The story behind the name Zarya Jill

Since we announced that we're expecting a girl and that her name will be Zarya Jill Sandeen, many people have asked us how we chose these names.

Zarya - Although the name Zarya looks and sounds like it might be a name from East Africa, it's actually Russian.  It should be very easy for Tanzanians to say, though, which is important to us.  But for the story...  Back in 2008, my sister Alyssa's friend Dorothy was pregnant and wanted an unusual name for her baby.  I've always loved names and coming up with interesting ones, so Alyssa e-mailed me in Tanzania to see if I might have suggestions.  I had a very fun time making a long list of unusual biblical names, names from East Africa, and even making a few up.  I played around with sounds and syllables and invented a few that I thought were pretty, and one of these was Zarya.  Alyssa's friend didn't end up using the name Zarya, but she did quite like it.  I remembered the name and kept it in the back of my mind in case some friend in the future was ever looking for an out-of-the-ordinary name.

Andrew and I were engaged on December 27, 2008, and on January 1, 2009, I flew away to Tanzania.  We communicated as best as I could by Skype phone calls and e-mail, but it was pretty difficult to have a long-distance relationship.  Sometimes we just wanted to do something fun together!  One day we came up with the idea of picking out names for our future children.  We both said, "Well, I already have a favorite girl name."  So we agreed that we'd each just say the name we liked and then start looking at other options and be honest about what we thought of the other person's idea.  So on the count of three, I said, "Zarya!" and Andrew said, "Zorah!"  He immediately said, "Zarya?  That's an awful lot like Zorah, except prettier!" We looked it up online and found out that it was a Russian name that means "dawn" or "sunrise", so it turns out I didn't actually make it up.  Our wedding had a sunrise theme, so it seemed perfect.  We considered other names, but they never quite matched up to Zarya.  

Jill - Since Zarya is a bit of an uncommon name, we wanted something short and familiar for the middle name.  When we found out we were expecting a baby, we started working on figuring out a good middle name to go with Zarya.  We came up with a list of options, but weren't too keen on any of them.  Then, one afternoon when we were listening to music, a song by Jill Phillips came on my iPod.  Andrew and I don't have quite the same taste in music, but we both love Jill Phillips and her songs.  I said, "Hey, what about the name Jill?"  Andrew was quite positive about it and looked it up, and discovered it means "sweetheart".  Who wouldn't want a little sweetheart daughter?  We continued to brainstorm about other names for months, but consistently came back to Jill, and a few days before we found out we were having a girl, we agreed that Zarya Jill it would be if we had a girl.

A girl!

Just in case you have not seen the news on Facebook... it's a girl!  We had an ultrasound that confirmed not only that our baby is female, but that she looks healthy and like she's developing well.  Little Zarya Jill Sandeen has been very wiggly lately and seems to be enjoying swimming around in her little womb-world.  She's not due to make an appearance until October 31, but we'll see when she's ready to leave her wee swimming pool.

A week off

This is where we've been living this week - "The Intrepid".  It's docked in Winchester Bay, OR, and we're enjoying a week off.  We tried to take a little time off right before leaving Tanzania, but that didn't work so well.  Somehow it's tricky to take time off when there is lots of work to be done that we know we could and should be doing.  But this week we're far away from the office in Musoma and from everyone we know, and  it's suddenly not so hard to fill a day with activities like taking a nap, going for a long walk on the beach, reading a novel, and eating a lot, and not feeling guilty that we haven't been more productive.  Our job this week has been to rest and recover, so napping is suddenly on the to-do list for productivity!  We're both now fully over jet lag and feeling a bit more ready to enjoy life in North America for the next six months.

Getting ready to go

We are on our final week here in Musoma for this term and it's both happy and sad to anticipate our soon-upcoming departure.

For those who are interested, our travel itinerary is as follows:
July 8: travel from Musoma to Nairobi, Kenya
July 9 and 10: do a little shopping and get medical check-ups in Nairobi (find out if we've contracted any parasites, etc., during the last few years here, and for me, I'll also have all the required pregnancy blood work done at this time)
July 10: depart East Africa - our flight leaves Nairobi close to midnight
July 11: arrive in London, hang out in the airport on a nine-hour layover, fly to Seattle (due to the time zone difference, this will be a very, very long day for us - we leave London at 3:10pm and arrive in Seattle at 4:40pm, and manage to have an eight- or nine-hour-long flight in that space of time)

I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have in the near future, so this might be my last post for a little while.  When we've landed in the good ol' US of A and I have a fast internet connection again, I'll start blogging once more!