Happy belated 4th of July! On Thursday, 3 July we had the Embassy 4th of July Reception at the Ambassador's house. I had been working on this for months with many other people and it turned out to be a great success. For what I could see we didn't have any major issues and everyone really seemed to have a great time. I would guess that we had about 2,500+ guests. I was mainly in charge of taking care of the 6th Fleet Band that came in to perform from Naples, Italy. They were a 9 person Jazz/Rock band and were fabulous.

On July 4th David and I went to the most wonderful beach in Athens (http://www.astir-beach.com). It was pretty expensive but the water was crystal clear and the sand was nice and soft without any trash. We had two nice chairs with an umbrella and Vicki and Jason came and meet us later in the day. I think we have found our new favorite beach.

On Saturday, Humberto and his girlfriend Hilary arrived in Athens for the start of there almost two week vacation. They were just here for Saturday and Sunday before leaving on Monday to head to Santorini and then to Mykonos. We took them around Athens and had a nice Greek meal on Saturday night.

On Saturday night Vicki and Jason threw me a surprise birthday dinner at their place. I had absolutely no idea! Vicki is an amazing cook and baker so we had a great dinner and then homemade yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting.

Not too much going on this week. It is the hottest it has been with most days being in the high 90s and low 100s. We are going to try to make it back to the beach this weekend so there are some bright points to living here!

Love from Athens....