Kennedy Space Center

You guys: Hayley Tyler has now been to the Kennedy Space Center, and her life is one step closer to being complete.

It is hard to put into words what I was feeling that day. I was a total geekazoid tourist; I was perfectly at home. At some points close to tears. Cheesy, I know, but it's the truth.

In typically Hayley fashion I fell asleep in the passenger seat on the 1-hr drive from our resort to the space center. When I awoke, the first thing that announced to me where we were was the looming Vehicle Assembly Building in the distance. I pointed it out to Brent and gazed and gazed and gazed until it was no longer in view.

As we approached the visitor parking lot I saw a sign that was flashing news about the space center. When I read the words, "Space Shuttle Endeavor is on Launch Pad 39a" I screamed and almost fell out of the car while it was moving. I hadn't dreamt I would be able to see a shuttle pointing toward the sky on a launch pad, but it appeared to be so.

Upon entrance of the visitor center Brent and I marched straight to catch our behind-the-scenes tour bus that we had purchased tickets for. I snapped this photo from my seat on the bus. Cute gate huh? Would any of you complain if I had this gate recreated for my home when we have a house?

Fun fact of the day: The Kennedy Space Center property doubles as a wildlife conservatory. There are many acres of open space within the KSC land, hundreds of marshes, and miles of rivers jetting out into the Atlantic Ocean. Therefore, this post will have a mixture of space nerd photos and pictures of birds and animals.

The Vehicle Assembly Building.

I found myself so jealous of the pelicans (and all of the other wildlife on the reserve). They have no idea of the PRIVILEGE of where they live. They have no way of appreciating the fact that they are sitting right across the water from the homes of the Endeavor, Discovery, and Atlantis. That whenever they please, they could fly to a high perch on top of the launch tower from which Apollo 11 left the Earth.

Dolphin fin.

The Vehicle Assembly Building, in all it's glory.

This is where the big orange external tank undocks after its voyage from somewhere in Louisiana.

This is the road that the space shuttle travels as it perches on the mobile launch platform on the giant crawler on its way to a launch pad. The giant crawler straddles the strip of grass, it's enormous wheels taking up the entire width of each rocky strip.

The highlight of my day. The Endeavor is just behind the external tank and the solid rocket boosters. Unfortunately this is the closest we got to seeing the actual shuttle. Even if we could have gone to a viewing location on the other side of the launch tower, the shuttle would have been hidden from view by the launch tower arm that covers it to protect it and provide easy access for the technicians that need to touch it up before its April 19th launch into space.

Is this picture for real? This is the closest the public is allowed to the launch pad. We were 800 meters away from it. On launch day, even this distance is too close. 800 meters away from the launch the sound waves alone would kill you. Three miles from the launch pad is the closest safe distance when those rockets start burning their fuel.

This bunker is left over from the Apollo days. I'm trying to remember what our tour guide said it was used for. It provided protection for some piece of equipment during each launch...wish I could remember what equipment that was.

The next stop on our tour took us to this close up view of the Vehicle Assembly Building. If I could just be on the technicians who gets to work in there, I would be perfectly content. Each shuttle gets prepped for launch for WEEKS in there before it is taken to the launch pad.

One of the giant crawlers.

An old married eagle and his wife, keeping watch over their nest. Did you know eagles mate for life? And return to the same nest every year to raise their next set of kids?

This guy was just chillin' in a marsh just yards away from the space shuttle re-entry runway. He was just one of the thousands of alligators on the KSC land, and one of 25+ that we saw that day.

After our behind the scenes bus tour, we got to view the Apollo era launch control center. These are the very computer consoles from which Apollo 11 and Apollo 13's launches were controlled.

A recovered Apollo command module.

A space helmet worn on the moon.

The underbelly of a full-size replica of a space shuttle on display at the KSC Visitor Complex.

These pictures still take my breath away. This is Hayley Tyler inside a (replica) space shuttle payload bay.

The Rocket Garden. So much history on display here.

The Space Center closed to the public at the shocking hour of 5, but somehow Brent and I managed to stay on the property till close to 6, snapping pictures and reveling in our patriotic fervor for the glory of our nation's space age.

It was the best. day. ever.

Our Time in Florida

Just over a week ago Brent and I came home from our week long vacation in Florida. We had a marvelous time together. We vacation so well together...we always have the same ideas at the same moment of what good vacationing is. We were best friends before this trip, but we became bestest friends on the trip.

We took something like 700+ pictures, and I promise to post only 75% of them on my blog. I've divided the pictures up between the different days of our trip, so each post will be about a different theme park or attraction. As for this first post, it will be about our trip in general and about the resort we stayed at.

