Spacecamp - Day 4

Graduation day.  We were able to use the weightless chair in a fun training this day.  Didn't get pictures of Davis on my phone, he wanted them on his...but they didn't make the blog.  Ehhh...he did the same stuff and had fun doing it.  We shared with the kids our patch we had made for them and they loved it.  They shared with us a mars base that had created (both of these were secrets from one another).  I got a picture of Davis at the scuba tank...this is where he first fell in love with scuba stuff.  Graduation ceremony was pretty cool.  Our Dreamchasers were awarded the MOST OUTSTANDING TEAM...and described as the guys you can usually hear coming...and we emphasized that also when Supersoaker one last time played the top gun them song as our group came forward to get our diplomas. 

 

The dreamchasers began as a group of families across the world, but ended as one family sad to leave one another.  We kept running into the guys on our team as we packed up and hit the climbing wall, and rode the rides...and it was hard leaving.  Two of our friends, the Phillips and Velardez headed off to Disney...and hopefully did not have any troubles with Irma.  Guess we will check in with them later.  Leaving Spacecamp and back to the real world...the boys slapped a "meatball" (nickname for the NASA symbol) onto my bumper.  What a fun experience...and I came home with plans for the girls in another 4 years...guess I need to start prepping them.  :) 

 

PS  Sam...Davis...remember how great the banana pudding was here.  It was like magical biscoff cookies in it instead of wafers.  Truly was a great weekend.  If you guys are reading this one day also in your 30s as I am now...call me up, I am sure I will remember this weekend, let's go back!  

 

Spacecamp - Day 3



Day 3 pictures are mixed up like crazy below, so I'll just try to hit the highlights of the day.  It was the day of the MAT (Multi-Axis-Trainer) and Sam and Davis had a blast.  Sam looks funniest to me as, at 12, for some reason, he can not let anyone know he is having fun, altho you can see almost the crack of a smile.  I asked him about this, and he said "I am laughing on the inside".  Davis clearly is having the time of his life, and you can see it whether he is upside, downside or sideside.  I wanted to try everything, but with my vertigo issues, I thought I better pass on this one.

 

Davis snuck off every chance he got to hit one of the simulators...he would often eat his meals quick then let me know he was off to a simulator.  For our second mission, we went to mars.  Sam was stationed at mission control with LOTS of dialogue...oh yeah, he just loved that.  :)  And me and Dave had a position similar to Sam from the first mission, but since I knew Dave could make the slime by his self, and the person in there helping us said that most of the time people could only do one experiment with the time we had...I decided we would do two experiments.  Loving the chance to be in a chemical lab with Dave, I had him working on the slime, while I started extracting the DNA from an orange.  Since we had practiced earlier that morning, I was prepared to get the staff person moving as soon as our mission started...I sent him off for oranges and chilled alcohol as soon as we began, and YES, we completed both experiments.  Davis even made a second batch of slime to give to one of the other boys. 

 

But the best part of this mission was when we went over into the Mars surface ship.  Davis was required to enter several codes into the computer in sync with mission control steps...and he did it perfectly and we docked with Orion with NO problems.  The Mission Leader stopped mission time to congratulate Davis on that task, she said it was the first time she had ever seen it done with NO errors. 

 

We also made Estes rockets and shot them off.  All three of our rockets (as we are already rocket building experts) flew well with no losses or burned parachutes.  I played the Top Gun theme song as we launched our rockets.  Regarding the slime made...forgot to mention that Sam made his the day before with blue food color...which after him playing with it all day made for some mighty blue hands. 

 

This was also the day that we were receiving a history lesson on the Gemini missions, when a scream erupted from Susan "LOOK Xavier LOOK Phoenix...its a squirrel!"  Wow, funny...she said she has kangaroos in a field in front of her house...and that excited about a squirrel.  Supersoaker didn't know where to go from there. 

 

Later that night Cesar, Sandra and Gabriel joined us at the Davidson for our winding down.  Gabriel was pretty good friends with Sam and Davis.  We got to tour the Davidson at night which was kinda neat.  And the boys wanted me to play the theme song once again as they walked out of the Davidson center...then they fell to the ground and started sliding along the floor...Oh well, It was pretty funny with the music playing.  Then we all got in trouble as we got back to the habitat after lights out and I was playing the theme music once again as the boys walked into the habitat.  We thought we were cool stuff till two Staff residents shouted at us to turn it off.  Whoops, nailed...Kevin Donaldson moment.