Family Time

In the past couple of weeks we have been able to get a lot of family time in! Earlier in the month, Mom, Dad, Grandma Kreher, and Aunt Barb all got to come down and visit us in Alabama. Grandma had a Navy reunion near by. It was great to see everyone!
Steve and I didn’t get to visit with them too long because we took the opportunity to have babysitters for Sydney and went to the Bears/Falcons game in Atlanta. Before we went into the game we tailgated for a while with a great family from Chicago. They were kind enough to take that picture of me and Steve in front of the stadium.

As we were driving home from Atlanta, Mom and Dad were taking Sydney up to Illinois for a week. She loves going up there and has been doing great in the car ride. She even got to celebrate her cousins’ 1st birthday while she was there! (Happy Birthday Alex, Logan and Nick!) She also went to the Children’s museum and Boo at the Zoo. I met Mom and Barb half way up on the weekend and brought her home. It turns out I don’t know what to do with myself when she isn’t home.

When Sydney got back from Illinois, she went back to school and they took a field trip to the Pumpkin Patch.

This week the Wise family is visiting us (Linda, Gene, and Lori). Sydney loves all of the attention. I have to say I really enjoy having visitors. It allows me to take a break without actually having Sydney too far away. Sydney is going over to our friends’ house tonight to go trick or treating. She is going to be a witch.

As for Lil Bit (don’t ask, Steve and I do not have agreement on a name yet), he is growing right on schedule to be another 8 pound baby. To look at me, you would be surprised that I have 2 more months to go. I am running out of room. It is good that he is very active but has been getting the hiccups a lot recently. It is driving me crazy!

That’s all for now. Hopefully my next post will include pictures from trick or treating tonight.
- Ang

I am back from a quick trip to Texas. Steve, Sydney, and Ruger did great while I was out of town. They even took a hike up the mountain out back. Give Sydney a call and she will tell you all about it.

This weekend we have some visitors coming down including Grandma Carol, Papa B., Grandma Kreher, and Aunt Barb. I still haven’t decided if Sydney will be going back up to Illinois with them when they go home. That would mean she would be away from home for two full weeks before the Wise Family comes down for a visit. I am not sure if she (or if I) am up for a trip that long. While our visitors are here, Steve and I are going to run over to Atlanta to watch the Bears game. Thanks in advance to Grandma and Papa for watching Sydney while we are out of the house!

Our last visitor was Uncle Brandon in September. Here is the picture of him and Sydney working away on their laptops.

For those of you that are interested, here are some quick notes about what is going on at NASA:

- The Shuttle is planned to be retired with the last flights scheduled for 2010
- NASA is developing a new program, called the Constellation Program, to build new vehicles to take humans up to the International Space Station (ISS) and eventually to the moon and Mars.
- The first test flight of the Constellation program is called Ares I-X and will launch next year. This is one of the tasks I work on. The test flight objectives are focused on first-stage flight dynamics, controllability, separation of the first and upper stages, ground operations, and first stage recovery. The test flight will also verify the performance and dynamics of the shuttle’s solid rocket booster in “single stick” arrangement. (The usual shuttle configuration is two rocket boosters with one external fuel tank.) This flight will only last about 2 minutes and does not reach orbit.
- The first manned flight of the Constellation Program is scheduled to occur in 2014. This flight will go to the ISS.
- The first flight to take humans back to the moon is scheduled to occur in 2019.

Lil bit’s next visit to the doctor is Wednesday morning. That’s all for now.
- Ang