Santa Session

HO HO HO:  In what has become a holiday tradition for us, today we visited Space Santa! And there's only one place he can be seen - up on the Space Needle's observation deck. 

But before we could go up, we had to pose for the obligatory terrible tourist photo in front of a blue screen. Nice of Kennedy to hold his 'little' brother. We'll see how many more years he can do that. :)

We lucked out - it wasn't raining and wasn't terrifically windy while we were up this early afternoon.

We walked the whole 360-degrees, of course.  We started looking toward the south, with a view that included part of downtown and Puget Sound. 

 We could see that the roof on Safeco Field was open today, letting the green green grass get a little sunlight. We can't wait for baseball season to start!

 We headed around the bend to the east, and the South Lake Union neighborhood (also known as Amazon land. Construction cranes are a constant sight down there now. 

 To the north we could see Queen Anne hill and beyond. 

Looking down from the Needle's north side, we could spy the colorful roof of Experience Music Project Museum and the adjacent playground. 

And to the west, more Puget Sound vistas, with our neighborhood, the Magnolia peninsula, in the distance. 

Inside, a camera let us take a look around in a climate controlled environment. The operator (Annabelle in this case) could zoom and pan. She zeroed in on the iconic pink elephant sign pretty quickly.

The kids each enjoyed a hot chocolate.

But Santa was the big draw.

 On the way down, Annabelle had a window 'seat' (stand), so she filmed a quick video of our descent. Part of what you can see is the Chihuly Garden and Glass at Seattle Center. 

FUN AND GAMES: After the Space Needle visit, we returned home and had a mini Christmas celebration with Kennedy and Abby.

As one of their gift to the kids, they came up with a fun tournament with prizes/presents.

The game involved playing a round of Mario Kart and drinking Mountain Dew. These are two of CJ's gifts, so he was quite happy. :)

 Annabelle wasn't quite as adept at it, but she was a good sport and won fabulous prizes, too!

SUNDAY MONDAY: And before too much more time passes, I should mention our weekend fun. 

We drove down to Vancouver, USA, to have a holiday celebration with family. It was lots of good food and fun. Our gift to the kids' cousins was a bunch of little prizes (everything from lottery tickets to gift cards to cash to candy to ramen) wrapped up in a huge ball made using two rolls of plastic wrap. This YouTube video shows how one is made (skip the guy's long intro).

https://youtu.be/3Wgdt_ykRzc

We'd never done a plastic wrap prize ball before, and weren't sure how it would go, but it was really fun!

We spent the night at a lovely place, The Heathman Lodge. 

It definitely lives up to the 'lodge' portion of its name. The lovely portico/entry area has a huge pond complete with big koi and a pretty wooden canoe.

 There's even a totem pole amidst a small forest of evergreens.

 There was also lots of wood everywhere, inside the lodge. Even Santa was wooden!

There was a lovely pool, which the kids had to themselves on the two occasions they swam. The only thing a bit off was this one moose ...

He was in a painting by the elevator to the pool. 

Look at the creature on the right side here. We decided it had the head of a camel, the eye of a chinchilla, the tail of a corgi and 'horns of a devil,' per Annabelle. Overall, a rather unfortunate combination to our eyes. But we looked forward to seeing it every time we passed by!

BIG BUMMER: Surprising and disappointing news showed up in my inbox this morning. The headline read: "NASA Suspends 2016 Launch of InSight Mission to Mars, Media Teleconference Today."

We're really bummed, because that mission was set to launch this March from southern California, and we'd planned to drive down there for it.

This artist's concept from August 2015 depicts NASA's InSight Mars lander fully deployed for studying the deep interior of Mars. The mission will launch during the period March 4 to March 30, 2016, and land on Mars Sept. 28, 2016.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Why the suspension? I'll let NASA tell you: "The decision follows unsuccessful attempts to repair a leak in a section of the prime instrument in the science payload."

More specifically, the instrument that has repeatedly failed in tests is the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), a seismometer provided by France’s Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES). The instrument was designed to measure ground movements on Mars - as small as the diameter of an atom! The delicate instrument requires a vacuum seal around its three main sensors to withstand the harsh conditions of the Martian environment. 

Earlier this year, the vacuum seal leaked in a test. It was repaired, but during testing on Monday of this week, in extreme cold temperature (-49 degrees Fahrenheit/-45 degrees Celsius) the instrument again failed to hold a vacuum. Darn it!

Given that the launch is so relatively close, NASA officials determined there is insufficient time to resolve another leak, and complete the work and thorough testing required to ensure a successful mission.

And to make matters worse, the relative positions of the planets are most favorable for launching missions from Earth to Mars occur only for a few weeks every 26 months. So it's going to be 2018 before another attempt is possible.

Delaying a Mars mission a couple of years is not without precedent. “In 2008, we made a difficult, but correct decision to postpone the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory mission for two years to better ensure mission success,” Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, said in today's press release. “The successes of that mission's rover, Curiosity, have vastly outweighed any disappointment about that delay," he noted.