Worldwide Blog!

I've discovered that this blog is being read all the way down in Antarctica! How cool is that??? My friend Sune, who works for the British Antarctic Survey, responded to my email alert about this blog. Here are some pretty darn cool pictures that he sent from some work he's been doing with emperor penguin colonies lately:

(Sune titled that middle picture "Parenting." I hope that sort of parenting applies mostly to penguins, since I don't recall parental regurgitation of half-digested fish being mentioned in the child development books I've been reading. Maybe I skipped that part?)

I can't tell you how much I would love to visit Antarctica someday. Actually, I'd love to work or study there at some point - extreme biology rocks!. However, it will have to wait, as Sune informs me that there are no kids allowed in Antarctica (a shocker, I know)... with the exception of a Chilean base where the Chilean government allows their citizens to have babies, thinking that this solidifies their claim to the continent. Apparently, there are children in the world who are native Antarcticans. Interesting....

And speaking of children... no new info yet about a Kazakhstani kid. By the way: I've been reading books about Kazakhstan, and "Kazakhstani" refers to the citizens of the country. "Kazakh" refers to an ethnic group which makes up the majority of the population of the country. Just in case you were curious... I've been reading blogs by folks who've been to all of the regions our agency works in. They all sound like really interesting places to go... they range from big cities to smaller towns. I'm getting really curious about which part of the country we'll be staying in when we travel.

Also - people have asked about the gender of the kiddo. Short answer: we don't know. We didn't specify one or the other when we applied. In Kazakhstan, this normally means you'll adopt a boy (since most people who adopt request girls). We'd be happy with either.

AND... people have asked about names. We honestly have not decided on a name. The kid will, of course, come with a name. We figured that we'd wait to meet the lil' kiddo and make a decision then. Many people end up using the given name as a middle name... we have no idea yet what we'll do. This doesn't stop people from suggesting names, though. So far, my favorites (and by "favorite", I mean "the ones that have made me laugh out loud") are "Bergthora" (which is "goddess of the mountain" in Icelandic - thanks Nibby, for that suggestion), "Horst" (not really a suggestion, but just a name that came up in conversation and made me giggle) and "Zaphod" (this is probably what Michael Booth will call my child, regardless of what we name him/her.)