Space, the Final Frontier

This past Monday, I began my first college course in 8 years. I didn't quite finish my degree when I walked with my class in 2006; I still needed a lab science and an elective. So, I am taking Astronomy! It is a 5 week, intensive class that meets for 4 1/2 hours three days a week. That includes lab time. On Monday night, we got to do some dark sky gazing! We drove out to a farm in the middle of nowhere (most of the class got lost on the way due to poor directions) and looked at Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and the moon! This is pretty close to the picture we got, too. We could see three of Jupiter's moons. It was pretty cool. 

In other news, we went to Geekend in Kilgore last Saturday. It was Free Comic book day and Sunday was Star Wars Day (May the fourth be with you). We celebrated with a bunch of other folks at the first annual Geekend. We weren't in time for the free comic books, but we did arrive in time to enter Milli into the costume contest! When I told her that we were going to go look at people in costumes, she ran to her dress up clothes and said that she wanted to wear one. When we got to the contest area, they were still setting up (even though we were 15 min late) and several people urged me to enter Milli, even though her princess outfit wasn't really a geeky costume. I finally asked her if she wanted to, expecting she would say, "No." But she said, "Yeah! Sure!" in that excited way she does. I still thought she might not do it once I directed her to stand with other kids, but she did it! After the fun, we went to eat some frozen yogurt. Both girls were great even though Milli missed her nap and Molly didn't get boobs for almost 8 hours (she just didn't ask because I would have been more than willing to feed her there). Here are some pics of our fun!

Princess Leia and Batman chillin' before the competition.

Princess Milli watching a boy laugh at a cat.

Here's the cat.

These female sith were being criticized by these men for not knowing how to fight with light sabers.

"Here, let me show you how it's done." Then they almost struck my kid in the head. A real sith knows what is behind him.

Costumes.

Loki, the tortoise rocketeer.

Loki's handler.

The man in grey was the live music. The gun toter was the reason we started an hour late- but she won second place.

Kids lined up to show off.

Leia won second place and the 11th Doctor won first.

Milli's cat walk.

Adult costumes. The nerd is a teenage superman. The cat won third place and the steam punker won first.

Short shooter won second.

This was as dressed up as I got.

Milli had her picture taken tons of times by both a local guy whom we have seen at other events and by the Longview News Journal. Both Ed and I were interviewed, as well, but none of us made the very short article in the Sunday Journal. They did, however, post a picture of Milli playing in the dirt on their web version of the same article. When the photographer asked Ed Milli's name and age he said, "I couldn't resist a princess playing in the dirt." I think he has daughters. 

Space is sweet, whether in reality or in science fiction.