Merry Christmas

We just wanted to take a moment during this special season to wish our friends a merry Christmas. This Christmas is particularly special for us as we get to share this holiday with extended family for the first time as a couple. While it doesn't particularly feel like a typical Christmas for me (Cam), it is still special. During the past week we've had almost half a foot of snow and we have been out at night to check out the neighborhood lights on skis. Though after 6 years of Christmas in Russia, I am quite used to the snow, Christmas in Russia was VERY different. Anyway our time in the USA is already halfway gone, and we are starting to shift our sights towards the warm weather of Australia. May you all have a very special Christmas and receive the gift of precious time to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas and the special gift we've been given through Christ.

See ya St. Petersburg! Пока!

До свидания!(Good bye in Russian)

We're leaving for Finland and America this week. We'll spend a couple of days with colleagues in Finland before flying out of Helsinki to the States. We're full of all kinds of emotions as we leave. Cam has been here nearly 6 years and I've been here 3 years; this is where we met and have lived our first 2 years (almost) of marriage. We're saying our 'see you laters' (I'm not good at saying Good bye), and have shed a tear here and there.

We're very excited to be arriving in the States right before Thanksgiving and spending the holidays with my whole family (there are 5 of us Barrett kids, plus my mom and dad and all kinds of grand-kiddies and in-laws).

Here is a picture of the Barrett family the day after Thanksgiving 2004 (I'm not pictured because I worked the day after Tday- biggest retail day of the year. Stinker, would have been a great picture). Notice all the Norwegian sweaters? Some of them were handmade by my grandma and other family members in Norway.

Good bye to all our lovely friends in Russia. We will miss you and we hope to see you again some day!! Please keep in contact and check our blog regularly for more fun and adventures with Cam and Sonja.

Homeward bound

design by Sonja Barrett-Gibbons

The visa application has made its way to the Australian Embassy and now we wait. We're hopping... I mean hoping to get a positive answer sooner than later!

Are we there yet?

(I got this pic from a friend's Facebook account. I don't know the original photographer)

We're less than 6 months away from making our move to Australia!
This week we will submit my (Sonja) visa application request at the Australian Embassy in Moscow, Russia. We hope to hear back from them very soon so we can go to Moscow for an interview at the Aus. Embassy.

We're even closer to moving to the States. 12 weeks from today we'll be in Seattle to spend the holidays with my family. Start the countdown!!

Thirsting for Hungary

That was it?
Cam has been planning our organization's biennial group conference for over a year now and we've been talking about going to Hungary for ages and all of a sudden it happens and now it's over! We had a terrific time at the conference, though we were crazy busy the whole time. The venue that we were at is a Bible College during the school year and a conference center during the summer. One of the conference center curators and I (Sonja) were born in the same Army medical hospital :o)

The Hungarian parliament building across from the Danube river. We were standing on the Pest side of Budapest.

Before the conference we arrived in Budapest a few days early and we stayed at a guest house in the Centre. It was gorgeous and close to all the sights. We were at the conference for 2 whole weeks - the conference center used to be an old homestead/plantation and bespoke a turn of the century castle as their main building. During the conference we had a group outing and we went to a neighboring city called Pecs which has some Roman ruins - amazing!

In Pecs near the Roman ruins (which were underground)

I celebrated my 26th birthday at the conference, August 1, 2008! Cam was pretty creative in sneaking around and getting me little gifts here and there and also organized a huge bouquet of lilies for me. What a sweet husband (I'm in love!).

The hotel that we stayed at near lake Balaton

After the conference we took a well deserved 4 day holiday by lake Balaton (Europe's second largest lake). All I can say is Wow and no-internet-access, woohoo! The weather was absolutely perfect and there were plenty of activities to take part in. We rented bicycles and road about 10 kilometers, and then we played tennis - we played a proper match and I beat Cam! Then we lounged by the pool and went into the jacuzzi in the evenings and watched the stars. We walked about 20 kilometers in a couple of days and just had a great time fiddling around in the neighboring towns and going to little restaurants and wine festivals. The place looked like a Bavarian town and the Mediterranean all together.

Cam in front of the Kesthely castle

We got back into Budapest the night before we flew out and stayed at another great guest house. We had wi-fi and found out all the emails we'd missed out on (but didn't really "miss") and we found out that someone had left a piece of equipment on the charter bus to the airport so we had to go find that bus and get the piece of equipment back and take it with us to St. Pete. That took the better part of our last day in Budapest but we did find a Gloria Jeans (Australian coffee chain) coffee shop next to one of the tourist attractions - and downed a couple of iced coffees before heading out in the heat again. All we can say is we're sure glad we don't have kids so we can wander aimlessly around gorgeous European cities without tired little feet and having to eat at McDonald's all the time. I'm sure that will come soon enough and we'll fear the flight between Australia and America, and back with little kiddies.

A stinkin' cute house with a thatched roof and tons of flowers, and a room to rent for the night!

Speaking of little kiddies, Cam's brother Matt and sister-in-law Karri had a little baby boy in February and he's already 6 months old! His name is Rhett and he's adorable - we can't wait to meet him :o) I'll attach a pic at the end of this post.

To Australia or Bust!

I (Sonja) am in the midst of applying for a visa to Australia. And there is A LOT of paperwork! I've got about 100 pages to fill in plus providing telephone records, pictures, and declarations that our relationship is genuine and continuous. Because we've been in Russia for so long I've had to get a police check from here and back in the States.

This is an exciting and stressful process. We plan to go to Moscow this month for an interview with the Australian Embassy. Then we wait for up to 10 months. We should be ready to move down to Australia in February 2009.

