One Again in Raleigh.

...and now who's special.








I just hope they aren't expecting me to make a speach at the wedding party.

Christmas Day at the Strouds:

Christmas morning and Timothy comes storming in to the bedroom. I felt like it was a raid by the Spanish Inquisition.

I recovered and eventually got up.

After a quick breakfast it was present opening time

Box hugging time

Amazing really how easily pleased some people are. this was an empty box. I was not going to camp outside Best Buy overnight thus Tim will not get his Wii until some time in Jan.
It was kind of the store to let us have the display box anyhow.

Traditional English Christmas meal. Turkey and all the trimmings but somehow the sprouts got left in the fridge. oh well.

The participants eating the food was just Hazel, Tim, Jon, and I However, this is a technological age and we were joined by Mum, Helen, Mick, Ian, Paul and Dora all in the UK.

We shared our meal and some considerable time with them by way of webcam.

was a good laugh.

Was the best part of the day sharing Christmas.

After lunch everyone went to their own rooms and played DVD's TV games ready slept and recovered from too much food.

Sometimes Christmas never changes.

Raleigh, North Carolina, yes all work, and a little play:
A shuttle Sonic Boom,and
Helping at a homeless Shelter:
The lead up to Christmas a mixture of events and memories.
Working in North Carolina Triangle Park.
I always try to see something of the area I work around. I dont like to miss an opportunity to see places as to just go to somewhere and work and see only the airports the inside of offices and hotel rooms is to me such a waste.
I read about places and see something of them.
Already I have such a better understanding of the variety of places, peoples and history in the USA as a result.



Outside the Raleigh Museum of History opposite the North Carolina Natural History and Science Museum.







A Saturday afternoon wander around the City of Raleigh.











In a way a typical mid west kind of city.
Was clean and the days warm like the beginning of autumn except is was only a few days before Christmas.





A fully functiojnal original Krispy Cremes donut shop. Donuts being made as I popped in for a coffee and a little indulgence on my walk around the city.






The Capital Building
















































Proof of the winter as the evening chill sets in once the sun set.

A Sunday afternoon discovering the local State Park

The countryside around Raleigh was very like the Surrey countryside back in the UK.

It reminded me a lot of the Common Lands around Epsom and Walton. However, North Carolina does have a varied countryside with Mountains and a large coastal area. Neither of which I have seen........yet.

The hotel as the sun sets on yet another warm day.

The Space Shuttle:

Once back in Houston I was working at home and on the news I heard that the Space Shuttle was coming into land in Florida and flying over Texas for the first time since the tragic crash over Texas.

The Shuttle was coming in overhead on its return about 35 miles North of Houston.

I made sure the kids were notified at Tennis as they were outside and would have heard it and one of the Mums who lived around the corner from Klugie Tennis ranch went around there to tell them.

At 4.16pm I went and stood outside the back of the house, and although I could not see any streaks in the sky, I heard, and felt the sonic boom.

The sound went right through me. Two short deep booms. Tim at tennis at the time heard and felt it also.

Was incredible then 15 minutes or so later the Shuttle landed safetly in Florida.

Although only a relatively small thing in a way, and over in seconds, it was a fantastic thing to experience knowing I had experienced just a little moment in the journey of a vehicle gliding safetly back to Earth from Space.

Helping the Homeless Open Door Mission Houston:

Christmas being about giving I have always felt pretty selfish in recent years and a little useless when you see people having given up time to help others really in need.

When I heard of a couple of friends going to volunteer as a Houston Shelter the day before Christmas, I asked to go along.

Never sure how to help or what to do, this was an opportunity to do something even if only a small gesture.

I used to help out at the Local Mental hospitals in Epsom years ago before they closed them down and sis much when I was actively involved in the Church in the UK in my mid 20's.

How we get so tied up in our own little lives.

We arrived at the place in East Houston and were soon put to work in the kitchens. I started with cutting cakes up and moved onto cutting and dicing 100's of onions. Tearfully, I may say.

Sprouts were a little easier, not so many fumes from uncooked sprouts. (that comes later).

After the prep of the food my stomach was rumbling as I chatted to many of the kitchen staff, a number who stayed in the shelter.

