In Orbit

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ROCKET FIRE!: If you're in to spacey stuff, today was a Big Deal.
Our morning started by watching a SpaceX launch a Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The launch was a demonstration for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. What made it historic is, after a successful liftoff and orbit, this would be the first attempt by a commercial company to recover a spacecraft reentering from low-Earth orbit.
As soon as I cued up the live launch Web cast on my computer screen CJ said, "That's Florida!"
We started watching coverage at about half past 6 a.m. At about 7:40, CJ said, "OMG, only three minutes!"

After the Space Shuttle retires (just two more missions are planned), SpaceX will carry cargo to and from the International Space Station as part of a contract for NASA. The Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft were designed to one day carry astronauts, but today it was an unmanned flight. But it was still exciting to watch!

I started watching NASA's coverage, but thought to hop to SpaceX's Web site. Once I got there, I found their countdown clock was more than a minute ahead, their launchpad camera was closer, and once the rocket lifted off, they had an on board cam. Cool!

Annabelle rose from bed just seconds after the rocket lifted off.

About 3.5 hours and 50,000 miles later, the Dragon capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 500 miles off of the coast of Mexico, and it was recovered, mission accomplished!

SO SWEET: CJ, emerging from the shower this morning, said, "Well hi, Mom. Good to see you again!" :)

DRAMA QUEEN: Rick stopped by today because he needed a photo of him appearing compassionate or sensitive or something like that for a school project. We decided a pic of him putting a Band Aid on a distressed Annabelle would suffice.

I was worried about Annabelle being able to pull off the act, but let me tell you, she nailed it repeatedly. It was Rick who was having trouble getting into character. He looked indifferent. Non plussed. Bemused. Just about anything but compassionate. Of course we ended up in hysterics - and we settled for this shot ...

TREE-D: It "felt" like it was time to make a Christmas-y craft this morning, so we used some sparkly scrapbook paper to make some three-dimensional trees.
Mega Man and Shadow Man approved. :)
SCIENCE TIME: We headed up north for science this afternoon, where we continued our unit on balancing. The hour was filled with experimenting with different shapes, a balance "beam" (a craft stick taped to the desk), and counterweights.

A good, educational time was had by all. Today we made two new discoveries at the Shoreline campus. One was a play room. It's a classroom with toys for the K-1 set, I'd guess, but there were a couple of older kids in there, too. CJ and Annabelle didn't want to leave when it was time, but we only had about 5 minutes to check it out because we had to hustle to class.

While the kids were getting settled in class, I went down to the curriculum/resource room I've been wanting to check out forever. There are all sorts of textbooks and reference materials in there available for checkout (above and beyond the nice big library's collection).

I didn't go hog wild today - I limited myself to two items. One is a book about doing research scavenger hunts using the Internet and books. That will be a good exercise for the kids. I also scored a neat little tabletop theater I suspected Annabelle would love. I was right. She spent a good part of the afternoon/evening playing with it. It's pretty nifty - there are several characters (all on sticks!), and you can swap the backdrops out, too.

THRILLER: Today, CJ insisted we rent "The Michael Jackson Experience" for the Wii. OK, you asked for it ...

Avatars of MJ and a couple backup dancers are on the screen and you have to try to mimic their moves. It actually looked pretty fun. They had a couple dozen King of Pop songs to choose from. They were definitely novices, but gave it a good go. We'll try again in the a.m.