Tere tulemast (Warmly Welcome) to Tallinn!

We spent the last two weeks in Estonia. We had incredible weather and an incredible time. We stayed outside of Tallinn in a hostel and we traveled into the city center to see the Old Town and to go to all the museums. While we were there they were having a Tallinn Old Town Days festival with all kinds of cultural concerts and markets. We had a blast.

We rented a car for a weekend and drove around Estonia (its not a very big country). We went to the beach, to the national park, castle ruins, and checked all kinds of country side. Once again Cam took some awesome pictures and once again I waited (not so patiently) while he was taking those awesome pictures.

View of Alexander Nevskii Russian Orthodox church
from Kiek in de Kok tower/fortress.


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Olde Town Square, Tallinn


Huge bull statue near an old castle. We don't know why ??


At the Rakvere Medieval attraction at an old castle. I think we wore the kids tunics, oops. We had fun playing with the sword and shield replicas and checking out the torture chamber.


Estonia's National Park (Lahemae) boasts a swampy bog, woopee!

May day!

May 1, 2008

We went out to enjoy the weather in St. Petersburg and the beginning of "white nights". We were out until 11:30 and it was still a little light outside. Check out these amazing pictures taken by Cam and his new camera!


Admiralty Building, St. Pete


University building, University Ebankment


Oops, I don't know the name of this building. It's on the river Neva, St. Pete
Do you see the river boat going by in front of it?

Lover of the Russian Queen

May 3, 2008

We took a local train out to the town of Gatchina, 45 minutes North of St. Petersburg. A palace and park was built there in 1776 for Grigory Orlov, lover of the Empress Catherine the Great. A huge palace and park-grounds were built for him. In the park there is a lake that is split up by islands. There were plenty of patrons renting boats and taking advantage of the beautiful weather. We even saw an older guy strip down to his underoos and take a dip in the lake.




In the town of Gatchina there is a beautiful Orthodox church that is made mostly of brick but then topped with white gables and blue domes. We went to a local art shop and bought three little oil paintings to help us remember our time in Gatchina.



Again... the weather was gorgeous but I (Sonja) got tired after walking around for 3 hours!

Easter eggs and Battleships

April 26, 2008

Cam isn't studying this semester so we have extra time on the weekends to go exploring outside the city. We went to an island city called Kronstandt outside St. Petersburg. For a long time this city was closed off to people coming in and out because of the military secrets and navy base located on the island. We went out there the day before Easter and the Orthodox churches were already starting their Easter mass. There were swarms of people going in and out, getting their Easter eggs and bread blessed for the holy holiday. There were also "holy water blessings", where the priest dunks a huge brush into holy water and then whips it around the heads of everyone standing near him so they receive a blessing. There are beautiful churches on Kronstandt.

We also saw Navy ships, very cool. We enjoyed the nice weather most of all!





NO! I'm not pregnant, don't ask :o) Just a little chubby right now.

A "quick" tour around our apartment. Don't mind the mess :o)

Leavenworth and Lederhosen

We took a Barrett family vacation to the Bavarian inspired town of Leavenworth in central Washington. It was gorgeous and sunny and plenty of snow. Take a look at some of the great scenery we got to enjoy.

Volcanos and Birthdays

Cam celebrated his 30th birthday on Feb 19th, Yay!!
We went up to Mt. Rainier, which is 40 minutes drive from my parents house, and is a dormant volcano. We attempted to go skiing (there weren't any trails), but ended up just enjoying the sunny day.

View of Mt. Rainier from my parents house.

a "little bit" of snow!

Winter? Spring?

Every morning is a lottery when putting on our shoes and coats. We don't quite know if winter is gone and spring is here; we always have a back up pair of gloves, winter hat, and an umbrella in our backpacks. Last week we had a blizzard come in and a few days of wet, slushy, icy weather. Then all of a sudden the birds are chirping, the sun is out and the flowers are blooming!

Take a look at some pictures that we took last week and this week. What a difference!

in the courtyard of our apartment building.



a happy little kid and his annoyed grandma.
Alexander Nevskova Monastery, St. Pete

The brightly colored houses down the river from our apartment.

Road trip to Seaside, Oregon

5-7 Feb 2008

Cam and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary in St. Petersburg by going to an Indonesian restaurant. But we really celebrated by going down to Seaside Oregon and staying at a hotel on the beach. We had no idea that the wind and rain would be so powerful that it would throw the furniture around on the balcony like a bunch of matchsticks. We had a great time on this mini road trip. In Oregon we visited Seaside, Cannon Beach, Hug Point (almost got stuck in a raising tide), and Tillamook (home of Tillamook cheese and ice cream). It was fun to show Cam a little more of the United States – too bad we were having horrible rainy and windy weather and point break waves. Oh well! We had a wonderful time nonetheless. Oh, and Cam got a new camera for an early 30^th birthday present. He had fun taking all kinds of pictures (mostly of seagulls).

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St. Petersburg in Seattle

4 Feb 2008

Cam and I met up with some friends, Tim and Emily, that lived in St. Petersburg last year. They came to Russia to work as English teachers in a local university and ended up falling in love and they’re going to married within the next couple months. Emily went to university at Seattle Pacific University and Tim is originally from Vancouver, BC. They came down to Seattle to meet up with us and we took the Seattle Underground tour at Pioneer Square. The tour was a historical breeze through the origins of Seattle, and we actually went underground to were city was originally built. There was a huge fire in the late 1800s that demolished the original part of the city and they decided to rebuild, above the older buildings. Our tour guide was pretty funny and a real history buff.




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