Closing the Hatch.

The Soyuz has landed!

Last week, the Russian vehicle Soyuz made a trip up to the International Space Station with three new astronauts on board, ready to start their ~6 month tour on Station.

With the addition of the three new astronauts, there were a total of 9 on board, along with the Sochi Winter Olympics Olympic Torch. The torch is not the first of its kind to make an appearance in great beyond. No, no. An Olympic torch from 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, GA took a quick trip to space on NASA's shuttle.

But this torch was the first to leave shelter in space. The torch was brought outside Station on a Russian spacewalk on Saturday morning (local time), making this Olympic torch the first to ever be exposed to the vacuum of space.

Last night the Soyuz undocked from Station with Cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin (Russia), and astronauts Karen Nyberg (USA/NASA) and Luca Parmitano (Italy/ESA) and landed in Kazakhstan last night (Nov 10, local time, but morning of Nov 11 in Kazakhstan).

Luckily I got home from dinner with Husband's parents just as the replay was starting on NASATV.

I watched everything:

• The astronauts on board Station saying their goodbyes
• Closing the hatch
• Undocking from Station (with a pretty amazing view of Station from Soyuz)
• Re-entry in to the Earth's atmosphere
• Parachuting to a soft landing on Earth
• Unloading the astronauts from Soyuz into the recliners.

How did I get so lucky?

Warrior Dash and Other Obstacles.

Saturday, November 2nd was a long day, starting at 6:30am when we left our house to drive to Tuscaloosa. Husband drove my mom, our friend Jennifer, and I down so the three of us (Hubs not included) could do the Warrior Dash. It was cold. A high of only about 63 degrees or so.

Here are a few before pictures as we were getting our time chips and race bibs on.

I tried not to smile, But I failed.

I wasn't ready, and Mom isn't good with cameras.

Jennifer ready to tear it up!

As we prepared for our race time to start, the three of us decided to stretch. We mostly stood around holding random limbs in ways that could resemble stretching.

The following photos are us completing obstacles. Note, there aren't many pictures of me because my mom isn't good with cameras.

Jennifer, top right.

I'm scaling this straight board like it's nobody's business.

See Jennifer two people to my right.

Jennifer and I starting the descent downward on the other side.

Mom beginning the climb at one of the last obstacles.

I would say the two hardest obstacles for me (and possibly for Jennifer as well) were the Mud Mounds and the Diesel Dome. 

Picture this: a nice, calf-deep vat of gritty red mud. To get out, you need to climb over a mound of mud that has been slicked down by the sliding bodies of the hundreds who have gone before you in this event. The mound is at least 10-15 feet high, measuring from the bottom of the mud vat. Jennifer and I tried to help each other, so I rested my foot on her thigh and stood, trying to inch myself closer to the top- to no avail, so lost her footing, and we came tumbling down. Then some guy who was helping his girlfriend helped us out! Yay! But then.. once you get to the top, you have to slide back down. ..Into another vat of mud. This one a touch deeper. Repeat. I ended up just slamming my hands and the tips of my fingers into the mud mound to get some kind of leverage! I'm glad I cut my nails Friday night! Then after getting to the top of that mound, you have to do it one more time before getting to move on to the next obstacle.

The Diesel Dome. It's essentially a jungle gym, made of wood (thankfully!). The planks were so far apart though, and it was so muddy and slippery because it came right after the Mud Mounds! Apparently, according to the Warrior Dash volunteer, no one had fallen yet, but I think she may have been lying. I've never been afraid of heights, but when I'm muddy and wet, and balancing on my hands and feet on a board that can't be more than 4" wide, I got a little flustered. Both Jennifer and I made it to the other side successfully!

After completing the actual course (hopefully I'll have more pictures when I see the professional ones), we looked like this: 

Mom stayed relatively mud-free.

Easily, the most difficult part of the race was the hose down afterward to get the mud off. There were literally about 30 hoses and just a line of people ready to hose themselves off. The three of us took turns hosing one another off, for maximum cleanliness. Here's the after picture, of us "clean" and most certainly freezing:

I can't lie, one of the most satisfying things I've done this year was

having the opportunity to hose my warm-natured mother off with

cold water from a hose, in 60-degree weather standing in 4 inches of

mud, surrounded by 50+ other people.

