John F Kennedy Space Centre

Up and at em at 8am, yep the late nights are killing everyone, especially the kids! On the bright side I had my first full nights sleep, such a big girl now! So we didn't hit the road till about 9:40 getting us to the space centre just after 10am. We purchased a ticket which included the today and tomorrow tour, hmmm I could of missed that! The beginning was interesting and getting up close to the launch pads was unreal but the other bits, yawwwwn. Glenn on the other hand loved it, he's fulfilling a childhood dream which is great to be a part of. We saw some interesting wildlife, most dead, lol, but they include a coyote, racoon, eagles, voltures, wild pigs, manatees (sea cows, like big seals) and kalahni saw a gator!!! We saw a squirrel yesterday too, so cute! So pretty much while Glenn was listening to all the ins and outs of the space shuttles I was wildlife spotting! Our last stop on the tour was to a big hanger which inside stored the Saturn 5 rocket! It was monstrous!!!!! Glenn was in his element, hence we have about a 1000 photos of it! The kids were in absolute awwww. But that wasn't the best part of the day, our last stop was at the space shuttle simulator! I was nervous to say the least but figured it wasn't a roller coaster and I wasn't going to lose my belly and hey I'll probably never get back here so what the heck! The girls were in, not lexi she was just a bit too small, so Janet stayed with her. Charli was hesitant but decided to come and kai said no. So off we go up the ramp and low and behold but who should come running up the ramp.......KAI! "r u sure mate???" a nod was his response. So we are next group in line to go in and all we can hear is this huge rumbling and could feel the ground shaking, holy s*#t what have I done???? The doors open and in we go, our pre flight safety talk just scared me even more and we were all thinking, oh no kai is gonna hate this, but on we went into our shuttle, just a seatbelt across the lap, how bad could this be????? I turn to look at kai and see tears streaming down his face, oops too late mate we're in! The ride started with " hello recruits, when a shuttle takes off it's not in this position so let's get u there to start" ahem pardon me???? And back we go till we are vertical, the girls and I laughed and laughed. Then the countdown started and off we went!!!!! The shaking and vibrating was intense and the simulation of g forces felt like an instant facelift! Whoosh into space! Then engines off and silence! Ahhhh this is nice , oops hang on what the, weightlessness is required here so let's tip u all the way forward now to simulate that feeling! Lol, then The roof opened up and we
were looking at the earth and the stars, so pretty. The roof closes they return us to our start position and off we get, a little groggy I might add the head was spinning, but what a rush! Loved it! So much so that when the girls and I saw Glenn taking Janet on we raced back up the ramp and joined them for round 2! Scaring the life out of Janet the whole time of course, cause we thought it was funny! And yep by the time we sat in our shuttle for the second time Janet was saying " what am I doing here???!" she squeezed the girls hands the entire ride but came off with the biggest grin on her face and a smlighkty tighter looking face! Lol. Time to head home, by now it's 6pm and we are all buggered, gee something different! Lol. We get back to the resort by 7:30 ish to call it a day BUt Hold on a minute the shops are open, outlets here we come! A quick look, kalahni found a couple of things but we plan on heading to the premium outlets (the same as Vegas) tomorrow, so we took note of what we found, Inc a bigggg samsonite duffle bag, and will return if need be! A huge storm hit, very typical for this time of year, and that brings me to right here right now, sitting in the room finishing off my blog. It's 8:50pm and we are about to head out for dinner, one day we might eat before 8pm!!!!! Shopping tomorrow, although there are no crowds we figure if we steer clear of the parks over the weekend they should be even quieter come Monday! Wish me luck!!!!!!!!
Till next time
Cheers
Clair xx