A long time coming!

Wow! it's been over a month since we've updated our blog. At first we got complaints about once a week from folks to update our blog, but over the last week or so we're getting harassment at least twice daily! I'll admit to having a case of blogger burnout. However, I hate going to my friends pages and not seeing anything updated so I guess we need to get with the program!

First off, Happy Mother's Day to all the mother's out there! Today Melissa went into work for a few hours (we'll get to why in a bit) so Luke and I drove in to work and surprised her with a snack and mother's day gifts and hugs. After that we all came home and I cooked up some tasty chicken enchiladas and we had a nice dinner.

So what have we been up to in the last month or so? Working hard comes into mind 1st! There's a rather large organizational shake up going on at work right now and on top of that Melissa and I are both leads in our respective groups for upcoming missions so our time at work is getting ever more busy and responsible. In my (Rob's) group we had one of our senior instructors leave recently so we're all having to pick up some slack. One fun thing about work is that traditionally the training teams decorate the 1st floor hallway of our office building when an astronaut crew comes home from being in space to welcome them and to have some fun. We usually put up pictures of the crew on orbit doing all kinds of things and put funny quotes on them along with big achievements they accomplished. Since I was the Expedition 14 training lead and they will be arriving back in Houston this week we decorated on Friday. Melissa helped me make a poster and I also hung up some pictures Todd made for the crew (he was the E14 lead for he and Melissa's group). You can thank me for doing your dirty work later, Todd.

If we're talking chronologically, the first thing to report pictorially is coloring Easter Eggs!

One of the biggest events of the last month is the visit from my family for Luke's 3rd Birthday. My mom and dad, Joan and Denny and sister, Jena flew in for a really nice long weekend and helped us throw a great birthday party for Luke at Challenger 7 Memorial Park. One nice thing about having good friends and family is they take great pictures and post them on their own blogs. hehehee Josh took some great pictures with his camera and Jena posted a bunch of them on her blog.

The Texas Green Family at Luke +3.

A few days before Luke's party, we took mom and dad and Jena over to Brazos Bend State Park. We had a nice picnic and took a walk to see some alligators. Man did we see some big alligators!


Jena was not a fan of the 12' reptiles. hehehe

R: later that night we went to Gringo's for some yummy mexican food. Notice the giant margarita's that Jena and Dad have. Mom had to hand hers over to dad to finish. mmmmmm

Last Friday (a week ago Friday) we took Luke to get his 3 year pictures at JCPennys. To Luke's credit he took some really great pictures and we can't wait to send them out to folks. Here's a sample pic:

I took this before we left the house

Last Saturday we went to Galveston Island State Park with Josh and Lisa. Josh posted a bunch of pictures on his blog of this outing, but here are a few more. The park was really nice and with our Texas State Park Pass that gets us in the door for free (otherwise $5.00 per person) it was quite affordable for an afternoon of beach going and fishing.

On they bay side of the island there were these really neat bridges right at water level to go across the backwater inlets.

The girls catching some rays and Luke waiting for a wave


Here's a random video I took while we were exploring the park. That's Josh and Lisa's Avalanche in front of us.

Fast forward to yesterday. We went to the community pool for this first time this year with Hope and Ayden (Scotty had to work, boooo!). It was a beautiful 87 degree day and the water felt great. One thing we figured out was that kids and adults alike don't think twice about picking up pool toys that aren't theirs and playing with them! Not that we minded but still, it's sort of weird....

The Baby Gap catalog has nothing on these two cool looking dudes.

So what does the future hold? Well the summer is looking to shape up to be a busy one with (hopefully) a lot of Space Shuttle missions and also lots of travel to see family and relax. In the short term we're planning a 4 day weekend this coming weekend with Hope and Scott and Ayden to San Antonio to go to Sea World. (that's why Melissa was at work today, she was getting a head start on her hours for the week). I've been hankering for a road trip for a while and although it's only 3-4 hours of driving one way it'll be good to get the heck out of Houston and see something different for a change. Projects include new mirrors in the master bedroom, building a shed, getting the scrapes on the bumper of the CTS fixed and probably a few others I can't remember!

Ok, I'm signing off, I promise, we're back in the Blogger loop and won't let our faithful readers down again!

(PS.. Where's Jon? We haven't heard from you in forever!)