Brent got all fancy with the camera on our flight over. Beautiful picture, huh?

Our first sighting of our resort as we exited the freeway. We stayed at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin. Well, to be more precise, we stayed at the Dolphin, whose triangular structure you can see pointing out above the Swan.

This, my friends, is the Dolphin, as it appears when you pull into the valet parking lot (before you realize that you need to go farther down the street to the self parking unless you want to pay mucho bucks).

View from our hotel window. The Swan was just across the lake...lagoon...pond...whatever.

To the left, the red and white buildings are Disney's Boardwalk Resort.

Our view of Epcot from our hotel room window.

Our view of Hollywood Studios from our hotel room window.

Night view of the place we called home for one week, taken near the Swan.

Beautiful.

I made us reservations for this steak house for our first night in Florida. It is inside the Dolphin, so we didn't have to go far. Don Shula's Steak House is themed after the 1972 Miami Dolphins' "Perfect Season." They serve the largest steaks I have ever seen in my life. I ordered the 32-oz prime rib and ate almost half of it. Brent ordered a porterhouse, and declared many times during our stay and a few times since we've been home that it was definitely in the top three steaks he's ever had the privilege of eating.

So why did we choose to stay at the Dolphin, you ask? Easy. We wanted to stay at a Walt Disney World resort from which we could either walk to all of the theme parks or have access to Disney World's amazingly efficient shuttle system. The Dolphin was the most affordable of all of the resorts. That's why we stayed there.

We visited many of the other resorts situated in different areas of Walt Disney World, and we found that by far, our location provided the most escape from the hubbub and frenzy of tourists. Walking "home" to our resort each night always had a calming and relaxing effect...it was often the only time of day when we had more than 5 feet of personal space outside of our room.

The Dolphin had a fantastic swimming pool, beach volleyball areas, hammocks, jacuzzis, tennis courts, basketball courts, you name it. We only found the time to use the swimming pool, jacuzzi and hammocks, but we found ourselves looking on longingly at families playing together in the other recreational areas as we hurried past them to bigger and better things, like the theme parks.

To end this post, I leave you with this picture. A topsy-turvy cake created by the chefs at the Cape May Cafe at Disney's Beach Club, a buffet style restaurant where Brent and I ate brunch our last morning in Orlando.

(To be honest, I'm struggling to come up with a way to tie in the last picture with the rest of this post...let's just pretend it belongs, ok? It needs a home.)

The Job That's Better Than I Could Have Ever Asked For

For those of you that have been reading my blog for about a year, you may remember these posts about my job search...this one and this one. In both of those I talked about QAI, or Quality Auditing Institute, a company that does physical and fire resilience testing on building and construction products. I was one of the candidates for an engineering test technician position that they had open last year.

Anyway, ever since I went out to the lab for an interview last May, I believed that QAI was the perfect fit for me. I wanted to start a career there so badly. And even though they ended up choosing another candidate for the position they had open last spring, they encouraged me to keep in touch because I was still going to be in the running for future positions.

So I called QAI every month or two just to see if there were any engineering positions open. Month after month, the answer was always no.

Finally, in December of 2010, Brent came up with an idea that set me on fire. I contacted QAI and explained that I was getting rusty in my skill set and was desiring to be in an environment where I could maintain my engineering skills and develop new ones. I offered to go to the lab once a week for a sort of unpaid internship to help out the engineers with any odd jobs they might have for me.

Surprisingly enough, QAI jumped at the offer. The first week of January 2011 I went to the lab for the first time as an intern and started learning the ropes around the lab. The QAI staff was extremely welcoming and all were willing to take breaks from their schedules to answer my many questions when I became inquisitive about the exciting projects they were working on. In the coming weeks I was given a few projects of my own which I tackled to the best of my ability, my motivation being the idea that if I worked hard enough, I might just be offered a job there some day.

Well, praise God, two weeks ago almost to the day, my supervisor took me out to lunch to let me know that from then on they would be paying me for my internship, that I could start coming to work two days a week, and that within the near future they would be hiring me full time.

I'm still kind of in shock. I can't believe that I'm going to be employed full time doing work that is in the field of my education, that is extremely FUN and fascinating, with people that are kind and fabulous to work with. So, so cool. Thank you God!!!

The Story of the Prodigal Diamond

As you all know, Friday, February 4th was the fateful day that my diamond escaped from the claws of my engagement band. My best suspicion was that it fell off while I was working on bar at Starbucks. It was more than a suspicion...I pretty much had that instinctive knowledge that my diamond was somewhere on the countertops or floors of my store. My managers and fellow baristas were all SO compassionate upon hearing that I had lost my diamond, and all eagerly put in time to look for it.

