Pathological Picture Taker Presents: A Good Day to Chalk

Pathological Picture Taker Presents: Bath Time Fun...

The First Day of Pre-K

The weather is still hot, but the fall school year is here!  Tuesday was Joseph's official first day of Pre-K.  He attended "camp" there all summer so to him it's just another day at the office, but this mommy knew that in real-time I only have one more year with him at home with me.  It's bittersweet.    

This picture is me humoring Joseph.  He was really excited to take a photo with his monkeys, but I wanted one with just his sign and smile so - one for him, one for me. 

And in case you are wondering, that is his fan from the City of Plano Fire Department Birthday Celebration because it was hot hot hot and they had these to cool us off.  He thinks if he is going to be a fireman he needs to have his fireman fan.   

But who am I kidding, the photo where he insists on having his beloved monkeys and his impromptu props is way more his style.  Why would I want such a boring and normal photo anyway?!

Speaking of boring and normal...I decided to spice things up a bit and apparently forgot Alaina's car seat in Josh's truck, so I didn't have her car seat to take Joseph to school.  It was pretty disappointing.  He missed his first day but sure-as-heck made it for the second!  

Laniey-poo was dying to get in on the action.

I hope to do First Day of School signs with both of them and watch to see how their "When I grow up..." statement changes.  When I was younger I wanted to be an artist and an acrobat and fly on the trapeze!  Mine changed quite a bit....  :) 

The NASA Museum

After the tram tour we headed back to the Visitors Center for some Space Dots Ice Cream of the Future...of course...and to finish the museum.  It was amazing.  These exhibits surrounded you as you walked through and they had such detailed and realistic panoramas that you felt like you were in outer space or on the moon, or in an actual NASA lab. 

The guys checking out the Space Lab.

Josh read that NASA collaborated with Disney to design the Visitor's Center/Museum.  It certainly shows like a movie set or theme park and held all of our attention and was interesting and educational to boot! 

Watch out below! This guy is working on the Space Station. 

They had an incredible exhibit of the Space Lab and how the astronauts lived in it.  Of course the photos don't quite express how realisitc it is, but everything was life sized and 3-D.

 

This fella is taking a space shower...no peeking!

LOVED this portion of the exhibit.  The ceiling was filled with thousands of stars and it was really breathtaking!  Even though it was simulated night-time, it felt real.

The moon rover.

We got to check out some cool moon rocks.  I was a little disappointed though - they looked like normal rocks.  Ha!  I was hoping for some glowing (or sparkly would have been fine too....) far-out looking specimens, maybe even alien fossils or something?!?!

But the coolest part was that there was one (heavily guarded) that we could touch!  We are all now blessed with the good luck from rubbing the moon rock!

Even Sweet Alaina got to touch the moon rock.  Such a cool "first" for such a little hand!

 

We checked out a few last artifacts of the space program before heading to Uncle Ray's for the night.  It was bittersweet to think of the of NASA retiring the shuttles.

  

But, I guess the future is calling and something bigger and better will come of this historic, monumental program. 

NASA

If you know me well, then you know I am such a museum girl.  It hadn't even entered my mind how close we were going to be to NASA Houston when I was planning our trip.  Thank goodness Josh mentioned it and thought it would be cool to go.  (I married a total museum guy.  Lucky!)

We left the beachside and surf and seagulls behind and stopped at NASA on our way to Uncle Ray's for our last night.  We ran into this astronaut just inside the visitor's center.  He was on his way to load up for a long mission, but had just a second to say hi.  ;)

The Visitor's Center was packed full of awesome things to do and explore.  Everything was exquisitely designed and the whole place was a feast for the eyes.

In the picture above, the kids are checking out the floor of a shuttle cockpit - yea, the yellow grate on the floor of the cockpit is the coolest part so far.  Silly kids.

It looked very much like a normal airplane cockpit with a few differences.  But thinking of controlling a shuttle through layers of actual atmosphere and real-live outer space kinda makes me uneasy.....I'll leave that to the professionals. 

NASA offers a couple of different tours and although Josh and I would have loved to do it all, we chose only one to attempt with the two little ones.  Alaina was kinda hard to keep up with but Joseph did really well.  The tour we choose took us on a tram through the complex which looked like any other complex of professional buildings and reeked of the 60's from the outside.  But whoa brother, those rocket scientists are planning BIG things in here....we're not talking just any ol' buildings .

The tour was of the training facility and there was high security to get around.  I kinda wondered if it was all just for show but then when I saw those armed guards escort a man out for stepping out of the line...ha, I tease.  No one was escorted out or hurt in the touring of NASA...

