Kennedy Space Center

It may seem silly, but I feel like I was able to fulfill a life long dream this weekend with my sweet family.  We got to spend day at the Kennedy Space Center.  It was Amazing!!!  Hannah told me that this was the best "field trip ever!".  I thought it was the best family day we've had in a long time.  

We started out the day wandering in the "Rocket Garden", where every Rocket was real, except for the Saturn V, which was damaged in a storm.  

The kids got to crawl inside the Command Module and experience the cramped space and awkward position that the astronauts had to experience. 

Of course, I got in in too.  I decided I wanted to 'experience' the day the way I would if I were a kid as well :)

At the time, I thought these were all replicas and models of Gemini, Mercury, and Apollo mission rockets.  We found out later that these were actual rockets, just never used.  Remarkable!

This is a mural of the International Space Station.  The actual space station is 8 times the size of the mural.  It was huge!

I asked the kids to pick a flag to stand by...of course, my little Patriot chose the American Flag :)

We took a 30 minute bus tour which led us to some cool sites, and another museum...

Although I was in awe of the amazing space craft and memorabilia....the next two photos may be my favorite of the day.  This man is a wonderful father.  I love the expression on his face, and the pure joy on the girls' faces as they play hand clapping games with him.  

Our bus tour took us past some cool projects that NASA is working on.  I believe this is the new "crawler" that will be used to transport the launching pad for the new SLS rocket.  It should be used within the next year or two.

This is the new launching pad for the new SLS Rocket, which they hope will send people to Mars around 2030.  We shall see :)

This building is the command center for all launches.  

The Crawlers have a rock path that is 8 lanes wide and contains several layers of rocks. The top layer is the TN river rock, which is the only one that doesn't spark...kind of important when transporting a rocket with thousands of pounds of fuel.

Another crawler...

The Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB. This was built in the 60s, specifically for the Saturn V rocket assembly for the Apollo missions.  It is where all of the amazing rockets are built!  Think of the history that was made in the building.

Our bus tour dropped us off at the Saturn V/Apollo exhibit.  Hanging above your head is a REAL Saturn V Rocket.  This is the bottom of the rocket, the engines.   

It was extremely difficult to photograph this rocket as it spanned almost the entire length of the building.  

Before you enter the building, there are two really cool presentations that teach you about the Apollo missions.  Below is a photo of the control center, as it would have looked during the launch of an Apollo mission.  It was really cool to 'experience'  the last few, tense minutes.

NASA had several newspapers on display from the moon landing, in many different languages.  

The Saturn V/Apollo Complex is one of the prime launch viewing areas.  Just across this lake is where many of the launches have been made.

This is the second state of the Saturn V, which holds the liquid hydrogen.

Did you know that when we landed on the moon, we always landed in different locations.  Honestly, it was something I never even thought of.  This display shows the different landing locations.  

An actual Lunar Module, that was just never used.  

This was so amazing.  This is an actual Apollo Command Module.  I can't remember which mission, but it was so neat to get close to a real model that had been in space and fell through Earth's atmosphere.  

Seriously....this was an incredible moment for me.  It probably seems silly, but I felt overwhelmed standing here.  I like to imagine what is may have felt like, smelled like, what kind of emotions ran through the people inside of that module.  Seeing this made it very real to me.  

This was Alan Shepherd's Extra Vehicular Suit.

A walk across the catwalk used by the astronauts, or we can at least pretend this was used by them ;)

Nathan is fine, it was just a bad picture.  This was a memorial to the three astronauts in Apollo 1, who died in a cabin fire during a training.  

After the bus tour we were taken back to the main complex and spent the rest of our afternoon in the Atlantis Center.  

Atlantis was one of the Space Shuttles used for over 130 missions between 1981 and 2011.  The actual Atlantis Shuttle is on full display here inside the museum.  We watched a cool video, and at the end of it a screen raised, and there was Atlantis, starring us straight in the face.  It was incredible!

The size of this beautiful piece of machinery can only be understood in person.  Again, the thoughts of the history that was made inside of that shuttle overwhelmed me.  I just stood, and starred, and imagine what is must have been like.  