My managers even sifted through the dirt of that day's sweep job with their own hands. That's how much they care for me. :)

However, during all of Friday's searching high and low at Starbucks, the diamond never showed up. Meanwhile, I was at home all afternoon sweeping my own house and sifting through the dirt, vacuuming and sifting through that dirt, just in case my intuition was wrong and the diamond had fallen off before I got to Starbucks that day.

By the time Saturday morning hit I had pretty much come to terms with the fact that my diamond was gone forever. Brent and I were saddened; not completely devastated, but saddened. :(

Monday morning as I'm working on chores in my home, my phone starts ringing. I get to it right as the ringing stops, and I see that one of my managers tried to call me. The thought that she was calling about my diamond doesn't even cross my mind; as I press the buttons to listen to the voicemail she left me, I think that she was calling me to ask if I could cover someone's shift today.

Instead, this is what I hear: "Hayley, you are going to flip out. Kyle found your diamond."

I'm SO thankful for how God lined things up so perfectly for my diamond to be discovered that day. Even though the floors had been swept and mopped six times since my diamond was lost, my manager thought to remind Kyle to keep a lookout for it while he was sweeping the floors. Kyle swept the floors and didn't find anything. He mopped the floors and didn't find anything. But on his final stroke with the mop, he saw something shiny skid across the floor, ricochet against a wall and slide to a halt two inches from going underneath the dark black abyss of the refrigerator. He stooped down, picked up the shiny thing, and the celebration began.

When I got off the phone with my manager telling her I couldn't wait to come and pick up my stone, I shrieked and shrieked and jumped and jumped for joy.

Look at how tiny it is too! I know this is a really fuzzy picture, but this is the diamond on its side in my hand...you can barely even see it, and yet someone found it while mopping! That shouldn't have happened! But it did!

My rings and the diamond are safely in the possession of my jeweler for repair as we speak. :)

Prayer Request

Today as I was driving home from work I discovered that the center diamond of my engagement band is missing. I know that I have a lot of "prayer warrior" friends...would you please join me in asking God to let the diamond be found and returned to my hand?

I'm sure it must have fallen out while I was working at Starbucks this morning. I KNOW I saw the diamond on the ring last night, and I'm 85% sure I saw the diamond on the ring when I was washing my hands at work this morning...so it must have happened sometime after that.

I've got quite a mystery on my hands (no pun intended). Not only is the center diamond missing, but both the engagement and wedding bands are severely deformed. I noticed the rings fitting tighter on my hands yesterday, but I attributed it to swollen fingers and didn't examine the rings. When I found out that the diamond was missing, I took the rings off to examine them and found them to be grossly misformed.

What in the world? How did this happen? I've been wracking my brain to try to remember something I've done in the past few days that could have caused this kind of damage. I haven't remembered ANYTHING of the sort yet. No unusual lifting, nothing.

Weird, weird. Almost heartbreaking. But it is good and encouraging and uplifting to know that we know and trust a GOOD God, and that all the jewels on the Earth are His to begin with. He gives, and He takes away, and blessed be His name.

"Both riches and honor come from You, and You reign over all. In Your hand is power and might; In Your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all." ~ 1 Chronicles 29:12

My Awesome Husband!!!!

So I just recently became an avid fan of Gilmore Girls. I've started slowly watching them via Netflix, and am now in the middle of the 2nd season. Brent hears me ask him almost every night if we can PLEASE please just buy the 1st season on iTunes cuz I know I'll watch it many times over in the course of my life.

Well today a package came in the mail, addressed to him. He had told me such a package was coming, and had instructed me to immediately open in and put it in the fridge...it would contain perishables. When the package came I forgot all such instructions and set it down by the front door.

When he came home from work, he saw the package on the floor, knew what it was, opened it and put it in the fridge without me knowing. Then he told me to go look. This is what I saw.

You see, I was down on the couch sick for most of last week, and he had such compassion on me that he ordered the COMPLETE Gilmore Girls series for me, thinking it would get to me while I was still sick. That's why he told me it was perishable and I should open it and put it in the fridge...he wanted me to open the package and discover his gift and enjoy it right away. :) Unfortunately it came a little too late to enjoy while I was distraught on the couch, but the site of this in the fridge still made me squeal and scream and jump up and down and hug him. :)

(Sorry for fuzzy pictures. This post was done in a huge rush...I'm eager to open my gift. :)