Workation

My Workation starts tomorrow. At 6:20am my plane leaves Houston headed for Orlando. I'll be at meetings for work at Kennedy Space Center through the week, and will get to finally meet our ISS International Partners in person. I've told Paul and my co-worker I'm a little nervous since this is the first time I'll be representing NASA in any way to our International counterparts so I'd like to come across nicely. There's a little room on the agenda to work with the partners on the brochure DH and I have been working on, and we just got the first copy from the graphics design group just in time. It still needs lots of work, but it's something tangible for our efforts so far that we can show the rest of the ISS team this week. The is the "Work" part of the Workation.

The "cation" part comes on June 13, which marks Paul's birthday and the shuttle launch of STS-127 (Paul's coming to Cocoa Beach on June 12). We'll be joining the rest of my co-workers at the Banana Creek viewing site for the launch, which is a fantastic launch viewing site. Flight surgeon Tom Marshburn will be on this flight, which is super great! I worked with him on Crew Health Care hardware for the first 4 years or so as a new kid at NASA and he has a great personality. So it's really cool to see him get his first flight!

The launch is scheduled at 7:17am, which means we board our buses from the hotel room around 4:15am. I'm kinda giggling thinking about what me, Paul, and my co-workers will look like at 4am. Pajama party with lots of morning breath and federal employees without their morning coffee?

Assuming the launch is on schedule (I heard just now that the weather is cooperating so far), Paul and I are going to take off to Orlando to hit Universal Studios in a mad frenzy to seek out all roller coasters that we wouldn't otherwise ride with Anna with us (Anna will be visiting Paul's mom in Louisiana). Then the plan is to catch a late viewing of Land Of The Lost at Universal's Citiwalk theater after the them park closes. It will be a long, late day, with probably a few expected thunderstorms. Our plane leaves at 7:30am the next day so we will be spending the night at the Hyatt inside the Orlando airport to make it an easier morning. Yes, it's actually inside the terminal, see (click here)! We saw it the last time we were in that airport and it looked so darned cool.

Paul's plane goes to Louisiana to pick up Anna. Then he drives home to Houston. My plane leaves Orlando and goes straight to Houston, where I plan to sleep the day away until Paul and Anna show up later. :) Sounds like the perfect ending to an outstanding week.

In the meantime, the 6:30am flight tomorrow is going to suck bright and early. But I have a SLEW of free Southwest drink coupons that I can never otherwise use. TT and I are wondering if they'll serve us mimosas this early in the morning :) Will I look bad if I ask?

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This weekend we took Anna to Kemah (Sunday morning). She had a blast and so did we :) I even got a nap in yesterday when Anna napped, which is strange because I NEVER nap. Must have been that margarita at the Flying Dutchman. HOLY COW, that one was STRONG, people!!

Unfortunately, no running took place. I got lazy despite the fine weather. Maybe I'll try tonight.