We're Moving... Again!

On Feb 10th we'll be boarding yet another plane and heading to Australia. We're really excited for the move and equally as excited just to unpack our bags for a while. We're packing like crazy at the moment. Please keep in contact with us and join us on our adventures in Australia!! We'll miss our friends and family in the U.S., but please don't hesitate to come down under and visit us - we have a guest room for you.

Seattle Daze

On Jan 20 there wasn't only a big party in Washington D.C. but here in Washington as well. Cam and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. We spent a couple days up in Seattle just milling around and doing very "touristy" things. We went to the Seattle Aquarium and saw lots of fish and some very cute river otters - and we had dinner at a great place called Wild Ginger (to commemorate our honeymoon in Indonesia). The next day we went into Benaroya Hall, where the Seattle Symphony plays and took some cool pictures of Dale Chihuly's glass artwork.





We're going to miss Seattle!

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.