Reach for the Stars!

This weekend we headed west to Virginia... we don't often go to Virginia (or like going to Virginia). We go to visit my brother and for that we take a deep breath - he lives in Loudoun County. We also went to visit George Washington's house at Mt. Vernon and to a park to see the planes take off at National Airport (you can see the posts here).  Oh yeah, and I guess we have to go to Virginia when we go to the airport (usually National but sometimes Dulles).

Speaking of airports, this past Saturday, we made the 45 minute drive to Dulles Airport to visit the Smithsonian Udvar Hazey Air & Space Museum - and it was worth it! 

We arrived when it opened - at around 10am for Weather Day and met our buddies at the entrance.  We were there to see the space shuttle Discovery, but the whole place is pretty amazing.  It is the perfect kind of place for Jonah and his buddy - really big space, the stuff to look at is really big, it is cool (temperature wise and otherwise), and the space shuttle was there!!!

Jonah & his buddy ran all around the place, taking it all in.  They wore their super cool jet packs most of the time.  Jonah was flying his plastic space shuttle all over.  They were screaming and laughing and no one seemed to mind.  We went at the perfect time as it wasn't too crowded.  We even got to see a weather experiment about a tornado...

The place is just cool.  It is great for all ages.  I was a bit emotional when I saw the space shuttle.  I remember perfectly when the Challenger blew up right in front of my eyes on TV... and on Saturday I brought my two kids to see Discovery - up close and personal - now that is a real time warp... for me at least. 

It is a bit sad that there aren't any more shuttle flights to be planned.  Little kids need to imagine and make believe they are astronauts and they are taking flights into space - it is part of exploring our world and others.  I hope during my kids' childhood, there are some manned space missions planned and executed - maybe to Mars!

There is a saying that I believe with all my heart.  It goes something like this...

Always reach for the stars, that way if you miss you'll get the moon.

I hope they live their lives that way. 

tornado watch

model airplanes

SPACE TOYS!

astronaut Barbie

Jonah & Vera meet the Space Shuttle

watching it blast off

our wild and crazy boys!

now they are really ready to blast off!

flying over the moon!

our astronauts!

Oh My God(dard)!

The summer is quickly slipping way!!!  Like a rocket ship speeding through space!  This week we decided we have double HDH (Hump Day Hijinks) with our buddies from My Adventures with Buster Yellow and we'd blast off to OUTER SPACE!

We were definitely going to go to  Udvar Hazy Air & Space Museum to see the real space shuttle (remember this post - here ).  And it turns out there is a "Weather" day tomorrow - so we planned on that.  Yesterday we wanted to do something space related as a run up to the big field trip to see the space shuttle... so I did some Internet searching and found out that you can actually visit NASA?!?!  How cool is that?  They have a space flight center in Greenbelt, MD called the Goddard Space Flight Center and Visitor's Center.  You can visit the Visitor's Center for free (it is a mini museum type place with lots of hands on stuff) which also is home to a "Rocket Garden" - we were ready to start our space adventure at the Goddard Center!

It was an "out of this world" day!  The Visitor's Center is fun.  A bunch of the exhibits are "under renovation" but the kids did not mind.  When we first got there it was a bit too crowded with campers - but then they all went into the "movie" which is supposed to be super cool but we didn't have time or the inclination to see - then we had the place to ourselves.  Jonah and his buddy loved playing with the spaceship toys and just looking at all of the outer space stuff!  Vera, as always, super LOVED it!  All of it.  After a while, we ventured outside to the "Rocket Garden" and if you have a kid like Jonah, then the Rocket Garden is worth the trip... it is real NASA rocket/space stuff in a huge wide open space.  The kids can run all over the place and play on all the stuff... it was seriously heaven for the kids!  There are a ton of picnic table so we brought a full space inspired picnic and enjoyed the afternoon.  It included rocket ship fruit spears, moon cheese (Swiss cheese), planet crackers, Sun cups (mandarin oranges), and rocket fuel (yogurt squishers).  For dessert we had Saturn candies (malt balls with fruit jellys around them) and moon rocks (chocolate candy rocks)!

We read a book while the boys were resting from all that running.  And our buddy Rebecca made the coolest "space jet packs" for the kids - as if they need jet packs - I mean they run and run and never get tired!!!  But they were totally awesome!

After Goddard we made our way back to our house and read some more space books and used blocks and play dough to build a space station and planets... and run around the house some more (this time without the jet packs, but with the space shuttles we bought the kids at the Goddard gift store...)

It was an awesome theme HDH - can't wait till we get to see the space shuttle in person tomorrow!

plasma funky energy ball!!!



our crew in the rocket



we are crashing!!!

3-2-1 blast off!

so many buttons!

the rocket garden!

throwing rocks in the rocket garden...

our adventurers taking a break from adventuring and hanging on the porch swing!