The Barker’s World

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!

We had a great day today hanging out at the old harbor in Chania. I had heard that the RAF Red Arrows were going to be in town flying as part of the weekend’s Battle of Crete festivities. So, I got the crew up early this morning so we could head downtown and make sure to find a place to park. We wandered around the harbor for about an hour before the show started, but it is always so beautiful down there – and really, even more so in the morning when it is a LOT less crowded. After the show, we wandered some of the old streets of Chania – definitely the kind of thing you picture when you think of Greece. Well, enjoy the photos!

Well, I have finally started seminary. I honestly never thought I’d be doing that, but here I am. If anybody is interested in keeping up with how that goes, check out my new blog (shameless plug, yeah I know) at seekersjourney.com.