NASA and the Temple

Typical Sunday activities to combine, right?! We started the morning with the huge and complimentary breakfast at the hotel—yummy and tons of it (eggs, waffles, bacon, sausage, cereals, granola, yogurt, fruit, and lots of juices. Huge win for the Residence Inn!) Then we drove a few miles over to the nearest ward building for sacrament meeting which was such a great meeting (maybe because I sat and listened to all of it without wrestling a toddler :)

After church we headed south to the Johnson Space Center (40 miles or so from where we were). It was such a cool place and one spot Bentley had earnestly requested as we planned our trip. I think he could have stayed there for hour on end and soaked up the facts and history and science of it all. It truly mystifies me but space travel has always been one of those unbelievable things that I just can't wrap my head around, but it's still fascinating and intriguing exploration for sure.

 We were there on May 4th which is an annual Star Wars day for "May the Fourth be with you."

 

Our favorite part of the day was the tram tour all around the official NASA grounds seeing the real deal buildings and offices where astronauts train in simulators, engineers build and test, and where mission control actually directs, observes and communicates with each space mission.

The sheer size of these rockets which launch astronauts into space is astounding. And the construction and chemistry and preparation has to be completely perfect for all of it to work right. All I could think about there was Apollo 13 and the near fatal experience that mission was.  

Some of the quotes I wanted to remember on the display about all the Apollo missions.

 

  It was such an awesome afternoon learning all we did and feeling inspired and completely humbled by the vast size and power of the universe, and space in general. 

 Last stop for the day before heading back to our hotel was the lovely Houston Temple.

We roamed the grounds and found more lovely magnolia trees: