Day Twenty Two - My First Rocket Launch

June 20th

Today is an Atlas 5 launch. I'm excited to see it, I haven't seen one yet. I even know the best place to go to see it. However, we didn't leave work with enough time to spare to make it to the beach (and we were afraid of missing it all together) so we stopped off in Titusville on the water to watch it go. There were also quite a lot of clouds as well.

Cue major disappointment.

What it should have looked like:

What it really looked like:

Can you even see it?

And two seconds later it disappeared into the clouds, and that was that (well, the rumble did show up but was very unimpressive).

What. The. Heck. (I might have had a few other words as well)

I guess I should have been excited to see it at all but in general I was just overly disappointed. I did find out later that there was another Delta (the largest rocket currently launching) set to launch right before I leave Florida so that may make up for it.

In the meantime here is a really cool video about this Atlas launch, it's pretty short and interesting.

In other news, storms are starting to roll in. Check out these winds as viewed from my condo this evening.

Day Twenty One - Happy Birthday Ethan!

 June 19th


First what was happening at work today. They are starting to install the flight blankets now that all the internal installation and testing has been completed.

Off to see Ethan's on his first birthday! I was concerned that I wouldn't know which house it was, but never fear, Ethan's grandpop is running for circuit court judge here in Brevard County. How can you miss this:

I only had a short time to spend with Ethan before he headed off to bed, but it was fun!!

Day Twenty - Squeeze Goodbye

 June 18th


Oh boo, it's time for everyone to go home (and me to go back to work, double boo, well maybe just a half a boo because I really do like what I do, obviously).

So we packed, ate breakfast together, and took a quick visit to the Dinosaur Store. Okay, um, we lasted about 5 minutes with Evan near fossils that were priced at $3,000. They did have a teeny kids area, but, goodbye. Phew. (Though they did have some beautiful earrings, might have to go back by myself later!)

Off to the airport. Evan is growing up so much, he insisted on pushing Zoey's stroller with his backpack firmly on. And he would push your hands off the handles if you tried to help steer. Fortunately Zoey seemed to like it.

I don't have a picture that conveys it well, but here they are waiting in line.

I got them to security then I said my goodbyes. Lots of squeezy hugs from Evan, I will miss them all so much. See you in a few weeks!

Oh and bonus, I got home after work to discover that the cleaning people had come. Whooooo! And they put all the random stuff on the dresser that had gotten left behind, poor Zoey might be missing her princess for awhile.

Day Nineteen - Sea World

June 17th


We decided to spend Father's Day at Sea World. I mean, what doesn't say Father's Day than let's get up at the crack of dawn and haul teeny children around in the heat all day for $70 a pop? :)

Dolphin Nursery

This walrus was swimming upside down under water back and forth. Very cool.

At this point I realize (because my inside pictures start to look like crap) that my flash has died. What the heck. So daytime photos only right now! Grrrrrrr. Never fear, we still have a warranty so I'll deal with that at some point.

Off to see One World, the killer whale show. It is kind of weird to think that this is the same tank where the trainer was killed last year. Shesh.

Everyone's excited for the show........

and she's out.

I also enjoyed that the camera man in the bottom right knew right when to cover his camera with the shield to block the water.

Oh Zoey, you didn't see one killer whale. Not one.

Near the large stadium are all of the kid rides. Evan and I rode this teacup in the sky thing, and we also rode the Shamu roller coaster (no good pictures of that). It was actually pretty fast and high, and he loved it. He rode it with Grandma as well, and held her hand in case she was scared.

We saw some beautiful animals, a bald eagle, an anteater, and then these macaws that were only a few feet in front of us.

At this point the kids were getting cranky, cranky. It was time for lunch and we were trying to scramble to figure out where to go. They have a restaurant near the shark tanks that you normally have to get reservations for, but I figured I would give it a try since the park wasn't that busy. They got us right in, and sat us right up against the shark tanks. The restaurant was really dark so it make the aquarium look all that much brighter.

Never underestimate the power of sharks to calm your kids right down. Phew.

After lunch, we saw the pirate show with sea lions and a gigantic walrus. Evan slept through most of it but Zoey loved it.

Then we headed to the sprinklers to let the kids cool off. We had brought extra clothes and knew there was a baby house we could use to change them and take a break before finding dinner. I think this was their favorite part of the day!! (A highlight was definitely when it was Evan's turn to use the water gun, he completely blasted this poor girl in a wheelchair. Fortunately she was a good sport and enjoyed getting doused.)

We also saw this really cool band playing many feet in the air.

We ate dinner and then ran to see the Turtle Trek exhibit before the park closed. Evan almost had a heart attack in the 3D show though because a 50-foot hermit crab tries to eat you (you are supposed to be a baby turtle). Other than that he loved it.

So bye bye Sea World. We were there for a total of 12 hours, and had a great time. Needless to say the kids crashed in the car as soon as we got on the road. 

Happy Father's Day. :)

Day Eighteen - Baby Sea Turtles!

June 16th


I also forgot this picture from the day before. I discovered that Evan had got into my foundation (I thought his face looked a little powdery). I'm assuming this was to try to cover up his gigantic bruise on his face.

Today was a day for the beach. Packed up and off we went. And boy was it windy.

Jess was drawing pictures in the sand to send to her kids.

Grandma and Zoey

Family Picture

Is this NOT the greatest photo you have ever seen?

 Then we took the kids down to Jetty Park to see the cruise ships leave.

And to see baby sea turtles!

After that we went to dinner at Fishlips, to meet up with my cousin David and his family. We hadn't met their one year old son Ethan, they had never met Zoey, and I couldn't wait!! As predicted, Evan loved him, his fascination with babies and young children just makes me so happy.

And Zoey was hamming it up.

Finally Evan was excited to see the plastic alligator outside. Who knew. :)

Day Seventeen - Kennedy Part two

June 15th (still)


After the playground, well, Evan was pretty much spent. All we had left to look at was the rocket garden, so we tried to make it quick.

Real quick though, I forgot to put these slide pictures in. :)

 The rocket garden:

Evan on the Apollo Gantry

Zoey tapped out again

Sarah and Evan in the Apollo Capsule

Peggy and the NASA Meatball

After the visitor's center, we grabbed dinner then headed down to the beach. Everyone was in a much better mood.

I'm not drowning him, I swear

Then we jumped in the pool!

That evening while looking out our balcony at all the cloud cover, the sun was going down and turned just one of the clouds pink (and it only lasted a minute or so). This picture doesn't really do the colors justice, it was absolutely beautiful.

So an exhaustive but very fun day came to a close. Phew.

Oh, and here are the two pictures I bought at Kennedy, just couldn't resist.

Evan saw this and said "Where's my rocket Mommy?" Guess I'll be visiting the gift shop before I go home.