We got relatively clean, then went to collect our beers and donate our shoes.

We decided then that it was about time to head back to the car to get changed and start the journey back home. When we got back to the car, we banished Hubs from the surrounding area, so that Jennifer, mom and I could take turns holding up towels around one another to change out of the "clean" wet clothes, into dry clothes. I'll tell you what, peeling those soaking wet, cold, still-somewhat-muddy pants off my body was such a wonderful feeling. Pulling on warm (from sitting in the sun in the car) shorts was great, too.

After we changed, we Dexter'd up the back seats with plastic drop cloths and towels, and headed on our way. ...To a parking lot where we broke down. After getting the car back up and running, we ventured onto I-20 east and this happened:

There were some serious up-sides and down-sides to this event. On the downside, there were 4 of us in the car, and only enough room for 2 people in the tow truck. On the upside, the tow truck driver isn't allowed to leave people stranded on the side of the road, so he drove my mom and Jennifer to the rest stop a few miles ahead, leaving Hubs and I with strict instructions to try to move the car a little more onto the shoulder (and less in the grass). Well, one of the two things happened. Mom and Jennifer did get to the rest stop. But that dang Impala would just not cooperate. 

Mr. Tow Truck came back and got the Impala all settled on the truck, and dropped me off at the rest stop with Mom and Jennifer, where we were planning to wait for some family who lives in Tuscaloosa to pick us up and bring us to Birmingham, where we'd meet up with Hubs and his dad, Tom.

After about an hour at the rest stop, the family member called me back and said he couldn't get anyone to pick us up. He felt terrible, but I explained that we'd be OK. (If you knew these people, you would know that they would literally drop EVERYTHING at a moment's notice for you, so the fact that they couldn't get us, or find someone to get us, meant that everyone was very seriously doing something that they couldn't get away from.) So Hubs went on Birmingham with the car and waited there, meandering around Barnes & Noble for Tom to pick him up. And the three of us girls waited at the rest stop off I-20 for 3.5 hours for Tom to pick up Hubs, then come get us.

All in all, we were quite lucky. The rest stop had an indoor area, which shielded us from the cold and wind, and, of course, there were restrooms. Jennifer origami'd some fun for us in the form of a dodecahedron ball, with which we played basketball and a number of other random, made-up games.

Hubs and Tom came and picked us up, and we all made it home safely around 11pm. Many, many thanks to Tom for saving the day!

Things we know: Jennifer will probably never EVER ride with us anywhere ever again. 

Side note: check out the fanny pack ;)

In addition, I'm still loving this camera. How great is it that after an event like the Warrior Dash, I can come home and do this:

Yes, that's right. That's my digital camera soaking in the sink

to clean out any external grit, grime, and mud. Love it.

Happy Dorkus

So even though I look like a total dorkus when I'm working Station console, I don't think there's anything else (within reason at this time) that could make me happier, job-wise.

Between the glasses and the headset, I really am a dork.

But I'm OK with being a dork. I was the kid in high school who enjoyed math and science. I have a degree in Physics. Those definitely qualify me as a dork.

But I'm a happy dork. An ecstatic dork. A blessed dork.

The following are pictures I've taken either yesterday or today while working on console.

Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano holding a live public affairs

event from the International Space Station. During this event, he

answered questions from the ground, from scientists and those tuned in,

in Germany, Italy, France, and Israel.

I took this on my way in to the console building, which is called the HOSC

(Huntsville Operations Support Center). 

Different views of the Earth from external Station cameras.

These are from today:

Today astronaut Mike Hopkins is testing a space suit for leaks, so there aren't

anymore situations like what happened a few months back to Luca.

Front shot of the suit! Bonus astronaut legs in the background on the left.

Although the photo is funny, you can easily see astronaut Karen Nyberg working

on a payload experiment in the low center.

This is the view of the console room where we work real-time 

operations with astronauts, scientists in Houston (at Mission Control),

ESA (the European Space Agency in Germany), and JAXA (The

Japanese Space Agency), as well as other scientists around the world.

