you an idea of the flavor. They also make Tsipouro (chip-er-o), made from the leftover grapes after they make wine.

After our tour, we walked through the streets of Nafplio again and found a little shop that had handmade kompoli, also known as worry beads, which is a non-religious string of beads manipulated with one or two hands and used to pass time in Greek, Cypriot, and Turkish culture.




Day 3, December 23rd, Nafplio to Athens and then to Oia, Santorini

We woke up early, had another traditional Greek breakfast at the hotel and then got in the car for our next adventure stop. The plan was to drive our way back to Athens and stop at a few structures before we got on our flight to the island of Santorini. 

The first stop was to be in Nemea to see the Temple of Zeus, but it was closed due to lack of personnel. Talk about a bummer :( But we did get to stop at an above ground cemetery and walk around. It was pretty neat to see the difference between the ones in the States and there, they had a small square boxed area that had sliding glass on two sides so that family and friends could put offerings/memorable items. Some of them had photos, bottles of various liquids, little dishes, and trinkets.

The second stop was to go to the city of Ancient Korinthos and see the Akrokorinthos (on the mountain) and Ancient Corinth (in the city). Both of them were both open and extremely successful!

 The Akrokorinthos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGrVLKd5H74) was occupied from the archaic times (18th century BC) to the early 19th century. It was said to be the place where the battle of Poseidon and Helios, between the sea and the sun, took place and that the verdict was that the Isthmus of Corinth belonged to Poseidon and the acropolis of Corinth (Acrocorinth) to Helios. This place was MASSIVE! There were so many steep stairs and passages, definitely a good leg and butt workout! 

The views were SO incredible!

Gate #1

Gate #3

Candles for our baby and birthmom

The church kitty eating garbage

So windy!

Ya...he's pretty cute in an underground cistern

So amazing!

The amazing olive trees and landscape

The top top

Jeremy climbing the as high as he could go

Trying to use the timer in the wind was hard

After our climb down and back to the car, we drove into the city to see the Ancient Corinth and the Temple of Apollo (http://www.visit-ancient-greece.com/temple-of-apollo.html). Wow-you really do not get a good understanding of how massive and impressive these pillars are until you stand next to them! While we were wondering through this ancient ruin, these two stray dogs were just running around with not a care in the world. 

Temple of Apollo

Silly selfies

The arches are incredible!

Behind us was the old marketplace row

Arch awesomeness

Such amazing carvings in marble

Base for a pillar

After we were done walking around we stopped at Tavernaki Tou Gamprou (http://www.tavernakigamprou.gr/) to grab some lunch where we met the most friendly Canadian lady and enjoyed: Tzatziki, Fried Cheese, Greek Salad, Chicken Souvlaki, Alpha Beer, Nes Cafe and authentic Greek Coffee.

This grilled feta was AMAZING!

Kara was in charge of counting change for all the toll stops

Following our lunch, it was off to the Athens airport for our 30 min. flight to the island of Santorini. The flight to and from Santorini on RyanAir were the most unpleasant flights we had ever taken. Not only was the airline not very friendly, crowded, small, and tried to overcharge you but the pilots on both flights were not that great. Granite, we did have some bad weather on the way over with a storm, but we've never experienced so much turbulance and bad landing ever. We were both pretty happy to land in Santorini where we had a taxi waiting for us to take us to the other part of the island to the city of Oia (e-yah). 

When our taxi driver dropped us off, we waited for a little bit before our house host would meet us. When he arrived, he grabbed both of our bags and was off with a super quick pace to get us to our rental house. It's a mystery how he walked so fast with our pretty heavy bags and up/down a bunch of stairs! Once we got checked in and he went over a few things with us, it was time to relax and find ourselves some dinner. We noticed Skiza Pizzeria Cafe (http://skiza.gr/) was open so we went there, Jeremy had tuna pasta and Kara had shrimp pasta. This was our least favorite meal during our whole trip, the tastes were just not that great and pretty disappointing. However, on a good note we slept on the most comfortable bed during our whole trip here....it was MAGNIFICENT!