Happy Easter!

There are not many pictures of Easter this year.  I was having fun !

Lon tearing into his Easter Basket. Very light on the candy this year. He got the new Chipmunk movie and the lego architecture space needle! He built it in about 8 minutes.

There were also several books!

Even a collection of his favorite comic

Everything came together well, and I even asked for help.

The only thing that did not work out well was the crockpot scalloped potatoes. I made them before and they were amazing!  I cut my finger pretty good while slicing the spuds and then the  crockpot died in mid cook.  The crockpot is in the trash.

In the background you can see the Easter basket the boys got for me! I was so surprised! It was great! I love it !!

The inside egg hunt. The rain was coming down the kids were all nicely dressed. We hid the eggs through the house.  The kids waited upstairs, while the adults hid the eggs. Everyone had fun with it!

Lon got an Easter present from Auntie Michelle and Uncle Chong!  A very very cool lego He was thrilled with it!


Happy Happy Easter everyone!

Day Two at the Kennedy Space Center

Our wake up time was 6:30 in the morning! OH BOY!

The great thing about being up so early was this amazing sunrise!
At first we could not go out of the building due to alligators on the lawn.

Finally got outside!

After breakfast, cold cereal, muffin and orange juice, to do a the kids got a scavenger hunt. The prize was a very cool sticker.  ( I will try to scan it in and put a picture of it in here soon)

The lunar module that came back to earth.  wow. just wow.

Getting their facts checked. They did great!

the closing ceremonies.  Talking about the future of the space program.  We enjoyed it

on our bus ride from the Saturn V hanger to the Space Center

once back at the complex we were on our own!  Lon and I were going to do as much as we can!

This rover is made of LEGO!  All of it. Lon was trying to figure out how to make something that big!!

While these are not the real fuel tanks, they are the same size as the real ones.

Concrete

The movie about the Atlantis.

Not a replica! This is the real Atlantis!  WOW.

You could take the ramp down or the slide. Lon thought the slide was FUN!

Putting the Atlantis on the launch pad.  It was not a baby game, it was much harder than it looked to work those controls.  They would have directions that popped up saying things like back 4.65 degrees, not just up and down.

The last thing we did before lunch, was ride the Atlantis launch simulator!  That was wonderful!

Lunch was not inexpensive, but it was okay.

We went to the space store and did a little shopping.  They had the best change machine. for a dollar, it gave you 4 quarters and two pennies.  I wish they had those at every place that had smashed pennies.

We spied an Ernest Shakleton quote on our way into Mission to Mars.

we did get shirts ! On the back they say Spann Elementary.

how they rode in the capsules!

They had a small exhibit on early life in Florida

They also had an exhibit on the creatures of Florida.

we had seen all there was to see and it was almost time to get back on the bus.

Mom, please stop with the pictures!

On the bus ready to go back to Summerville

can you see the big gator!?

The bus backed up so we could see it better.

We were not even out of the parking lot yet!

we stopped for dinner at a Chik Fil A in Georgia.

It was an elementary school take over night! Chik Ful A was donating 20% of the proceeds from that night to this school.  It was pretty nice we could help out and get dinner!

We made good time getting back to town, an hour earlier than we thought we would.

This was an amazing adventure. Lon could not stop smiling. I am glad we went .

Going To The Kennedy Space Center!

Lon joined the Young Astronaut Half Day Club at his school.  They had several to chose from, Art, Spanish, etc.  What they did not say at the start was there was a possibility that they would be going to the Kennedy Space Center.  That possibility turned into a reality!  Two days before Spring Break started for the rest of his school, we were boarding a bus to central Florida!

Our bus, and driver, Captain Ross. He was a very fun driver.  He was the driver there and back!

He is so excited!

Buddies ready for the adventure, and a Seven and a half hour bus ride

The Welcome to Florida Center.

Yes, they still give out free paper cups of orange juice and grapefruit juice!

He really is happy

Face in the hole

The ice cream machine is still one of the coolest things at a rest stop!

There it is! This has to be part of the Kennedy Space Center!

A fuzzy picture from the bus window but we have arrived. The kids are bouncing up and down!

How cool is that?

The fountain would launch every 5 minutes or so, it was pretty cool to watch

The Rocket Garden

YAY! At our orientation

We had a lecture from an astronaut! Mr. Thomas was very entertaining. He had a question and answer session too. The kids asked some great questions. I loved that they asked about what they really wanted to know.   One child asked how you used the bathroom in space.  I would have never asked that question, but I did want to know.   It seems there are a series of fans that create a downdraft to remove the waste to a holding tank.  There is a lot of engineering that went into making that work.

The dinner menu.  It was not a bad dinner. Everything was fresh and tasty.

After dinner we had a 3-D IMAX movie.   We learned about Orion and the mission to Mars.

The night time sign

Going to the buses to take us to the Saturn V Rocket Building. Where we are going to spend the night!

The Atlantis Building. These are full size replicas of the booster rockets and fuel tanks that took Atlantis into space.  The Space Shuttle Atlantis is inside that building!

Our night time bus tour.

He is so happy and excited!!

Learning about the moon landing and  what it took to get there. The computing power they used was significantly less than what we have in a basic smart phone today.  The courage these people had is staggering

The control console

The engines on the Saturn V  rocket.   They are HUGE! Really really huge

 maybe you can tell how big  it is from this angle

They are in awe

we all were

The evening activity was to build a paper rocket.  It is a piece of paper wrapped around a tube, so the paper rocket it a hollow tube when it is finished

a little exploring.

We love Snoopy!

Finally it was Spann's  turn to shoot their paper rockets!

  Lon's rocket went almost to the next kiosk!  It was the farthest of any of the kids! He did great!

it was 11pm and time for lights out. Lon did not last very long after lights out.  A very busy day. we learned so much .

tomorrow is MORE fun at the Kennedy Space Center!