Park and Kennedy Space Center

It wasn't too hot to play at the park that doesn't have a shade cover, so we had fun playing somewhere different. The ice cream truck stopped by so the boys got Popsicle. Rett had two licks before is started dripping down his arm and making him sticky, so he threw his in the trash almost immediately. (No more Popsicles for him!!!) James did a good job of finishing his mega Popsicle, but I had to stand far away from him because the wind kept blowing melted Popsicle at me!

James school started a "morning mile" program where 30 minutes before school starts anyone who wants to can walk laps around the school for some exercise. They get a red straw for every lap that they do and the kids are very competitive with each other about how many straws they get. Every day James wants to leave for school earlier and earlier so that he can get more laps in and get even more straws. At the end of the 30 minutes, all the kids turn in their straws and mark down how many they did. Then the PE coach tallies their laps down and they earn charms for a necklace based on their distance. The first morning everyone got participation medals for walking, even Rett!

General conference weekend Seabiscuit pushed a hole through his fence and escaped! We didn't realize it until late in the afternoon and we hoped that he was hiding somewhere in our yard. The next day we looked everywhere for him but still couldn't find him. I was really hoping that he had just hid himself so good in the yard that we didn't see him. On Monday morning Anthony put missing posters at the beginning of our street and the phone calls started! It seems like every neighbor on our road saw him at one point over the weekend except for us! I talked to one woman who said someone pulled over and took him in their car and said that they were going to give him to a rescue place they knew. She told me she thought they lived at the very end of our street, over the railroad tracks. Our street is pretty divided between the front paved section of houses with small lots (1ish acres) and the other side of the train tracks where the street is not paved and the lots are more like 5-10 acres. So I took the boys down the dirt road section of our street and knocked on 6+ doors until I found the house who knew where Seabiscuit was. It turns out, the people in the car were their grandchildren who live near orlando and they had taken Seabiscuit home with them and then given him to their friend who has tortoises in Deltona. It took about a week of phone calls back and forth trying to get a hold of the right people, but we finally got him home. What a trouble maker!

Now he is living inside the house until we can finish his more secure pen made of wood in the backyard. It is kind of cold for him in the house, so he mostly just sleeps in whatever corner he feels comfortable in that day. We did use a non-toxic glue to put a gps tracker and a dog tag with our contact info on his shell just in case this ever happens again. Hopefully we will never have to use it!

I brought our tortoise out to meet him. He was too busy chowing down to notice. We aren't sure but we think ours is a girl based on the rate it is growing so hopefully these two will give us baby tortoises one day!

We spent way too much money at the pet store buying things for the festival goldfish tank. We even bought a few fresh water fish to keep them company :) James' goldfish died soon after we set them all up, but Rett's is still going strong.

We took our annual trip to Kennedy Space Center! We had a great time, the boys loved it and they were tired out before we were! There is always so much to see there, even though we have been there quite a few times I still don't think I have seen everything. Our first stop was the bus tour to the Saturn V center and to see the launch pads.

Rett is terrible about taking pictures right now. As soon as you tell him you are going to take a picture, he tries to hide.

The boys both went into the international space station model to crawl around and then they came back out of the entrance. The exit has them crawl through a see-through tube that is two stories in the air and when they got to that part, James told Rett, "We can't do that, we have to go back".

After they came back out, Rett went right back in, crawled all the way through the see-through part and as soon as he popped out he said, "See James, I told you I could do it!".

Anthony and the boys went down the shuttle slide a few times:

James was tall enough to go on the launch simulator ride this time, but Rett has a few more inches before he can make the cut. They let us all get in line and then right before it started, they took me and Rett to the "VIP viewing area" that has tv screens set up like mission control that show what is happening inside the ride. They let Rett push the big green button that starts the ride and even gave him a silver NASA coin. I think he had better time than James did!

See you next year NASA!