Disney!!!

We had wanted to take Celeste to Disney World around Christmastime and some close friends of ours (whose son is Celeste's age and friend) were able to come too, making the trip even more fun.

We didn't tell Celeste about the planned trip to Disney World until the moment we picked her up from school after her Christmas party on Friday, December 16^th. We arrived with a newly purchase, hot pink furry "Rockstar" duffel bag, packed with lots of Disney things and activities to entertain her during our long drive ahead. And we told her where we were going, and here's a photo of her reaction!

We met the Baker family at Chic-fil-A and Celeste grabbed her new luggage and rode in their car for the first leg of our trip.

We had such an amazing week of vacation! Here are some of the photos from the trip.

Here's my favorite photo from the Nemo exhibit at Epcot.

Celeste was able to meet most every princess and several Disney characters. But her favorite princess is Rapunzel. Perhaps it's because of her long curls and how often the kids at school say she's like Rapunzel, but regardless, Rapunzel is her favorite. And on our final day at Magic Kingdom, Celeste got to meet Rapunzel and get her autograph and photo.

Some of our best photos are from Epcot.

We had so much fun, but were glad to be back home, whew! Just in time for Christmas. ;)

Black Friday Preparations!

So every year, it has become tradition to go out and buy our Christmas gifts with all of the crazies on Black Friday. This year, my aunt and cousin were in line at Target, while my sister-in-law and and I were in the Kohl's line late Thursday evening. It was so much fun! We were totally crazy, yes, but people watching was hilarious.

Target has been putting out these hilarious commercials for the last couple of years about their Black Friday sale that crack me up. Here are a couple of my favorites from this year's.

So by the time Luwannah and I actually made it over to Target, we had to mimic some random parts from the Target commercials. We just couldn't find a red parachute to run down the aisle with though!

Oh, and yes, those are socks on Luwannah's feet...and flats on mine. The heels just weren't cutting it for the all-nighter.

This next photo was in the Victory Lakes shopping center in the JCPenney/Sports Authority area. Seriously, this was the security that night. We were laughing our tails off... no one was in the SUV. The policeman was in this lifted box thing. I can just imagine it now, "Thief! Stop! Freeze!! I'll be down in about 5 minutes!!" (humming/squeaky sounds start while the thing slowly lowers towards the ground and the criminals make their escape...)

I have to say, I did most of my shopping online before venturing out to people watch... so it was nice not having to stress about getting a certain gift for someone. Everything was so smooth and I even got my first little annual JCPenney snow globe!

Psalm 100

So in preparation for Grandparents' Day at Celeste's school today, she has been learning to recite Psalm 100. It's so cute hearing a 5 year old say all of that by herself! I absolutely love her school!! Enjoy the video I took of her saying it in the car yesterday... after she played that afternoon in the school playground!

Taylor Family Christmas Photos

Well, it's been 2 years since we've had our family pictures taken, and Celeste has grown up quite a lot since then. So last Saturday, we made it over to Portrait Innovations for our Christmas pictures. Here are some of the photos!

As part of the bribe to get Celeste to come and take photos with us, I told her that she could pick out anything she wanted from her clothes to wear and that we would take some special pictures of just her in that favorite outfit. Eric's eyebrows shot up when I told her that, and we both knew it would be interesting to see what she would come up with. She did a pretty good job, and it is totally her!

For this last pose, the photographer had been enamored with her hair and told her to turn around and face the camera. Well, he took about 3 shots of this same pose, and she turned around for each one. It was so cute.

Hard to believe how quickly time flies. Has it really been 5 ¹/₂ years since I had this little baby girl?

Progress

A few months ago, I posted about improving my lifestyle a bit more to tone up. After four months of changing my habits, I'm proud to say that I've seen some awesome changes. But I didn't notice them until I went through some old photos yesterday, and I just had to share!

These two mug shots were taken exactly 2 years apart. You can see the changes in my face!

I'm finding that the clothes I use to wear fit me a lot differently now and while I'm certainly not perfect, I'm really enjoying the way I feel. Eric is also changing a lot! Although I'm not sure he would be okay with me posting his before and after photos on here. :) I really enjoy our new lifestyle and I hope we continue to live it for the rest of our lives.

Wings Over Houston

This past Saturday, we went to the Wings Over Houston airshow at Ellington Field. This was Celeste's first airshow ever, and she was totally pumped about seeing all of those huge airplanes.

We woke up early, got ready and made a pit stop at Shipley's donuts. We arrived at the airshow at 9:00am and began touring the static display. Celeste absolutely loved the planes that were painted like "sharks," and had to pose by them for the camera. It was so cute!

One of the best parts about the show was the Heavy Metal Jet Team. Wow. They were incredible. I didn't get too many shots of them because there was hardly time to pick my jaw up off the ground! They were awesome!

Of course, like any kid, Celeste just had to have her own airplane toy from the airshow booths. So of course, like any normal parent wrapped around their kid's fingers, we bought her one (while I'm sure she thought, "Ha ha, Suckers!!") And she has been pretending she's flying it ever since.

We had a blast at the airshow! Can't wait for next year's!

She Sings

Celeste sings, all the time, everywhere. She sometimes makes up her own songs, and at other times, she sings things she's learned at school or listens to otherwise.

Yesterday, we ended up running errands all day long after leaving the gym. She was singing "God of this City" over and over and over again in the car, and so I held my cell phone behind me while I was driving to catch her. So cute!

The Final Space Shuttle Mission

At the close of the STS-135 shuttle mission, I began to wonder how I would even begin to sum up my experience working on the Space Shuttle Program. It has been the most exciting, invigorating thing I could have imagined doing with my career, and I have been very, very blessed. Working at the TPS Imagery Coordinator console (TIC) in the Shuttle Mission Evaluation Room (MER) in Houston's Mission Control Center (MCC) has been the highlight of my career up to this point. I'm going to miss the on-orbit console support that we provided to the Space Shuttle Program during the next couple of years, but I'm excited about the things to come!

After writing multiple long paragraphs about my work that were way too in depth for this blog, I decided to scrap it all and just go with the pictures and videos from the last flight, STS-135. Enjoy!

This video is of the KSC Closeout Crew saying goodbye to the Space Shuttle Program (God Bless America!!):

My friend and coworker, Dave Melendrez, created this next video to commemorate the final Space Shuttle launch, ever. It's a long one (17 minutes), but good.

Leslie and I were very blessed to be able to make the trek to Florida's Space Coast to watch the April 2010 attempt of the last launch of Endeavor for STS-134. In this trip, we were able to see the final vehicle to take flight in the Space Shuttle Program, the Space Shuttle Atlantis, up close and personal as it was being prepped for it's final voyage in the Orbiter Processing Facility. So amazing!!

The final video I have is an incredibly reflective one about all the things we've accomplished in space. It's a great way to conclude this blog. If you don't watch the others, watch this one. What Kind of World Do You Want: