January 2008
Happy Holidays to All!
The Barca-Halls had a wonderful ’07. The highlight was Kim’s and Nikolai’s wedding in July (we've recently posted some new, great wedding pictures). Kim’s family from South Africa, Australia and England as well as the West Coast joined Nikolai’s family from New England, Colorado and beyond for a truly international party with folks from more than a dozen states and half a dozen countries! Wow! The wedding was held among the redwoods of Ben Lomond, CA preceded by a rehearsal dinner cruise around Santa Cruz on a chartered sailboat. The newlyweds live in Corvallis, Oregon, where Nikolai is a forester for the State Parks system and Kim is soon to receive her masters (Natural Resources Economics) at Oregon State University. “Maggie”, a Doberman/Weimaraner puppy, recently joined their family.
Taran (age 25—how can that be?) received a promotion this summer to “ASES Director”—overseeing three Boys and Girls Club sites in Paradise and Magalia—two small towns in the Chico area of California. Although his responsibilities have shifted to grant and personnel management duties, he is happy still to have time to work with the kids.
Calen (almost 20) is a sophomore at University of California, Santa Cruz, and continues to coach gymnastics. He lives off campus with five other students, just a block from the ocean. As an art major, he regularly impresses us with dynamic painting, sculpture and media projects. Like most college kids, he’s incredibly busy and we feel privileged to have him join us for a family meal once in a while.
Correll and Sage are a junior and freshman, respectively, at Pacific Collegiate School which was rated the second best public High School in the country by US News and World Report!
Correll (almost 17) wisely declined the lead in the fall play this year as he juggles a very heavy course load, 23 hours a week of gymnastics training and monthly training for the Amigos program. He will be assigned to a Latin American country for up to eight weeks this summer where he will do community service work and live with a host family. He also manages to work one day a week as a gymnastics coach, and to squeeze in some time for other campus activities. Last spring he qualified to Regionals in Hawaii as a first-year level 10 gymnast but just missed qualifying to Nationals—which is his goal this year.
Sage (age 14) also trains 23 hours a week in gymnastics. Every day after school, he and Correll take a one-hour bus ride from Santa Cruz to San Jose, where their gym is located, and they train til 9:00 at night. Like Correll, Sage is a good student—and is the first of the Barca-Hall kids to have inherited Jeff’s math and engineering gene! Sage worked hard all last spring earning money for a trip to Europe with his best friend, Logan and family. He had the time of his life in London and Greece for three weeks and still regales us with stories.
Anya (age 11) trains even more hours than her brothers—all the way in Union City. She and Tristan don’t seem to mind the hour-long ride every day after school. (I, for one, certainly enjoy having that uninterrupted time just to chat together.) She had an extremely successful season last year, competing in Indianapolis, Chicago and throughout Northern California. Last month marked her personal gymnastics highlight. She was among 80 gymnasts ages 9-11 (out of 3000 who tested for the opportunity) invited to train at the US Olympic Training Center at a special training camp for talented gymnasts at Bela Karolyi’s ranch in Texas. She just made the “B Training camp” and has been floating around on cloud nine ever since. She also won first place (elementary division) in the Santa Cruz County Science Fair.
Tristan (age 8) continues to charm us all. He also trains several days a week at a gym not far from Anya’s. He is a voracious reader of very looooong books which comes in handy when he has to wait long hours for his sister. Like his siblings, he will be competing throughout Northern California this season and is looking forward to a trip to Hawaii with Anya and Lisa, when Anya competes there next month.
Lisa and Jeff are busy and happy. Lisa is adjusting to “retirement” after 33 years of teaching and reassessing what the future will bring—foster care perhaps, or another career. She has returned to serious running again—and competed in several local races including the San Jose Half Marathon. Jeff has been running to catch up— literally—and gotten back in shape in the process. He is enjoying his job as IronPlanet enters an exciting new phase of growth.
That’s our news, folks!
Wishing you health and happiness in the new year.
Love,
Lisa and Jeff
parents@barcahall.com