Up, up, and away!

I have one very clear memory from when I was little. My cousins and I were out at my grandparent's house in "the country" (aka Kurten, TX), where a person could see every star in the sky. The night was perfect and there must have been a meteor shower, because my cousins and I laid in the back of my grandfather's truck and counted shooting stars. I remember that night being magical and I loved every second of it! When I got home, I told my mom that when I grew up, I wanted to be an astronomer. She promptly told me that I could not be an astronomer, as they didn't make any money! So much for nurturing your children's dreams! Needless to say, my life did not lead me on a course to become the next great astronomer. To this day, I still love looking at the stars. I am lucky to live in an area where, although the stars aren't the brightest, I can still get a pretty good view from my back yard.

So you can only imagine that on Monday morning when I heard on the local news that the space shuttle was going to be visible in the night sky, I decided that I had to see it! When Jeremy got home, we went scouting for a good location in our neighborhood to watch the shuttle. We found a local park, but decided that we wanted to share the moment with our 3 daughters. We went home to put leashes on the girls, who were extremely excited, even though they had no idea what was going on. We went back out to the park and stared at the southwest sky until we saw it! Honestly, it may not sound like a big deal, but this was truly an amazing sight. I had wondered how I was going to know what I was looking at, but as soon as we saw it, it was obvious. It looked like a really bright and really fast star traveling through the night sky. It was only visible for about 2 minutes, but it had to be the coolest thing ever. How amazing is it to know that there are actually people being rocketed through space in a relatively tiny little craft?

I think I would have made a great astronomer, mom. Although I know that where I am in life is exactly where I need to be!