Astronaut memories

Alan was invited to an ice cream party today hosted by one of his favorite high school teachers. This teacher ran a “space mission” program that got a lot of publicity and Alan loved. They built a mock space shuttle in their classroom then spent five days and night in the shuttle, conducting experiments and mock space missions. He loved it and was excited to see his teacher again after so many years.

The party was about an hour and a half away, so I made an attempt at adding another stop to make it a more exciting outing for all of us (nothing against his teacher, but the ice cream thing was mostly and outing for Alan!) Unfortunately all of my plans were lousy and didn’t work out. Fortunately the ice cream was homemade and excellent, the teacher was friendly, and he had a copy of the original news broadcast that covered the space mission. It was neat to see.

A brief moment of sibling togetherness today while they ate their ice cream.

Astronaut Alan

Watching the original news broadcast of Alan’s “space” mission.

The original space suits they wore on their mission.

On the way home we decided to stop for dinner at restaurant that one of Alan’s co-workers started. It’s a great place and it got popular so quickly that she quit working at his company so she could run her restaurant full time!

Lex beat my favorite mindless restaurant game in about three tries. I’ve played it many, many times and probably never won, but he figured it out in no time!

We didn’t get to do out stargazing boat cruise, or visit the cool castle I found online, but we had good time anyway and we are all looking forward to a “no plans” day tomorrow!