Ahh, tradition....Delicious!

This weekend played host to one of my favorite traditions: the Greek Festival.  Our friend RB has her birthday on or near the festival weekend every year and we all pile in the car as a family and head into Portland to feast on gyros, spanakopita, baklava, lamb kabobs, and other tasty treats.

We make sure to leave the house by late morning because we want to make sure to get a table before the festival fills up.  We are there by 11 and we almost have the run of the place to ourselves.  We post up at a tall tavern style table.  I'm not there two minutes before I'm waiting in the gyro line.  I always want to eat about four hundred of those things before the day is over, but I know not to kill myself too early. 

I roll back to table with three gyros in hand.  One for Tracy and two for me.  Shea can nibble on mine as I'm SHOVING them into my face.  Attractive image, I know, but I'm telling you, these things are like crack cocaine.  Tracy heads off to the beer line and soon I'm washing down my gyros with a Ninkasa IPA.  Our friends RB, EB, and KH are there, as are my in-laws.  We sit around the table talking at leisure.

It's not long before Shea hears the call of the traditional Greek music and wants to get to dancing.  We bow/curtsy and set about spinning around the open spaces under the speaker posted on a nearby pole.  She's a dancing machine, my Shea.  Throughout the afternoon I take her out on the "dance floor" more than four times.  Once down to the formal stage where they give demonstrations of traditional Greek dances.  She spins and grins, spins and grins.  The beer in my stomach becomes a little unsteady but I'm laughing too hard to give a damn. 

The day ends with one final gyro (my total festival count was 4 this year) and a quick swig of the last of my beer.  As Tracy, Shea and I load up into the car, I'm warm, content, and FULL.  Needless to say, Shea and I both fell asleep in the car on the way home.  What a great day.