WHAT A DAY

What a fabulous day!  We started off with a bang.  Hot chocolate and a cookie exchange!  Amazingly, we followed this sugar-fest with a very productive morning.

Then a word from the historian.  It's important to check in around the world.

America's New Spacecraft

Today Jack told us that astronauts are interested in exploring Mars, the Red Planet.  Before they can go there though it's necessary do a lot of practice runs. NASA is getting ready and thinks they will be able to have a manned spaceship on Mars in five to seven years.  In the mean time they are experimenting in some pretty funny ways.  Most recently, the spaceship Orion orbited the Earth twice and then launched a capsule.  The capsule didn't contain humans, but rather some other familiar faces from Sesame Street: Ernie's Rubber Duckie, Oscar's pet worm Slimey, and and one of Cookie Monster's cookies! The capsule landed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the Baja Peninsula.  Due to the success NASA administrators call it "Day One of the Mars Era." Thanks for the detailed summary Jack!  Maybe one day one of us will visit Mars!
Check out the launch video!

Finally, a cross country ski adventure.  It was the perfect blue bird day.  The snow was soft and the skiing was fast.  We had some fabulous helpers for when we turned ourselves into human pretzels.  Don't we just live in the most amazing place!  Here are a few of the fun phrases I heard out on the field this afternoon:

"Whew, face shot!"
"This is going to be EPIC."
"It's possible that I might be stuck."
"Woooooooohoooooooo!"