Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Where's Angela....Part 2!

Do you believe in Deja Vu? Well, we do now. Remember a couple posts back when I told of Angela's adventure trying to get to Greece?

Angela was supposed to return last night from JFK Airport at 9 pm. As it turns out, Angela, Jami & Amalia missed their flight home and were once again stranded at JFK!

Evidently, while the girls were waiting at Gate 25, there was a gate change announcement which the girls (and several other passengers) didn't hear. The girls went to the counter to board, the ticket agent told them they were at the wrong gate, they were supposed to be at Gate 24. They walked over to the other gate to find passengers yelling at the ticket agents. Apparently, their seats had been given to standby passengers as the girls and others were counted as "no-shows".
Now, three very upset girls had to call their parents and tell them the news. Not to mention the fact that there were no other flights out of JFK till the next morning. Here we go again, deja vu. First call, Fr. Constantine. Unfortunately, Fr. Constantine had also just returned home, was suffering jet lag and was 2 hours from JFK. He sent his assistant Elizabeth to the airport to pick up the girls and put them up in a Holday Inn Express overnight. Elizabeth physically walked the girls to the gate this morning and made sure they got on the (right) plane.

As of right now, their plane is actually 8 minutes ahead of schedule, Andy took a day off to go pick them up and bring them home.

Hopefully, they'll be home in a couple of hours.

(Angela is not allowed to travel alone again....untl she's married!)

Monday, July 9, 2007

Where's Angela?

We have confirmation, Angela has been spotted in Greece. All other theories can be laid to rest. She wasn't eaten by any Mythological Greek Creatures as previously thought!



Here she is, laughing and smiling in front of the IV Chapel with the girls from her cabin..."Delphi"

Her Nouno, Fr. Nick, is directly in front of her.


Can you spot her in this pic?????? Here's a hint, click on the photo and look at the banner :)


Friday, July 6, 2007

Taste of Chicago


This Fourth of July we continued our 20 year tradition and made our annual pilgrimage to the Taste of Chicago in Chicago's beautiful Grant Park. I never get tired of the food, the people, the lake, the music, the street performers, etc. We weren't feeling very adventurous this year though. In the past we have tried different foods such as Binyon's Turtle Soup, Alligator on a stick, beer battered artichoke hearts and deep fried ravioli. This year, although there were over 60 vendors, there weren't many different choices for your "taste portion" which was 3 tickets ($2.00) Most items were 7-10 tickets, which can get to be expensive pretty quickly. My favorites were the hummus shirazi(hummus with pita and cucumber salad), sweet potato salad and chocolate ganache with strawberries, yum!! Maria's favorite was a hot dog. Not even a Chicago-Style dog, just a plain ol' hot dog....and a slice of watermelon, how much more American can you get than that! Andy's annual standby is the boneless rib sandwich from Fireplace Inn and a rainbow cone from, you guessed it, The Original Rainbow Cone and Cali enjoyed the turtle cheesecake and mango-cranberry rice pudding. In addition to all the food, Cali and Maria got to sit back and relax with some celebrities this year:





Although Angela wasn't able to be with us this year(she's at Ionian Village, check back a couple of posts for the full story :) Arty and "Baby Soto" were able to join us. Poor Art, we never give him a heads up that we're heading to the city, we just call him up when we're on LSD (Lake Shore Drive, for you non-Chicagoans.) Poor guy always jumps out of bed and races down to meet us wherever we are! Thanks Art, we love you for doing that! And we are always so happy to have Soto join us too! He's more than a cousin, more like another brother to us, and my girls just love him too! Oh, by the way, did you know Baby Soto has a girlfriend...heehee!!! Love you cuz, you know I had to throw that in there!






Well, after all that eating we had to leave and head over for BBQ and fireworks at the Karnavas'
It was quite a food fest all day! Until next year.....

Monday, July 2, 2007

Maria's Big Day



Yay! Maria learned how to ride her bike today! Our neighbor Katie started teaching her yesterday and Cali finished the job today. Maria was so excited she rode 3 blocks to show her cousins Kayla and Nina.



Bon Voyage Angela!



After waiting a full year for a trip of a lifetime, Angela was on her way to Ionian Village in Greece.....or was she?

Angela and nine others from our churches, including her godparents Fr. Nick and Anastasia, were scheduled to leave bright and early Thursday morning at 5:50am. This meant we were all to wake up by 2:30 to make our way to the Delta counter at O'Hare. But, we were wakened suddenly at 2am with an urgent message from Anastasia...."the flight's been cancelled!" she said. Apparantly, due to the severe storms that passed through Chicago the day before, New York was rocked by the same storm system and it caused power outages throughout JFK Airport.

The Delta counter finally opened up, Andy tried his hardest to get Angela through to JFK. The only option available was to put her on standby for the 9:20, and if she didn't get on that one, she would be placed on standby for the 12:00 flight. Well, this ended up being the scenario for our whole group of ten.

After all the madness and everyone's luggage has been sent through to NY, we said our goodbyes as they all passed through security. Next, Andy and I headed up to Lake Geneva (we already had a weekend planned) and waited to hear the good news of them all getting on the 9:20....right?

Wrong! Only four of the ten made it onto the 9:20, and Angela wasn't one of them. Now they waited for the 12:00 flight. About 11:30 we get another phone call.....the 12:00 has been CANCELLED. Now, 4 have gone ahead and six remain. There are no more flights to JFK that morning, so the only option left was to fly into LaGuardia, hop into a couple of cabs and hope that they make it to JFK in time to catch the Olympic Airlines flight to Greece. At least they didn't have any luggage to check this time. Sounds good in theory, but as they were heading over in the cabs, the Olympic Flight was already on the tarmac. Only 2 of 10 in our group had made their destination. The rest of them had to check into the hotel for the night and hope they could get onto the flight the next day.

Another wrench in the works: The Jonas family had somehow gotten a flight on Air France that evening leaving Angela, Jami and Peter behind in the hotel. Three 16 y.o. alone in NY. But that's not entirely true. Fr. Constantine from the Ionian Village New York Office came and stayed overnight with the three. He was able to use his priestly persuasion to get the kids on the oversold overbooked flight anyway. Another phone call from Angela confirmed she was finally on her way to Greece. In the end, they had made it safely to Greece. Well, the story is almost over at this point. You see, the Jonas' had gotten delayed in Paris the night before and Angela's group actually arrived in Athens before the Jonas group, so Angela's group had to wait an additional 8 hours in Athens until the Jonas' arrived so they could all travel to camp together.

A final call from Anastasia came from Ionian Village, they were tired, but safe and sound on the campgrounds.

We are so thankful to God that He got them all there safely!!

Can't wait to hear Angela's stories when she gets back!!!