A photo of the desk where I sit. All of these monitors are packed with the

tools that allow me to control and command to the Station systems onboard, 

making sure of the safe reception of data on the ground.

If I were a person who used hashtags in a non-ironic way, I'd say: #winning #blessed #Ilovemyjob

26

Today is Husband's birthday! He's the big 2-6! I'm constantly surprised that I've known Hubs in some capacity for 7 years and 3 months.

As a tribute to the 7 years I've known Husband, here are pictures from each of his birthdays (or close to his birthdays) that I've been able to share with him.

2006

2006- the year we met. We spent most of the evenings in our first semester at UAH in a group project to create a human-powered water filter. This picture was taken on one of those evenings when we (as a group) just had to take a break and eat a tube of cookie dough. Shortly after this photo was taken, Hubs woke up.

2007

2007- Chris and I decided it would be fun to prank Hubs. While he was taking an engineering test, Chris and I saran-wrapped his car. It's unfortunate that it was raining. Later that evening, Hubs and his family (and Chris and I, as designated best friends) all ate at Buffalo Wild Wings.

2008

2008- The year we officially invested our Wednesdays to our cause: Wednesdays with Brown. If I recall correctly, this photo was actually taken two nights before his birthday, in Bridgestreet. 

2009

2009- The year we started dating, and the year we got engaged. This is a picture of a few of the guys from a poorly planned surprise party I threw Hubs. I did not pay extra for the special Captain Jack Sparrow appearance.

2010

2010 - One must always bring one's felt animal caps to Tony's Little Italy in Providence (now closed, and replaced with a Mexican restaurant).

2011

2011- The year we got married. Here's Husband blowing out the candles on the cake his mom made him. Notice Big Bird, as well as a plane (to signify his new job at Boeing).

2012

2012 - We celebrated our first wedding anniversary, and traveled to New York (the day after his birthday, actually). Here's Husband cutting his Great American Cookie Knicks cake. And yes, I made everyone in attendance for Hubs' birthday wear birthday hats. Husband's was embellished with extra ribbon and curly-q's. 

2013

2013 - Unfortunately I don't have a picture of him/us yet for this year's birthday (mornings in our house can sometimes be a bit of a blur for me). But this is a photo from October 12 when we went to Tate Farms with friends.

My only hope is to get to spend the rest of my life with this face. His quirks, imitations, likes and dislikes all make him who he is, and they are what makes him the man I love and cherish.

Furloughs, Weddings, Arabians, Triathlons and Dashes.

There are a lot of things coming up in our lives! (Well, a lot of them are just me actually.)

First off, I'm happily back at work, thanks to the government of the US putting a tiny band-aid on the debt problem of our great nation. I spent two weeks furloughed. At home and miserable. I've never been a person who is good at sitting still. I can hardly watch a movie straight through without having to get up and move around! So not being at work, which meant not being able to do the things I love, was horrible. I spent the first week (Tuesday afternoon through Friday) doing the things around the house that had been put on the back burner because we both work. Things like laundry, dishes, vacuuming, and such.

The second week I was miserable. No one expected the furlough to continue into the next week, and still I heard people talking that "we'll be back at work by Wednesday." Well Wednesday came and went, and I was still at home. I spent this week moping and trying to keep busy. I met my coworker's new puppy:

Cooper. 1.4 pounds of love and exhaustion

And I became a mall-walker. On Tuesday I walked 7.5 miles between the two Huntsville indoor malls, and then a quick once-around the UAH loop. Then I tried my hand at gardening. I failed at my attempt. I was actually doing well, until I began to dig holes for the tulips bulbs I wanted to plant.. and found that our builder had laid an unfortunate bed of concrete about 7 inches down into the flowerbed. For those interested- concrete is not conducive to flower growth. I had to give up because I am not capable of superman-ing concrete out of the ground with my sheer willpower.

The third week (Monday through Wednesday) I finally decided I was going to embrace the furlough. I rode my bike and ran a collective 15 miles in those three days. I did house things, and prepared for my tutoring sessions. Basically I brought myself back to the real world as much as possible.

