End of the Year Fun Stuff

Okay so I have been less that punctual at a great deal of things lately, especially my blog. So this weekend, I will attempt to hit the fun stuff from the end of the TOY year and leave you with some final reflections. These events and experiences were far more fun, captivating and incredible that I will do justice to in the brief blog...but nonetheless, here it goes.. This one time at Space Camp... I will admit that Space Camp was probably the event of the NTOY program I was looking the least forward to attending. Geeze...I was wrong! I had envisioned hours of rigorous math and science that would leave this humanities chick in the dust. However, it was rigorous and demanding, but one of my favorite events! From the State Costume Parade to building rockets, I had a blast! When we first arrived, we had to the parade of states. We each had to create a costume that showed something about our state. As NC is home of beautiful light houses, I glued sand and shells to my heels and went as Cape Hatteras. From the Starbucks logo from Washington State to Ben Franklin from Pennsylvania, we had a blast. Below are a few photos and the video of our parade of states. If you ever get the opportunity to go to space camp....GO! Click here for the Parade of State Costumes video. Here are a few photos with commentary from the most awesome week in Huntsville, Alabama! State Costumes:

(Kathy Powers from Arkansas as Mother Nature, Erika Webb of Kentucky representing the Kentucky Derby, Kristen Brummel from Hawaii as volcanoes, Shelly Moody as a Maine Lobster and Danielle Kovach as Snookie from the Jersey Shore.)

A glimpse of our TOY class' crazy costumes!

Cheryl Conley of Florida is such an awesome lady! We hardly recognized her as a Seminole!

Darin Curtis as a California Beach Boy, me, and Jay Maebori of Washington as the Starbucks logo.) After the parade of costumes, we worked on everything from Martian Math to landing a shuttle! We worked, learned, and laughed as a team all week long! I built and launched my first rocket, met Rocket Boys author Homer Hickom, survived the "Shonk Awards" and almost died on the way home from our host dinner as our driver drove the wrong way on the road! (Just to clarify, none of the TOYS were driving. Our dinner hosts were from Europe originally.... thankfully we all survived!!) What a crazy fabulous week!