I am pretty sure it stems from the first time I saw Top Gun, but I remember always wanting to fly.  I never did anything to act upon that desire, but I always wanted to do it.  In fact, I had made a secret promise to myself that, if I wasn't in a relationship by the time I graduated from college, I would join the Air Force or the Navy and attempt to get into flight school  

Obviously, that wasn't God's plan for me, because I met a wonderful man who proposed to me on my graduation day, a clear to the age old question of "Where do I go from here?".  A few years later, and this beauty came along.  I love my life and know that I am doing exactly what I ought to be.  However, my imagination still gets the best of me, and I enjoy wondering what it would have been like to fly....and then to be chose to go into space.  Just unbelievable.

Growing up in Florida fed into that curiosity about the space program because I could often just step outside and see the trail of the shuttle after launch, and trail of the boosters after they jettisoned from the ship.  I clearly remember watching a shuttle launch, at night, with my parents from just across the water.  It was unforgettable.  Growing up in the 80s and 90s provided ample opportunities for daydreaming about flying in space.  

The engine of the Atlantis

There were so many fun, interactive exhibits.  Of course, we had to all pretend like we were flying the shuttle.

I'm not sure the look fits me...but it sure was fun!

All five of us crawled through a super fun replica of the ISS.  I'm "pretending" that I'm floating :)

The tunnels were rather tight to crawl through at times, especially for this 6'3"man.

A little fun on the slide that corresponds with the angle of the shuttle landing.

There was a beautiful memorial for the Challenger and Columbia disasters.  I remember standing outside on the playground at my elementary school, watching Challenge lift off.  We saw the trail and then...a "poof" of smoke and nothing.  I knew what had happened.  To this day, when I watch something about Challenge, I tend to get emotional.  This is a piece of the left side of the shuttle Challenger.  

Columbia exploded upon re-entry back in 2003.  Nathan did his presentation on Rick Husband, an astronaut, husband, father, and Christian who was on that mission.  This is a piece of the cockpit windshield that was recovered from the mission.  

The Kennedy Space Center was such an amazing visit.  We didn't even get to do everything.  There are whole sections we missed out on.  We spent time talking with retired engineers, Nicole interacted with the lead man at NASA, we read lots of signs, and took lots of pictures.  It was such a wonderful day.

We laughed hardest when the kids were trying to take this picture.  It was hilarious getting them set up...and then their faces were sheer perfection.  We couldn't not buy it!

The Question- Part 1

We just wrapped up our 7th year of Classical Conversations, but I still have a lot to learn.  I have attempted to read The Question by Leigh Bortins on several different occasions.  However, this time it seems to be really sinking in and connecting with me.  As we begin walking through the dialectic stage with our oldest, and now our second daughter, I am working to arm myself with knowledge, encouragement, advice, and ideas.

Part 1 Focuses on the classical model and walks the reader through what a classical education is.  However, Leigh goes deeper into the dialectic stage than she did in her preceding book, The Core.

"Dialectic-age students naturally debate the merits of anything.  So, the classical model complements and exercises their natural tendencies to "talk back" by teaching young teenager to argue effectively by using formal logic.  It takes a wise parent to trust that it is appropriate to teach her young child to argue well, to ask questions, to make new comparisons, to examine true relationships, and to discover false premises. " (page 11) 

Aaack!!!!  Am I REALLY going to be teaching my children HOW to argue with me?  What kind of craziness is this?  YES.  Yes I am.  I will be teaching them how to think through, question, compare, and examine their thoughts, beliefs, ideas, etc.  The scary part (well, it's all scary) is that I don't know how to do this myself!  I need to learn too.

"Excellence in any realm of study requires perseverance, sweat, wrestling, time, tears, and just plain labor over the fundamentals."(page 14).

Yes....this is something I want my children to learn, but I've done a poor job at teaching them.  Often time, our world attempts to make things easier, when it is through great struggle that great victories are made.

"I'm sorry.  My responses are limited.  You must ask the right questions."

-Hologram of Dr. Algred Lanning, I, Robot (2004)

Pages 24 & 25 are completely marked up in my book.  They are chalk full of wisdom.

"One of the hardest things about being a parent or teacher is believing (to the point of acting on your belief) that truth will stand up to scrutiny.  Too often, we associate critical thinking  with criticism or even cynicism, something that always tears down and never builds up.  That's not true logic."

The key to learning critical thinking it to learn how to ask the right questions.  How to discuss these issues and topics.  The problem is....I was never taught to ask the right questions.  I never learned how to engage in deep conversation.  I have no idea how to spot a fallacy.

