Just in case you all forgot, due to our lack of writing entries on our website this month, we are still in Antarctica and becoming well adjusted to our surroundings that have encompassed our lives the past 2 months.

The latest photos are up in the December photo gallery.

We have become accustomed to the Galley food, or just realized we can not complain when it is FREE. Actually the chefs here do a great job. The soups are really good and most of the time topping off a meal with a dessert, which is usually fantastic, leaves the tummy satisfied. Mark has found a new friend called Frosty Boy, the dining room's version of the DQ soft serve ice cream machine. Frosty Boy is such a staple for some, that when the machine was shut down for a few minutes, due to some malfunction, a guy actually went off on one of the dining attendants (no, it was not Mark). Crazy things happen here when you mess with the Frosty Boy.

As for our daily lives, the work routine has become pretty easy. The firehouse has calmed down and Mark is still happily saving lives in IT. We have found a nice crew of peeps that have shared in our enjoyment of playing the great game of euchre and tasting the fine wines and brew of the local pubs. I have been teaching BodyPump on Tues and Thurs and have also delved into some other classes here. Gutz and Butz (class that focuses on, well, guts and butts), ceramics, and a self-defense class are a few that I have taken part in. On Sunday's we have made a point to try to see the weekly science lecture which have covered many different topics ranging from proteins in the local fish that prevent their blood from freezing in the below freezing water, to the hunt for meteorites from Mars - which are considerably easier to find down here when you have a giant white sheet of snow to search on. We also had the honor of seeing a guest speaker, Sir Edmund Hillary.

For those of you who do not know, on May 29, 1953, New Zealand native, Sir Edmund Hillary and a sherpa named Tenzing Norgay, were the first to summit Mt. Everest. Since then, Hillary has gone on to summit hundreds of other famous peaks as well as opening and operating Scott Base for several years. Scott Base is the New Zealand station about 2 miles from McMurdo. At 85 years old, he continues to live an amazing life and commands the respect and dignity he deserves. The purpose of Hillary's trip down here was to honor those who died on a Kiwi DC-10 airplane crash 25 years ago on Mt. Erebus. The plane was carrying roughly 250 passengers on a site seeing flight over the continent when bad weather impaired the pilot's ability to navigate around the volcano. He spoke in front of 850 of us for about an hour and told witty stories about his past journeys. "In true Kiwi manner, we would sneak over to the American station and see what they were throwing away, as often it was still quite usable." He talked about his amazing traverse from Scott Base to the South Pole using only recycled farm tractors to pull their supply sledges. "We would only know we had just crossed a hidden crevasse when the back tires of the tractor started to slide backwards into the gap." We both felt incredibly fortunate to see and listen to the world's last great explorer and a living legend. The following article gives a great description of Hillary and Norgay's ascent of Everest: Hillary and Norgay.

Recently Mark and I took a second trip to Cape Evans. Cape Evans houses the historical cabin and paraphernalia of the explorers. It was a beautiful warm day and also was the last trip out there since the sea ice is melting at a rapid pace. Some of the little melt ponds that the large Delta vehicle had to plow through were about 4 feet deep. Good stuff! We will write more on Cape Evans in a separate entry.

Two Monday's ago we got to see science at work. The first Long Duration Balloon (LDB) with the BESS (Balloon-borne Experiment with a Superconducting Spectrometer) scientific payload was launched by NASA. BESS is an experiment that is searching for the existence of anti-matter in the universe. That's right, anti-matter. The opposite of matter. Not sure exactly how one looks for something which by definition does not exist, but then again, that's why they work for NASA. The cost of launching a balloon is substantially less than the Space Shuttle or other means of placing the payload into space. Here's how it works: The 6,000 pound payload is tied to an enormous mylar balloon that is inflated enough to lift the millions of dollars of equipment about 120,000 feet into orbit, just on the edge of the earth's atmosphere. At this altitude, Antarctica has a unique polar wind that circles the continent, which allows the balloon to float naturally around the pole for weeks. Due to the decreasing air pressure as it rises, the balloon gradually inflates to the size of a football stadium in circumference. After days or weeks (depending on the experiment) the scientists back at McMurdo trigger a blast that separates the balloon, and the payload parachutes safely back to earth, as close to McMurdo as possible. Once on the ground, a team is sent out to retrieve the equipment. They launch a few of these balloons every summer.

Mark spent an afternoon dive tending and what eventually turned into his first Polar Plunge. He enjoyed jumping into the 28°F water so much he jumped in 3 more times.

The lastest new creation that Mark has been working on is his first short film for the McMurdo film festival. Hopefully there will be some way to post this on the website so everyone can see. It is a comedy, of course, and the film festival is on January 2nd.

Mark and I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! We miss everyone and hope the holidays bring you much happiness!