Kennedy Center

I borrowed a couple pics from Al's blog and our visit to the Space Center.  Of course, I wouldn't get a picture of my husband, but he did.

Dave, Christy and Keeley inside one of the space station modules.

And of course, Al is a better photographer than I am cause he got this great sunset in the "Rock Garden."

Kennedy Space Center

Just a few more pics from our trip.  We toured the facility where they build the modules for the International Space Station.  The launch that happened on Monday they were actually delivering the very last component of the ISS.  Each country has contributed to the building of the station and ours have these emblems on the side, pretty cool!

The next pictures are from the living-quarters module. One side has the shower pictured here, the sleeping unit, which is about the size of the shower here.  I didn't take a picture because it said "wardrobe" and I thought it was just where they hung there clothes... wrong.  It has what looks like a wardrobe thing that hangs in your closet, but they get in to that and zip themselves in to sleep.

This is the "waste management" section.  Aren't you glad we don't have to put our feet in stirrups and hang on?

A close up of the sign that is right next to the seat. This will leave you pondering.  Who needs tp when you have a "scraper tool?"   UGH!

Launch of the Shuttle Endeavor

As promised, here is the video of the launch of the Endeavor last Sunday Morning.  Pretty cool stuff!  The video is pretty long, you may want to quit before the end, no big deal.  After about 2 minutes it's just a little light is all you can see.

Vacation

One more full day and then we head for home.  For some reason I can't sleep tonight.  The clock on my laptop says 11:12, but it's actually 2:12 here.  Had a nice day today even though we did get caught in an awful rain storm.  Just did some shopping and went to lunch.  We picked up a couple iPod Touch today, they sure are cool!  Plan on listening to the latest in the Peter and the Star Chaser books on the flight home.  Also stopped at the local scrap/stamp store.  Oh Yeah!  Got a few little goodies.  Hopefully Dave and Al will be able to go paintballing tomorrow if it's not raining.  Finally got hooked up with wifi today, so it's much nicer that I don't have to be hogging all the time on Christy and Al's puter.

Did get a couple cards done while the girls were making some cards yesterday.  It was nice to be behind a stamp again.  Got a couple new embossing/die cuts today that I had to try out.  A nice size butterfly diecut with four embossing folders for the cuttlebug, and a square Spellbinders die set.  Of course, had to try and cut a window card....haha.

Manatee Heaven

Unfortunately no pictures yet.  Dave left the digital at the house and had his video camera. Won't elaborate on that conversation! Can't get any programs to upload to Utube. So for now I just get to tell you about how fabulous it was.

The first dock we went out on at Apollo Beach, there was a family of three manatees lounging a couple feet under water, and a LOT of Spotted Eagle Ray's jumping out of the water.  Saw a couple sharks in that area too.  Then we moved to the dock over the more shallow area and there were hundreds, I mean hundreds of manatee's lounging right on the surface.  Families of momma, daddy and baby rolling over on their backs smiling pretty for (those that had) the camera.  Not so many Rays there, but more sharks.  Some smaller sharks came very close to the beach and some birds tried to attack them.  Florida is a birder's paradise.  I'm not a birder but I do love to see all the varieties of birds here, from Turkey Vulchers to the beautiful Snowy Egrets.

The reason for the high concentration of manatee's in this area is that there is a coal power plant that heats the water to around 80 degrees.  Year before last when we were here we went to Crystal River where there were many manatee's (not like here though) and we canoed out with them and they would swim under the canoe... by the way... they are HUGE!  Both visits were fascinating, one for the proximity of which we could view them and the other for the massive amount of manatee's that were there, and all on the surface. 

Kaitlyn and Keeley at Sebastian Inlet

Don't know what our plans are for the rest of the week.  Dave is hoping to get in some paintball with Al this weekend.  I am probably about shopped out.... Dave would love to hear that!  Hit Michael's and Joann's yesterday.  We took the van back today.  That was a sweet vehicle to be driving around town in.... a 2010 Chrysler Town and Country....thanks to a special friend that got us a great discount at the rental company.  Now we are looking at probably renting something to get home from the airport as nothing else has materialized. 

I'm not sure what the name of this plant is, but when the Spanish came to the coast they dried these and used them to write on.  They grow abundantly on the beach along with the Sea Oats.

 

Sea Oats are what keep the beach from eroding and they are protected as they have been dieing off.

I've been surprised at the lack of anything blooming this year due to the frost.  The palm trees are all scraggly and dead, and nary a blossom to be seen anywhere.  But I am sure that it will pop back soon and be beautiful once again.  We've still run into a gator here and there.

 

If you look along the edge of the water you will see one here.  We also saw several armadilla on the road in to Cape Kennedy but we were moving too fast to get them on camera.  There were also a couple of turtles but I didn't actually see them, the girls did.  

Sebastian Inlet

We made a little jaunt down the coast to Sebastian Inlet.  That is where you see the little red box down at the bottom.  The pink area towards the top is where we were staying in Cocoa Beach.

This is the first resident that greeted us, a Snowy Egret

 

I couldn't resist getting a few (this is just one of many) pictures of the waves crashing in to the rocks under the jetty.

 

The sunset as we were leaving was pretty cool too.

 

Just a few random pics of some beautiful girls

 

  

  

  

Waiting for the launch at 4am

Kennedy Space Center

The shuttle launch was scrubbed last night, hopefully it will be a go tonight.  Today we went to the Space Center, and there is so much to see that we are going back tomorrow.  We may have seen half of it today.

I am a sucker for these group pictures they nail you for as soon as you come in.  Still have the ones from last year at the Knights of Arabia Dinner Theater.

Just look at how big the girls are.  I've got lots more pictures to share when we have a descent internet connection.  It took me about an hour to download 4 pictures tonight here at the hotel.

Saturday's plan

If all goes well, we will see the shuttle launch on the beach tomorrow.  It is scheduled for 4:39 am EST.  It is currently being fueled.  If there is any weather disturbance it will be scratched, but so far so good.  We didn't plan this, but it sure was good timing, and the perfect location since our hotel is right on the beach.  We had already planned on going to the Kennedy Space Center tomorrow, so this is just icing on the cake!

Today we went to Sebastian Inlet.  We were hoping to see some Manatee's but they weren't there.  Didn't bring the card reader with me, so can't post the pictures yet of the birds and the breakers that I got.  Got some nice sunset pictures too.

We are both feeling much better now.  On the plane here I didn't feel like I would ever be cold-free again.  But today just a little sneezing and blowing and it feels so good!