Then on Wednesday night. I did something I've never done. I watched a combination of CSPAN and Fox News waiting to hear how the House and Senate would vote to reopen the government. It reopened and I oh-so-gladly went back to work.

++

Aside from furlough news, a few other things have happened in our lives. We went to a wedding on October 5th. The groom is a young man that Hubs had gone to elementary, middle and high school and college with. The bride is a woman who graduated a year (2 years?) after me with a degree in physics; she and I also took a few ballet classes together earlier this year. The wedding was beautiful.

++

Speaking of ballet, have I told you that I'm in one? I auditioned for Alabama Youth Ballet's The Nutcracker and actually got a part! I'll be in the Arabian scene (yes, I, too, think it's funny that I ended up in that specific scene). Rehearsals for the show have been going well. I'm not too talented, and I don't know the terminology, but I'm catching on quickly enough. And I'm really very happy to report that I really enjoy the rehearsals and the other people in my scene. I'm happy there are other adults in the Arabian Corps with me.

++

Now, to a general topic of athleticism: This weekend (3 days from today) I'm participating in my second Indoor Beginner Triathlon with the Huntsville YMCA. I've been running and biking regularly enough, but because the weather has turned colder (without my permission, I might add!), and we got busy with life in general, I haven't been able to swim much since August. The last tri I did went well enough except for the swimming portion.. I seriously thought I was going to drown in 4 feet of water.

Next weekend my mom and I are doing the Warrior Dash. I've read a bunch of tips and tricks about it, and I'm feeling pretty okay about it. I'm excited to get to do this with my mom! She flies into town on Halloween and is staying until November 4. I'm excited to have her! We're going to do a miniature birthday celebration for her since her birthday will be the next week. Maybe I can convince her to wear a birthday hat during the Dash?!

++

I don't have anything else to update on! Sorry this post got away from me!

Shameless photo of Puppy:

In fact, I should be ashamed of this picture. This is an old picture of her

from before we got her shaved. I think she's much cuter fluffy.

'2.' Not 'S.'

Husband and I celebrated two years of marriage together last week.

To celebrate, we went to Nashville for a concert- we saw Hanson (and we're not ashamed of it, thank you!). This is now the third time we've seen them, and they never disappoint. Yes, they're the "Mmmbop" band, but they've really come a long way from that. Check out this and this and this. And what's more is that they write their own music. All of it. And they play it. Live. At their shows.

So they write, then play and sing live, and they do it well. Which is more than I can say for many other "musicians" who "sing" with autotune and synthesizers.

Anyways, the concert was amazing.

Amazing.

On an unrelated note, the camera I bought for the Hawaii trip has been a-may-zing. Our seats for the concert (since last time we saw Hanson at this same location, we had "standing room only" tickets, so I couldn't see anything because I'm typically 5-6" shorter than the people around me, we decided to get actual seats.) were on the second floor right along the railing, which ended up being pretty much perfection. But this camera made it even better:

amirite?

Though, to be honest, Taylor isn't my favorite. Zac is.

Typically he is the drummer, but it's hard to get a decent picture

of a person while they're drumming, so I took this one while

he was showcasing his other musical abilities. And yea, he also

played the piano/keyboard during the show.

Pretty amazing, even if you're not a Hanson fan.

Then, on Saturday, I finally got to use my birthday gift from Husband! You may recall that he bought me a gift card for skydiving. I tried to use it in August, and even showed up for my appointment (with the Corleys in tow), but after an hour of waiting around, we decided to call it a wash and try again a different day due to the impenetrable cloud cover that would just not let up!

So Saturday was our rescheduled date, only one and a half months after my birthday! No matter, I still got to jump, and that's what counts. Except that I somehow managed to delete the few unprofessional pictures that I had from skydiving this weekend, so I have no photographic evidence :(  (Side note, I have asked Ashley for pictures, so when she sends them, I'll include them here)

Now on to the anniversary pictures Sarah took for us!

It was surprisingly difficult to get that "2" balloon to say "2" and not "S."

See?

Happy anniversary to my best friend and the love of my life! I look forward to many more years with you :)

(And Puppy's posing still needs work. She was so distracted by cars driving by, people on the trails, dogs with the people, and squirrels.)