Tuesday, June 09, 2015

Feels like the same old thing....

  I was thinking about it today and realized that yes, I feel like I am writing about the same old thing all the time.  So, I just haven't written a blog in a long time.

This spring was a little crazy.  The weather would not get it together for March and April, so our normal weekend on the water got pushed back to MAY.  Plus our vacation to Florida also got squeezed in there.

It's already June and much has happened in the last couple months.

D came for Easter and we hit Shanty Hollow lake; because of all the rain, the Barren River was way too high and not safe to be on.  That was a lovely day, the sun was out. We hiked to the waterfall.  I'll look for a picture.


We managed to get on the water a couple times in April.  The creeks were all up a bit which made it pretty fun.

I got more hours at my mall job.  The assistant manager quit, so we had a lot of hours to spread around to everyone else.  I was working 6 days a week, between school and the mall.  I was ready for our vacation in May.

Tom and I took off to Florida.
We had a great time stopping to see John and Missy in Alabama.  It really helped break up the drive going to and from.  We took the boats this time and managed to go Kayaking a couple times - in between Universal Studios days.   That was awesome.

Going to NASA and Kennedy Space Center was truly great. We did the big tour and saw the space shuttle launch pads and the giant mover.  Space X has already taken over one of the launch pads and other companies have taken some of the other old spots on the grounds.
Seeing Space Shuttle Atlantis was the BEST thing ever.  I always wanted to see one and it was even better than expected.

The whole set up was great and people had lots of kids there, and I guess that is who a great deal of the place is built for.  I just don't think most of them got much out of it.  I was amazed at the amount of real things we created in the 60's.  There were so many things I did not know.
I think the reason we stopped liking space so much was the extended time between the moon missions and the Space Shuttle launches.  It took 12 years.  The entire 70's went by and the only thing that we sent up were satellites.  Sure those made a big difference in our television watching, but it did not create the buzz that a people'd launch did.


One last thing....
You all know that I really enjoy giving back in one way or another.  Guess it's one reason I became a teacher.  Anyway, we try to support things going on around us.  This past weekend was one of those situations.
A group called "Kids on the Block" does puppet shows in schools to help students learn how to talk about things happening at home or school that they just can't figure out how to tell someone.  Sure you may hear people say, "tell me if someone touches you", but get mad every time your kid says, "So and SO is touching me."  So in that all important time to hear them goes by because you aren't listening.
Anyway, one of the supporters of the group wanted a fund raiser that got kids outdoors and wasn't just another color run.  The owner of Lost River Pizza knows our Kayaking friend Tangie.  She owns Green River Scrubs.  She asked us to help with a paddle on the Barren River.  A group of us went to make sure all the newbies made it through the trip in one piece.
The Local newspaper  did a story on the trip and took a few pictures.  They got my backside and a picture of one of the guys that does the stand-up board.

It was a rather slow paddle for us and some people were having a hard time going slow, but overall, it looked like everyone had a good time.  A group of us met at Lost River pizza afterward and had a rather good time. The shirts are very comfortable and the gift bags had some cool stuff in them.  I'm glad I could help out and have a great time doing it.


PS.  Please let me know if you do want more of the paddling stuff.  I have links to adventures I have made.  Most of this stuff shows up on Facebook, so I don't post on here as much.   If you like stories of the trips let me know, those certainly would go here better......