Travel and other adventures

The twins will be two in less than two months. 

He still makes this face before he cries

This photo of Drake came up on my screen saver the other day and got me thinking about that.  These first couple years of a kid’s life are so amazing.

They start out so small

Sometimes they are sick

They have such a capacity to love

Every experience is new and wonderful - and sometimes dirty

And I guess that’s why I’m not sure we’re done having babies, because it has been so wonderful for us too.

But you have to look through your whole photo album to get the whole picture.

Because Oh... My.... God....

My package arrived today, and it sounds like I achieved my aim of encouraging a young mind interested in spaceflight.

For those that don’t understand why we spend money on human spaceflight, this is one big reason…  Inspiration.  Here’s a smart kid who may decide to study a STEM field because of an early interest in the Space Shuttle.  Who knows what he may one day achieve?  He could be the one that discovers life on another planet or figures out how to achieve interstellar travel.  He could find a cure for a horrible disease or invent a clean power generation system that will provide power to millions.

I find myself pretty down about the direction of NASA these days.  But I guess there’s still something of the optimist in me, because when I think of Hank, my heart is filled with hope.

In 2003 a few months after the Columbia broke up high over Texas, President George W. Bush announced the plan to retire the Space Shuttle fleet in 2010.  While the announcement was sobering then, and the reality of tomorrow’s scheduled launch of the last Space Shuttle is distressing now, I think the Shuttle does need to be retired.  For many reasons, it is time to move on to the next thing.  I wish there was a better plan for what that next thing will be, but for today I’m not interested in talking about the future, but rather in reflecting in the past.

The first Space Shuttle launch was in 1981.  I was 4 years old.  One of the first national events I remember that affected me profoundly as a child was the destruction of the Columbia in 1986.  In 1998, I started working at NASA as a student cooperative education employee.  In 2005 I worked my first mission as a Shuttle flight controller, STS-114.  In 2008, I worked my first rendezvous as the FDO on STS-123.  A little more than a month ago, I worked my last Shuttle mission, STS-134.

The Shuttle has been a constant in my world since before I can remember.  Even though we’ve known this day was coming for 7 years, I still can’t process that this amazing vehicle will no longer be delivering astronauts to space.  I will be forever proud of having been a part of the Space Shuttle program.

After every Shuttle mission and ISS crew return, there is an awards event at the JSC visitors center.  The crew attends and presents team and individual awards to some of the flight control and engineering team members that helped make the mission possible.  After the awards they show a slide show and talk about the mission.  I’ve been to a handful of these ceremonies over the years and received a couple of team awards.

Monday was the award ceremony for STS-134.  I was named on a team award for the STORRM (Sensor Test for Orion Relnav Risk Mitigation – one of the more unwieldly acronyms I’ve encountered) trajectory team.  Some members of the VVO team, which I manage, were named on a group award for the planning of the Soyuz undock and stationkeeping that got the pictures of the Shuttle docked to the Station.  So I had arranged a babysitter for the night so that Gavin could come to the ceremony with me.

Gavin happened to mention the ceremony to his parents, who had drivven down with a family friend to get NASA tours earlier in the day.  They decided to stay for the ceremony since they are open to the public.

The ceremony was really good – the crew did a great job.  But, the lady from Wyoming we had with us was blown away by the whole thing.  She kept saying how over the moon she was to be there and how she couldn’t believe those were real astronauts talking.  She took a picture of pretty much every slide in the slide show.

It’s good to be reminded sometimes of how cool these things I do every day in my work are.  I think everyone gets used to the things they are exposed to all the time, even when those things are pretty much some of the coolest things in the world.  The perspective I get by giving people tours of my workplace is worth every minute I spend doing it.  The ability to make someone’s day by getting them into the room they see on TV during Shuttle missions is priceless.

I just got home from working my last shift in Mission Control as a Space Shuttle flight controller.  It’s funny how you can know something like this is coming for a long time, and yet still be caught off guard by the emotions of the moment.  My job for the last 9 years will probably be the most memorable one of my life.  I really, really loved it, and I’m sad it is over.

Aside from the approaching end of the Shuttle program, my days on console were numbered.  It has become increasingly hard for me to work my family life around the strange hours required by mission work.  I had been a FDO for 8 years when I applied for my management job, and I felt that I’d gotten what I wanted to out of the job.  (And, I’d gotten pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.)  I was ready for new challenges.

There will be a part of me, though, that will always miss being a FDO.  It was an awesome job, for an awesome human endeavor.

So a couple days before “my” Shuttle, Endeavour, has her swan song, I have had mine.

Four years ago today, this wonderful little girl entered our lives.  This birthday for some reason is hitting me really hard.  I can’t believe she’s four!  Next thing you know she’s going to be all grown up.

One of the best things about the last year and a half has been seeing how awesome Carina is as a big sister.  She loves taking care of her baby brother and sister.  She and Eleanor especially have started having some really cool sister moments.  Carina has started to be in charge of holding Eleanor’s hand while we’re walking to the car, and they often give each other the best hugs.

She’s still my cautious little girl.  I see so much of myself in her sometimes – in the way she’s scared to jump into the swimming pool without holding on to our hands; the way she plays with all the boys at her school; her love of volcanos; her earnest thought about the world around her.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I cannot tell her enough how much I love her.  My life became so much better the day she made me a mom.

I’m pretty sure Drake was singing “The Wheels on the Bus” in the car this afternoon.  It was a bit hard to be sure because there weren’t any words since he doesn’t really talk yet and the melody wasn’t exactly right, but it had the same rhythem and basic melodic structure.  That boy really loves music.  He’s always dancing and singing along with you.  It’s a pretty sure bet to make him happy to sing him “Itsy, Bitsy Spider”.

Eleanor started walking for real a couple weeks ago.  I guess she waited until she was really ready too, because she’s walking all over the place now.  She’s still a bit stiff-legged like babies are when they start walking.  It’s so cute, and it makes it easier for her to carry her “purses” around on her elbow.

If you claim to be THE biggest Tolkein fan to Stephen Colbert, you’d better have the chops to prove it.  Think you could cut it?

3:30 minute mark in this clip.  For the record, I knew the answers.

Who would have thought it would one day be cool to have

1. Actually read The Simarillion
2. Know how many elven rings there are and their names
3. Know who Morgoth is

Yesterday we went down to Froberg Farms and picked strawberries.  Drake managed to find the only mud puddle in the whole field and stuck two hands into it.  Carina was really into picking for a while, but then got bored.  Nevertheless, we got a whole bucket of fresh strawberries, which we’ve been running through as fast as we can.  After the second dessert of strawberries and ice cream, Gavin declared we’d found a new family tradition.

Today we mulched the yard, which is something I wasn’t sure we’d get to this spring.  Carina helped with the raking.  We should really get her a small rake she can actually push around, because she really seems to like using it.