Seattle!

On my last big adventure we flew all the way to the west coast to a city called Seattle, tucked in a bay off the Pacific ocean and surrounded by beautiful mountains. We walked all over the city and down to this structure called the Space Needle which was built in 1962 as part of the World's Fair. Then we walked downtown to Pike Place Market, a famous market where you can buy all sorts of fun stuff, even fish and seafood. It's crazy, when you order fish the guys (fishmongers) throw it to each other. After our long day of walking we stopped off for a latte, which is coffee made with espresso and steamed milk. Seattle is famous for the best latte's!

Watch the fishmongers throw salmon! 

The Space Needle is so tall!

Shopping at Pike Place Market!

Latte break!

What a beautiful view of mountains!

NASA Part II

This morning the last shuttle to ever fly in outer space has landed, concluding an era in American history. I took a whole bunch of pictures while at NASA, even one of myself at the Flight Director's desk in Mission Control. There are a few Mission Controls, one in Florida where the shuttle launches and lands, and one in Houston, for when the shuttle is in space. And yet another Mission Control just for the International Space Station.

Mission Control is where people on Earth, especially in Houston, help the astronauts with tasks and scientific experiments. For example, Aunt Molly's friend Tifanie writes what are called "trajectories" for the robotic arm on the space station. Basically, the United States is working with many different nations around the world to build the International Space Station. A big robotic arm on the outside of the space station takes parts, carried by the space shuttle, and puts those parts together with the astronauts helping out. That's how NASA and other similar agencies around the world work together, in peace and harmony, to do space construction! It's funny to think we now work so closely with our former enemies, like Russia, to build things in outer space. I guess in space, everyone gets along, no star wars in this universe!

Over time and many, many years the International Space Station has slowly been built. It serves as a home and scientific lab in outer space for astronauts and none of it could have been possible without the space shuttles. 

Space Station Mission Control. They work around the clock here because there are always astronauts in space.

Mission Control for the Space Shuttle. I got to sit at the Flight Director's desk!

Aunt Molly's friend Tifanie traveled to Florida to watch the last launch. This is the Space Shuttle Atlantis and it's flight crew.

This is a picture of Tifanie who is a flight controller. She was the lead designer on this last mission, writing trajectories for the robotic arm. 

This shows how the robotic arm works. The shuttle opens up and docks (attaches itself) and the arm reaches from the space station to take the parts brought by the shuttle.

After the robotic arm grabs the parts, it attaches them to the space station with the help of the astronauts.

Here you can see how, over the years, the space station has grown. Pretty cool!

NASA Part I

It's been a while since I've written but I have to say, this last adventure might have been one of the most exciting ever. Aunt Molly and I went to visit her best friend Tifanie, who is a flight controller at NASA in Houston! The trip started at O'hare airport where we boarded our flight down to Texas. I usually fly by envelope, but this time I got my own seat on an airplane. 

Here I am looking out the window, ready to board the airplane.

 

Buckle up for safety! 

 This is so much better than traveling by envelope!

Arrived at NASA, got my visitor badge and saw some big rockets on the way in.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

If I didn't see it with my own eyes, I'd never believe it. This past weekend the city of Chicago celebrated St. Patricks day with a really big parade and a very bright green river!  Isn't that the craziest thing? They turn the river green!

It's thought that a leprechaun appears very early and magically makes the river green. Turns out the tradition started with a plumber who approached the city with an idea to use a dye, initially developed to detect leaks into a river, to make this Chicago channel glow emerald. Other cities have tried to emulate this unique Chicago tradition, but for some strange reason or perhaps for the luck of the huge Irish population in this city, it only works here!

Happy St. Patrick's day!

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat

It's been a while since I posted, I much preferred to stay inside because Chicago gets so cold and windy in the winter!

I did brave the February weather one day to meet Grandma at the Art Institute of Chicago. We walked around and looked at so many beautiful paintings but I think my favorite was this painting called Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat.

George Seurat was a French post-impressionist painter, which basically means his paintings are very colorful, and he used a unique method to imply light and color in his art. HIs method, or way of painting, was called "Pointillism." When I stood very close to the painting it appeared to be a whole bunch of little dots! I'm not much of a painter, but I do know that mixing red and yellow makes orange. Well, Mr. Seurat didn't so much mix the paints, but would paint a bunch of red and yellow dots really close together. Looking closely, the individual red and yellow dots are clear but from farther away they all blur together to appear as orange.

The little girl in the painting reminded me of you Ada, I think you'd love this piece of art.

Da Bulls!

I know if anything I should probably be a Pistons fan but I couldn't help to be excited when I found out I would attend my very first professional sporting event, a Chicago Bulls basketball game! It was so fun, the Chicago Bulls won 6 titles in the 1990's, they three-peated…twice! The Pistons never did that. One of the greatest players in basketball history, Michael Jordan, played for the Bulls.

And would you believe the Chicago Blackhawks play hockey in this very stadium? Of course they don't play on the basketball court, that would be silly. Underneath the basketball court there is an ice skating rink, and when it's the Blackhawks turn to play workers can take apart the basketball court in under four hours. Seems like a lot of work to me but it must be worthwhile because the Chicago Blackhawks just won the Stanley Cup, which means they are the champions. I got to see the big Stanley Cup Champion banners hanging from the ceiling. I think it's really cool the championship trophy is called Stanley, but that's just my bias.

Watch this video of me cheering as loud as I can during the start of the game.

 

Christmas in Chicago: Part 2

The Chicago Christmas festivities continued when Aunt Molly took me to the Lincoln Park Zoo to see the Christmas lights. The city of Chicago has a free zoo only a few blocks from where she lives, and each year they decorate it for Christmas. I've never seen so many Christmas lights in one place, lights of all different colors, blinking and flashing, it was incredibly bright. Not to mention all the animals I got to see, penguins, a cheetah, and monkeys. One monkey seemed quite taken with me, the picture is a little blurry because it was night-time but there he is looking right at me!