This past week working Atlantis Station, means that I had a lot of time that I didn’t really have all that much to do. A lot of times I’ll bring a book or something. Ashley, the counselor running mission control had all her markers and colored pencils and had started doodling on her schedule. these were not ordinary pencils though, they were Crayola twistable colored pencils. Later that night I was at target and ended up buying my own and a coloring book to go with it. The next day (Tuesday) another friend , Elaine saw me coloring in my new coloring book and also commented on the cool colored pencils. Then on Wednesday (my birthday) Elaine and Kim came by the MCC floor to bring me a present… two GIANT coloring books (Disney Princess and Pirates of the Caribbean) and double ended twistable crayons. I’m 23 and I got coloring books for my birthday…

I also got the usual from grandma and a purple post-it note from mom. Well, I am really getting the DVD and soundtrack of August Rush but I have to wait till I get home. The fact I was getting them was written on a purple post-it note though.

Went out to lunch with some friends on Friday to a new restaurant (to us any way). It was called the Furniture Factory. Weird name i know. We got carded to see if we were at least 19 cause it was a smoking establishment. Even though we sat on the non smoking side and we were all over 21. The lady said we looked young, which I suppose we do, but not that young. Then again, When we went out to eat when we were in TN for Maya’s B-day, Dad was carded and he is in his mid 50’s.

Went up to Sewanee to see Josh, Julia and Maya for the weekend. Maya can now walk if she holds onto your fingers. She also knows a few baby signs like: more, all done, down, dog, flower, and frog. She is adorable.

Happy Birthday to me and some other stuff I haven’t gotten around to posting…

Happy Birthday to Me! I am now twenty-three! so far I’ve gotten lots of Facebook birthday greetings, a card with the usual present from Grandma, a card from my Mommy with a purple post-it note promising my gift when i come home to visit in a few weeks, and a very nice email from my Daddy with some attached songs. Also, after four months working here, our nifty space camp uniform flight jackets have finally arrived. and its to warm to wear it.

So what am I doing for my birthday? Well I got a call from Dad this morning a little before 9am my time (10am for most of my family) wishing me happy birthday. After hanging up I got back in bed only to receive a voice mail from Mom, I guess she called while I was on the phone with Dad. Funny how they were both at work and call me at about the same time. The rest of my day so far has been spent watching some PBS show about life on a Naval Carrier, funnily enough called “Carrier”. Luckily PBS has joined in the genius of CBS, NBC, ABC, and other TV networks and posts episodes of certain shows online for free, otherwise I would have missed a lot of this show. I hat having to share a TV with 30 other people.

I went out to lunch with my friend Kathy, we went to a Mexican restaurant called “Casa Blanca” for good Mexican food. Definitely beats the nachos we get every Wednesday for lunch in the cafeterias. I have to work this evening for about 4:15 to 9pm and then I think I am going out with a bunch of people. Don’t know where they are taking me or if they even know.

This past weekend was the first time I was ever scheduled for support. Support is exactly like it sounds, they are the counselors who help out when team leaders need it. They help out with sims, rocket launch, make sure all the supplies needed for rockets and other stuff are in the classrooms, make sure classrooms are clean and they got hunt down team leader when one of their kids forgot to take med and take that kid to the sickbay so the counselor doesn’t have to take the whole group there. Well, I did all of about 15 minutes of support when Hainey (one of the weekend supervisors) comes up to me and asks if I would take one of the Pathfinder teams cause someone called in sick. I said yes of course so instead of supporting I was supported. I had a pretty good team. it was the first Pathfinder I’d had in about two months and I’d almost forgotten how to build rockets and do graduation speeches. Oh, my team also won best mission patch, it was the description I know it.

I’m Scheduled for Atlantis Station all this week. Atlantis is on of our four (almost 5) orbiters that we use for missions. Station (our version of the International Space Station) is one of the places you can be during the mission, the others being the Shuttle and Mission Control. The ids in Station get to conduct experiments and flip lots of switches, and the older ones have to fix problems. On Monday and Tuesday only 2 of the 5 teams actually had people in station so I mainly hung out with Ashley in MOCR (Mission Control). And helped her when she was tiered of listening to kids with the biggest speaking part struggle over words like “Space Shuttle Main Engines.”

Well, I am sure there is more I could say but I have to be at work in an hour and kind of need to get ready. Hope to see many of you when I’m home in May!