Thanksgiving with Astronauts

Another busy week has flown by becoming a blur and blending into the new week. Last week was spent in meeting after meeting…understanding software, planning for the EVA, planning for crew training, planning for the next ISS increment, planning for the next flight, and planning for future flights. I had the chance to do a little mentoring last week too, which is always fun and encouraging because it means that someone else should soon be able to help lighten our work load! Really I just enjoy helping people learn how to do this job and giving them feedback and encouragement…knowing that it will help me personally in the future is just a bonus.

Friday night our life group got together, and Jenny led us in some discussion and reflection about ourselves. It was a pretty neat exercise. She had us draw a face on one side of a piece of paper. Then we passed it around to everyone in the group, and each person wrote something about you on your piece of paper. Those comments turned out to be the surface level…what we put on, share with the people around us, and allow people to see. Then we flipped the paper over and wrote about the things that we were really struggling with or dealing with right now. Of course, that was the deeper side that we often don’t share with people...we try to deal with it on our own and appear perfect to the world. The great thing about this is that we really don’t have to go through life alone. Of course, we have God, but He has also provided us with friends to give the love and support we need. We just have to take the time and opportunity to share our lives with our friends so they can be there.

Saturday was a gorgeous day. I had to work on console in the morning, but in the afternoon, Ross and I went to the park and had a picnic. We threw the football and Frisbee around, played on the tire swing, and watched the sailboats glide by on the bay. It was a nice break from a busy week.

This is normally a week that most Americans look forward to. You get at least one day off of work, spend time with your family, and eat lots of good food. For me this will be a busier than normal week because I’m working on console in the evenings and supporting meetings and crew training during the day. There is a spacewalk (EVA) from the space station tomorrow where one of the crew members will be playing golf…I think it’s for advertising. Then I get to spend my Thanksgiving with the crew. Ross is going to be cooking a delicious meal, so I won’t be missing out on the traditional good food this year, but I will certainly miss getting to see everyone. Ross may go to a friend’s house in the evening to spend time hanging out and playing video games…that should be fun!