 

This training area is a replica of the Space Station.  Cool, cool, cool stuff.  I know the pictures just don't do it justice so take my word for it and if you haven't been - plan a trip to go!

Above is a picture of the shuttle cockpit for simulation and a portion of a space capsule.  There were many cool machines and robots in this place.

And here is a real live astronaut training in a gravity-something-or-other simulator.  There are some very official looking folks standing around him and looking very intent on their project.  I thought seeing them really training for launching into space was pretty darn cool.

Kinda looks like the Universal Studios tour!  But I tell you what, folks, this ain't NO theme park.  This is the real deal.

Our tram stopped off at Rocket Park where we got up close and personal with rockets that had launched.  Above is a walkway that connects the launch pad to the shuttle cockpit - similar to the walkway a normal airplane uses - but way cooler because astronauts use it!  It's usually several stories in the air.

This is a random massive engine at Rocket Park and Little Joey.  He was loving all of this!

They had several rockets on display that NASA used for the space program.  I can't remember the years these flew off the top of my head.  I'll have to come edit this if I can locate the info.  For posterity and such.  

It was HOT HOT HOT and as much as we like these "little" rockets...the granddaddy of them all lay in the top secret climate controlled building behind us.  This is the stuff people come to NASA for.  May I present to you:  the Saturn V Rocket in all her glory...

This is where I should have Joseph or Josh standing next to it to show the size, but the picture I got with Joseph next to it was blurry.  Boo.  So imagine that Joseph measures about to a little more than half of the wheel.  This thing was huge.  The Saturn V is the one you might think of related to launching for the moon.  It was used for all the Apollo missions from '67-73 (including the first mission to the moon) and also launched the SkyLab.  Wowza.

They had a great exhibit showcasing all the Apollo launches in here.  They had detached the rocket in a couple places so you can see how it would have done it in space as each pieces fuel was used up and dropped off.

Here is the Apollo capsule.  My friends, this small capsule sat upon so much fuel and power that I don't think there is enough anti-anxiety medication in the world to calm me if I were the one strapped in it.  

It was beautiful!  This is the pure history a mere inches away from us!

Next, we loaded back on the tram and headed back to the Visitor's Center to finish up with the exhibits.  (I'm loving re-living this trip through the blog!)

Galveston: Sea Wolf Park

The beach and pool were fabulous but we wanted to see the sights too!  We read about Sea Wolf Park that housed the USS Cavalla, a WWII submarine and the USS Stewart, a WWII Destroyer Escort - one of only two surviving in the US.  The destroyer escort was sunk and sat deteriorating in the ocean so they decided to bring it up and restore it.


This ol' destroyer didn't impress me much.  I can appreciate the fact that it served it's duty and many many men (and women?!) are owed my gratitude for fighting to protect our county.  BUT there wasn't much in there, everything was metal and painted grey and frankly their decorator should be fired.  They needed some dang curtains or maybe a picture or two on the walls.  Plus it was HOT HOT HOT and Alaina was about as impressed as me.  So between our un-impressed-ness (like that word?!) and the endless teeny tiny stair-ladders everywhere - the girl and I waited in the shadow of the crow's nest while Josh and Joseph explored it.

Excuse me while I itch my back on this huge missle. 

On it's maiden voyage, the USS Cavalla sunk a 30,000 ton Japanese aircraft carrier. 

The USS Cavalla sub on the other hand was SUPER cool!  It was mind blowing to think about how it operated.  Every single wall and space and nook and cranny was a dial or wheel to turn or switch to flip or missile to explode.  Then behind one area of dials and pipes and vents and switches, there was a whole other section of it.  The main thoroughfare was a tiny little walkway down the middle with machinery on either side of you , so with the massiveness of the sub from the outside, you can imagine how much of the interior was filled with these inner workings. It is essentially one huge engine that sailors happen to eat and sleep in.

It was very intimidating gazing at the missiles knowing that war is so ugly and devastating.  I kept feeling a sense of pride and amazement mixed with the eeriness of it all.      

It was all very industrial.  This vessel too could use a decorator.  ;)

The rear missile launch bay.  Those suckers were HUGE.

The galley had these wonderfully vintage tables and upholstery.  I loved it!  The game boards are painted on each table.  It screamed Americana. 

Joseph was equally impressed by the USS Cavalla and decided we needed to take a quick cruise.  They declined his offer to Captain the sub, though.

Now...let's hit the beach!