3-2-1...

Yesterday was the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis! And because we are sort of a family of nerds (cool nerds, but still), we celebrated. When Tyson got home from school, we read through all the information that his Aunt Heather (who works for NASA) sent him a few weeks ago. In anticipation of this launch, I saved the big envelope of stuff until yesterday. We learned a lot about the shuttle, its missions, and about baseball in space.

After that, we turned on "NASA on HDNet," which we recorded (thank goodness for the DVR!). We watched all the pre-launch coverage while we built the Space Shuttle Discovery glider:
We decided that since it is glued together, this particular glider will actually have her maiden voyage this afternoon. It was determined that the wet Elmer's glue made the hull structurally unsound and we felt that to attempt to fly it before a thorough drying period would result in a mini-disaster.

We completed the glider with about 4 minutes to spare, so we snuggled up on the couch and watched the launch:
Tyson was really excited about the whole thing. We will be following this mission... Ty is especially interested in the space walks the crew will be doing. I'm so happy he's finally old enough to understand and be interested in this kind of thing.
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And on the knitting front, I spent a few minutes over the weekend winding this lovely fiber:
For this lovely project:
I actually had to frog this bit of progress, but I cast on again and have actually done two additional pattern repeats. I think I'm doing it right, though it's hard to tell because when I'm working on it... well, it resembles a big knot of yarn. I dry blocked it briefly yesterday, and it does look like the picture, so I'd say I'm on track.

This will be my airplane project for my upcoming trip to Phoenix, so I need to learn the pattern well enough to do it while listening to an audiobook and praying in a state of panic from having to fly. I'm hoping that knitting on a project I actually have to pay attention to will help my cognitive brain take over a little and distract me from the paralyzing fear my irrational brain will be experiencing. Well, we can hope, anyway.

I've got three or four additional posts on deck for this week, so check back often!