•4:40 AM
We travelled to Houston last week for NASA Homeschool day at Space Center Houston/ Johnson Space Center. We had a blast... literally! (kuddos to Becci for the pun)
http://www.spacecenter.org/HomeSchool.html
The kids had so much fun... and I think the adults did too. :-) The first thing they all spotted of course was the Martian Matrix, which is a four-story jungle gym. We let them get it out of their system right away. Daniel couldn't get it out of his system, though. He was already woken up in the middle of the night and wouldn't sleep on the way. He made an emotional attachment to the Martian Matrix so we had to drag him to any other place we wanted to go.
The kids had so much fun... and I think the adults did too. :-) The first thing they all spotted of course was the Martian Matrix, which is a four-story jungle gym. We let them get it out of their system right away. Daniel couldn't get it out of his system, though. He was already woken up in the middle of the night and wouldn't sleep on the way. He made an emotional attachment to the Martian Matrix so we had to drag him to any other place we wanted to go.
Second stop... Space Tram.
This tram took us on a tour of the grounds. We stopped in an area to watch a rocket take off. Okay, it was just a model rocket. But, it was fun an interesting to watch and learn.
"Look out belooooowwww!"
Then, the tram took up to see the mock-up spacecrafts. These are exact mock-ups of what's is really out there! When a space shuttle is in space, they use this mock-up to built stuff to send out to meet the shuttle. They know it will fit by the time it makes it's expensive trip. Imagine sending something FedEx to space. Sure.
I don't remember all of the details on these since I was attempting to keep Daniel entertained while listening to the tour guide.
This is a model of what the international space station will look like when it is complete. You can get an idea of the size of this model by looking on the back wall of the picture above.
Sorry... don't remember what this is. Daniel was getting sleepy. It looks cool!
Back at Space Center Houston, we found the sci-fi section... or is it? ;-) Since my kiddos are such Star Wars buffs, we had to get some pictures. Daniel is pictured there by his favorite character, R2D2.
And, this would be Taylor's favorite character. Taylor likes feminine, but not prissy, I suppose. This is Ahsoka. She is a new character feature in the new cartoonish Clone Wars. We have not seen it yet.
Daniel had to get this pic... but I think it was potty time here.
Confiscated in space? :-)
Oh, and I suppose this guy is from the new movie, too. We're not sure if he's supposed to be a good guy or bad guy. Daniel wasn't interested in reading the plaque there.
The future of racing...
We went into a neat big screen theater and learned about space travel. I'm so glad we read that last chapter in out Apologia Astronomy book! Taylor absorbed so much more by already having learned about it. There was a hidden portion of the museum on the other side of the theater that we wouldn't have know about had I not dragged Daniel from the Martian Matrix... again. The had moon rocks and other neat stuff back there. After leaving the space center, we went out to observe the path that Ike made through the area. Hurricane Ike didn't affect us here in San Antonio, so sometimes it's hard to fathom the destruction that a natural disaster can create. So, in case you're wondering if it was all that bad, here are a few pics of houses along Galveston Bay.
Can you see the little girls pink metal bed hanging there on the left side?
The spray paint on this house says "Sorry No Vacancy", "Have a Nice Day" and "Watch Out, Mean Cat". We saw a Motel 8 that was gutted and not in very good shape. There was a large piece of wood out front that said "Opening Soon!" At least someone had a sense of humor.
Cinder blocks aren't as tough as they seem. Wow!
There were many homes like this. One of the families was living in a travel trailer next to their destroyed home.
Looks like something out of Wizard of Oz.
We didn't see any sign of the rest of this house. Can you imagine driving out to see how bad it was only to find that your stairs are the only thing left? 
We're pretty spoiled in San Antonio. We rarely get any kind of natural disasters. A small tornado may touch down on the outskirts or we might get a pretty good flood every 5-10 years, but nothing like this. It makes me thankful for where we live.This gave us a good opportunity to learn about hurricanes. It really opened the kids eyes to see how real they are.
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