The Barker’s World

I have not been looking forward to this time, but knew it would eventually come. Our great friends, Harry and Kristie Hansen, are PCSing to Virginia. They will be flying out tomorrow, so in honor of that I put together the below slideshow/video for their last night at the chapel last night.

Being part of an overseas military community can be very hard as friends come and go. While you sort of get used to it, there are some friends that you meet that you just don’t know how you will get along without. Harry and Kristie – You have been great friends and family to us during our time together here. The last year and a half have flown by and I can’t believe you guys are leaving already. Thank you so much for sharing this time with us. We will truly miss both of you (and I don’t quite know how to tell Annie that Miss Peabody is leaving!). May God continue to bless you both and others through you.

Most days, we get some pretty good traffic in our quiet neighborhood:

We’ve lived here for over a year now, but I still love watching the sheep wander around the roads. It is amazing to see how timid these creatures are (and really, really stupid), but how well they know the voice of their shepherd. There is definitely a lot to be said for knowing the shepherd’s voice.

What happens when you get Gavin and Abigail together? You get Gabigail! Come on, it’s like Bennifer and Bradgelina or whatever. Now you get it

One day at school Gavin announced to Abigail that he was going to marry her. He told me that she wasn’t exactly happy about it at first, but he told her to be and it was okay after that. Ah, kids! Too funny. I think they look like miniatures of my mom and dad.

Next, I’ll have to get a picture of Bella and Tristan. I think she’s laying claim to him.

The Pauls came over for a play date. Tristan and Gavin just love Luke (Abby’s little bro). Plus, our neighbor came over to play too. They weather was just perfect for a day of play.

There’s nothing like traffic that at a dead stop. But what if traffic was alive and breathing? Well, it’s possible – I’ve seen it from my yard!

Fortunately for us, that’s about all the traffic we have to deal with here!

I cannot believe that we have not posted any Christmas pictures. I guess we’ve been too busy playing with all of our new goodies and getting back into the swing of things.

Okay, not yet – but I hope to be tomorrow morning. A couple of months ago I picked up a couple of hard shell sea kayaks from the base MWR auction and have been dying to try them out ever since. Well, today I have the kayak loaded up on the car, have my wetsuit and other cold weather kayaking gear ready (though with today being 74 degrees, not sure I really need it), and am all ready to hit the water bright and early in the morning. I’m pretty sure with tonight being New Year’s Eve I will have the water all to myself. Translation – since this is the first time I am trying out the sit-inside kayaks, I might end up in the water a few times trying to get in. So tomorrow is a good day to be without witnesses!

* Oh – and it just wouldn’t be Greece without a picture of one of our neighbor’s goats watching me load up the kayak!

This week has been pretty much rainy every day. Guess the summer is definitely gone and fall is here. So now that it is a Saturday and you can’t really go out to play, what do you do? Well, if you’ve got a house full of boys, you build a fort, that’s what! Below is today’s attempt at the giant fort, taking up most of the living room; which of course leaves enough room for our trust dog sidekick, Annie!

Oh, and BTW – HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Wedding Weekend in St. Louis

I traveled to St. Louis for Sam and Laura’s wedding. It’s still a little weird to think that my little brother is married. All in all, the weekend turned out to be quite nice.

I met my parents at the St. Louis airport Thursday night. They had flown in just a couple of hours ahead of me. Well, they were supposed to be ahead by a couple of hours. Turns out that their flight arrived early and my flight was delayed by at least an hour. So, I arrived several hours after them. Luckily, I had given them the information for the car rental and they were able to secure the car before the desk closed. I saw dad right where I was expecting to grab my checked-in bag. Actually, mom, dad and Sam were all waiting for me. Sam had taken the metro to the airport to help us navigate to our hotel. That turned out to be a relief.

Once at the hotel, we were introduced to Laura and her parents, Andy and Sandy. My goodness Laura is tall. Looks like I will continue to be the midget of the family. Hey, I’m really average height!

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Yesterday we spent a wonderful day in the ocean. It was our first trip out where we snorkeled off of the kayaks. We launched off from Marathi Beach and paddled around the water for a little bit, doing a bit of snorkeling in a couple of spots, then paddling over to “Rabbit Island” for lunch. After lunch, we paddled about 50 feet or so from where we ate lunch and snorkeled some more. Click on the picture below to see the photos we took; not too bad for a sub $100 underwater camera.

I also shot a little bit of video:

In total, we spent about 4 1/2 hours in the water and really had a blast. As for snorkeling off the kayaks, it was fantastic. Getting in was so much easier than we thought it was going to be. Hopefully we’ll get to do a whole bunch more of this over the summer! Here’s to life in Crete!