However, I can still learn...and I will.  In fact, Leigh encourages me in this.  "When you are new to dialectic studies, your primary goal should be to learn how to ask good questions.  Down the road...you can being to encourage your student to develop his own questions to ask them without your prompting....the art of asking questions takes time, and you should expect to face resistance until your child learns that finding answers to his many questions will take time and patience but is nonetheless possible." (page 24)

I have seen this working out this year with my second year Essentials student.  Like her mom, she does not like to be questioned, because obviously being questioned either means (a) you are wrong, or (b) the other person asking the questions thinks your are an idiot.  Neither is true in a classical education, and that is a preconceived notion I have to break in myself and in her.  Although it has often been awkward, I have worked to help her by asking questions and making her answer them in  hopes that those questions will help her to see that she is actually learning through them. I'm not sure that we have hit that understanding yet.  But, we will keep working on it.

As I pondered the above statements, I wondered to myself, "How?  How do you do this and keep your sanity through the teen years?"  Leigh answered that for me when she stated, "While both parents and children should learn how to argue effectively, they must also learn how to do gently and considerately."  Whew....that's going to be a tough one.  She goes on to say, "In order to successfully master the dialectic, parents and children must work to set aside defensive attitudes.  As teacher and student, they must first build a relationship based on trust and respect."  

Yes again!  This has been my heart's desire for the past 18 months...somehow, I must be headed in the right direction.  Although I fail daily, I am working toward building that relationship with my oldest, and my second daughter as well. We must trust and respect one another.  We need to know that each is expecting and offering the best of one another.  Relationships.  Relationships are where it is at!

Another tough one to swallow for me is this, "Your task is not to have all the answers; rather, it is to engage your child in dialogue honestly confronting their questions, and at the same time learn how to model the type of question you want them to be able to ask on their own."  Um, excuse me Mrs. Bortins but, I like to be right.  I want to have all the answer, and when I don't, I tend to disengage.  What do you mean I have to stay engaged even if I don't have the answers.  Oh, and by the way....just because I have the answers, doesn't mean I should just say it and expect my kids to believe it.  I will have to learn how to keep silent and allow them to seek, ask, question, etc.

Near the end of this section, Leigh begins to point us toward the Rhetoric stage and encourages us from the words of Dorothy Sayers, "Towards the close of this stage, the pupils will probably be beginning to discover for themselves that their knowledge and experience are insufficient and that their trained intelligence need a great deal more material to chew upon."

In other words- hang in there through the "Pert" stage where teens naturally question.  If I have "taught him how to ask the essential questions and that it was productive to ask them." then we will survive.  In fact, those "questions are designed to weed out falsehood and cultivate right thinking so that we can share its fruits with those around us.  This is the promise that hovers at the beginning of the rhetoric stage."

The beginning of The Question has stretched me, my thoughts, and my hopes for the next few years.  However, it has also brought encouragement and hope.  We need to bathe the next 10 years in prayer.  My prayer is that Lord would continue to reveal himself through his Word to my children as they questions, struggle, and grasp for what is truth.

Hannah's 9th Birthday

This past weekend, we celebrated Hannah's 9th birthday.  How did it go by so quickly?  She is such a sweet and beautiful girl, a real joy to have in our family.  She brings smiles and happiness to everyone around her.

Hannah loves all things horses. She has for several years now.  So, we took her to visit some horses on her birthday.


She got to feed them cookies

She enjoyed every moment she had with the horses.  

This black one was her favorite. 

There were also other fun animals like donkeys.  We got them excited one time and they started "hee-hawing" quite a bit for us. 

Smile for the camera!!!!

There were also some Galapagos Tortoises on the farm.  This guy looks creepy...but he was just enjoying his breakfast when we came by.  

He loved having his neck rubbed! haha

This animal is so crazy big.  I couldn't believe how it could bare it's weight like this.  It was quite unbelievable!

We enjoyed walking in the gardens as well.  It was so pretty!

And, big treat here....we saw a pair of bald eagles!  Aren't they beautiful!

Me and my birthday girl!

We may not have it all together, but together have it all.  hahaha.  Cheesy line, but it was really nice to spend so much time together.  

Hannah got this idea a few months ago for her birthday cake.  She wanted a "family tree" cake.  So, we gave the idea to Publix and they ran with it.  It came out perfect!

Hannah's face when she saw her cake :)

Next year is the big 1-0.  We'll try to enjoy this year first...although she is already planning her 10th birthday party.