They were cooking 100's of chicken legs, potatoes, veg and gravy . It was a busy kitchen for sure, and hot.

I then helped serve the meals and drinks , feeling a total novice. The people we were serving knew the routine well and I needed their guidance as to the pecking order of serving the fruit juice and waters to the tables.

Everyone was so friendly and willing to talk about their experiences and how they ended up there and what they were doing to get back on their feet again.

I found my little contribution opened up a door for me inside, and I'm sure I received more from the experience, and the 200 or so people there, than they could have gotten from me.

It is all too easy, maybe moreso than we realise to fall into hard times and need I think.

Life is also too short to not do things and miss out on enjoying all we have around us and long to experience whilst we can.

Winter approaches the Geese Fly overhead further South





Sitting in the garden one afternoon and I heard the sound of hundreds of geese flying overhead.



Frost falls on the ground:


7.00am one morning last week and Timothy grabbed my camera and took a few photos before rushing to catch the school bus.













We have had some pretty cold mornings and evenings recently.



















The weekend arrives and time for Timothy to clean the Gerbils.
Always a time for Macie to be able to get that much closer to a lunch she can not have.























Friends ....well not really. The Gerbil planning her escape and Macie salivating.

Sunday: Window Washing and
The Annual Copperfield Christmas Parade
Saturday: Nasa with Tim

Tim decided that he was going into the business of Window Cleaning. His motto being that the windows are so clean that you can walk through them.
He did such a great job, for which I paid him, the windows did look like that could climb through them.



Sunday night and the annual Copperfield Parade down Highway 6 with floats, fire tenders covered in lights and decorations with their sirens blasting out.
Tim and I found a great spot from where to watch the Parade.
It was cold.

As it was so cold we stocked up on some warming Hot Chocolate and a little something else to keep the cold out.
A great view of the Parade I think you will agree.
Wreckers in the back ground all tied up together pulling a Sleigh, decorated in lights and Antlers.


Yummy, and look more Firetrucks.
We had to eat the Donuts as they were obscuring our view.







After the Parade we wandered across to the area where they all ended up and took a closer look at the decorated Trucks.







Tim in the middle of the decorated Firetrucks.





Saturday at Nasa: Johnson Space Center:

Tim and I got up early to drop Hazel at Hobby Airport. She has a week at another very important Travel Convention this time in Las Vegas (right!! another boondoggle !!!!).

NASA - The Johnson Space Center in Houston. The location of Mission Control and the Training Center for the Astronauts and Space Research Center.
The Space Center itself is a great place of learning and they extend that to the people who visit including plenty for the kids to see and touch.
Here Timothy is learning about wind velocity and gravity.

Or more simply put that if you put your head in the way of an updraff that has a ball floating on it the ball will fall down and bash you on the head.





The Eagle has Landed.....(or did it ? for the conspiracy theorists).
Well this one is well and truely stuck hangning above our heads. To think that they landed on the moon in one like that. (or did they?).








Timothy poses with the reflection of his face in the helmet of a space suit used in the Skylab Space Station, when I was about his age.






A Moon Buggy. Just makes me wonder how they got that inside the Eagle. However they did get it there and several are still laying around on the surface of the Moon.
(or are they...for the Conspiracy Theorists).




Futuristic, but a real motorcycle with the wheel on the outside.
Very Star Wars like....









Rocket Park with, Gemini and Mercury and the Mighty Saturn 5 Rocket.









Incredible size of the Saturn 5 as one of the 5 main rocket exhausts dwarfs Timothy.










The Nasa Training area where Astronauts triain in life sized mockups of the Space Station and the Space Shuttle.

Mission Control. People working on preperations for the next Shuttle Launch to the Space Station.
Space Station Control Screens show where the Station is at any point in time. It was approaching South America traveling at 17,000 miles per hour as it orbits the earth.





The New Escape pod for the Space Station to replace the current aging Soyuz escape module.

The Eagle Still landing......

Space walker with the Space Station in the background.

Moon rock.........or is it.....

Tim exploring the micro world. An Elecron microscope enabled you to look at objects on the screen hightly magnified.

Was fascinating especially when I turned the handheld microscope onto Tims ears fingernails and face. Very revealing. Stil fascinating to see the finger nails the cells of the skin and of course, the dirt.