Getting ready for Christmas

I guess I have already broken my promise to update every week, but I'm back. We had great Thanksgiving. We got together with our Clear Lake family - all of our friends here in Houston who live really far away from their families. Over the weekend we worked on the house and garage. We also started our Christmas shopping - I can't believe how fast time flies. It was just September. We also put up our decorations. It was great to have a few days off. I needed it and I know Lenny did. Unfortunately, I had to travel right away after the relaxation. I went out the Kennedy Space Center for some meetings. The nice part was the you could see Atlantis stacked for STS-122 on pad A from conference room window. I also got to see a design unit of the heat shield for the CEV crew module. It's great to see the result of all the design and analysis. I posted a picture below - just imagine the big disk around the blunt edge of the gum drop shaped entry vehicle. It's pretty big for a capsule. I will have to shift back over to Space Shuttle work next week for the mission - it's scheduled for December 6 - 17. Let's cross our fingers that it all goes well and on time so Lenny and I can go up to Michigan for the holidays to see our family. It's been too long since we have seen everyone - we miss them! I think all my nieces are growing up too fast! TTFN!

Our family in front of the tree.

A big piece of hardware and the team that built it.