Blast Offs

'Sup, gangsters.

Recently Kris and I came to the realization that Abby is nearly 13 months old and still hasn't gotten the chance to hit up the beach. That may be another stroke of 'Bad Parenting' on our parts, it may not. With Alayna, we had her out to the beach three weeks after she was born. Couldn't wait to get sand in that kid's umbilical cord. With Abby? Not so much.

But, as you all know, Abby's the second child... which more or less means we don't care as much this time around. The novelty of having a kid wears off. Real quick.

Whatever.

It just so happened that, as we were thinking about our beach-oriented parental negligence, it also came to our attention that the shuttle Atlantis - last of NASA's shuttle fleet - was going to be launching. Now, we had already said to ourselves, "We have to hit this one up - it's the last one." We've lived down here in Florida for four and half years, and we've seen about a half dozen shuttle launches... all from our vantage point in scenic Orlando.

This time around, we wanted front rows seats, so we decided to drive out to Cocoa beach on the Atlantic coast, a short distance south of Cape Canaveral and the shuttle platform. The local news networks were saying that over a million people were estimated to come out for this last shuttle launch, so Kris and I knew we'd be driving into one hell of a mess. We left Orlando about two hours earlier than we needed to (the drive usually takes about an hour), because we factored in bottle-necking and idiot drivers.

After a few stops on the highway, we got to the beach with about an hour to spare (the drive back was a completely different story - it took us 3 1/2 hours to get home with all the traffic. Thank God we have a DVD player in the car). So we tried our hands at the usual beach business - build a sand castle or two, have a couple beers, throw the kids in the ocean, have a couple more beers, etc.


Behold:

Attempting to get the girls in the water...

...and again.

So, after about 45 minutes of trying to get our kids to splash around in the waves, Atlantis, last of NASA's shuttles, blasted off from Cape Canaveral:

The End of the Shuttle Program

And here's a few more pics of Abby's first day at the beach, and the aftermath of the Atlantis launch.

Enjoy.

- Brian

The Week in Review: Fevers and a Shuttle Launch

if its one thing i'm sure all of us can appreciate, its a three-day work week.

that's what i had this week. three days of teenagers and textbooks, two days of pajamas and DVDs. tuesday, as we all know, was veteran's day; and yours truly, being the humble public servant that he is, obviously got the day off of work. cowabunga. i ran a few errands with the kid, got some stuff done around the house - the usual boring stuff boring adults like me do on their days off. this particular day off, however, soon spoiled when the cannonball - who had received a DTAP vaccination the previous friday - began showing a temperature. and sure enough, at 2:30am wednesday morning, she woke up with a 102 - 103 degree fever.

kris had to stay home with her all day on wednesday, and alayna seemed to be doing better there for awhile, but then, sure enough, late wednesday night her temperature spiked again. and so, once again, yours truly got to take yet another day off of work. what i should point out here is that, as a teacher, i'm given ten paid-days off a year - after that, i can still take days off, but i'm no longer paid for them.

as of right now, i've officially taken off six of those days. and its only november.

how awesome is that?

anyway, we finally decided on friday that the kid was well enough to hang out at daycare. we both went to work, the kid went to daycare, and all normalcy resumed in realm of the houghs. i should add, by the way, that its pretty cool paying a full week of daycare when your kid only shows up for a one Goddamn day. i think that's just swell. i really do.

in closing, dear readers, kris and i finally got to see a shuttle launch. finally. being in central florida, with cape canaveral and NASA's shuttle launch facility only a quick drive away, its possible to see shuttle launch's relatively up close and personal. now, we've been down here in florida for nigh on two years, and we've never seen one in person. not once. and its not as if there haven't been shuttle launches to be had, either - they practically have them every few months. instead, rather, we just consistently forget about them, and miss out on them every single time. but last night, at 7:55pm, the shuttle endeavor blasted off from florida and into space with its very important cargo (the toilet they were carrying to install in the international space station).

...and we got to watch it from our veranda. which was cool.

happy pre-holidays,

- brian