NASA

We went to Space Center Houston this morning.  Wish we had more time, but I had to go to work at 3pm.  Bill was feeling ill, so he stayed home.  Y and I picked up the ladies at D's and then met J and her kids at the Race Track before heading down south.

We got there right as they were opening up for the day.  We went in and looked around a bit and then found the area where the kids (and the kids in us) could try to land the space shuttle or the Mars lander, etc.  Seems none of us are pilot/astronaut material.  After several tries at a real landing, Y decided it would be more fun to crash the shuttle in spectacular fashion.  He got so he could crash it right on the numbers (on the runway).

Then we decided to take a tram tour of Mission Control and the Saturn V rocket.  The tour of Mission Control was very controlled:  come in, wait, go upstairs, listen to the lecture, go back out and get on the tram again in the same seats.  Then they drove us over to the Saturn V rocket building.  That thing was more than three football fields long, I'll bet.  It was huge.  They even had an area where you could go up and look inside the last stage of the rocket boosters.  Y and I saw the entire thing, but everyone else in the group decided to read all of the murals on the wall.  About ten minutes later I noticed our tram was filling up outside, so I went down and told them that we should think about leaving soon, since I needed to drive L and S back to D's and then drop Y off at home with Bill before hurrying on to work.  So, we went outside and the tram was gone!  We had to wait about 15-20 minutes for another one.  Oh, well, that just meant we couldn't go through the gift shop before we left.

Both Y and I were hungry, so we quickly went to the food court and bought cookies, a Snickers bar and two cherry ICEEs.  Y had never had one before, so I tried to explain that it was a cherry soda that was frozen like ice cream, sort of.  At least he liked it.  He doesn't like pumpkin pie.  I'm not sure he can still become an American if he doesn't like pumpkin pie.  We'll have to check with immigration on that one.

I bought the photo they took of everyone before we loaded onto the tram, then we high-tailed it out of there.  I won't say I obeyed the speed limit on the way home, but I was only 1 minute late to work.  Not a bad day, except for that 8 hours of work after a few hours driving and Space Center Houston touring.  I would've called in sick (I've got a cold, too), but I can't pass up holiday pay right now.  Today is my 'holiday in lieu of.'  Since I had Christmas off as a regular day off, they are required to pay me holiday pay on my next day back, since it' s not fair to pay others holiday pay because that is their regular day of work and not pay it to me since it is my regular day off.  How sweet it is to work for the federal government sometimes.

Natalie

TX