Fl Trip Day 7 Photos Cont.

Zhivanna smiles in the sun while looking at the alligators. She was being sassy and I told her if we needed to she could go pet one. She of course in her drama did not think that was funny. Papa Clyde got a laugh out of it.

One of the many alligators that we watched on our walk in the Evergaldes. I missed the better shot but as this gator came by, the bird on the island opened up his wings as if to say "stay away from here", I don't know if that would have done much good if he or she was really hungry.

FL Trip Day 7

Today we got the kids up and Chris took Clyde, Daniele and Glenn to his work at the local nuclear power plant to see what he does. Loray and I got the crew of kids up, and grown girl Andi went to school. Once the rest of the adults got back we loaded up both MPV mini vans full of kids and drove to the Everglades National Park, it is just about 15 minutes away from the house. We took a brief look at the visitor center then headed out to one of the many walking trails to look for gators. Loray got a phone call from Andi's school and she was sick, so she had to load up her crew and left the rest of us to enjoy the park some.
We took a nice walk and saw waterbirds, many gators and the diverse plant life. On our way back to the house we got some boiled peanuts (which I fell in love BTW) and then we looked into eating some gator meat (no luck) and found a place to do an air boat ride at. We wanted to do a whole family thing so we decided to wait for tomorrow to go with the rest of the crew of kids.
Loray ended up having to take Andi up the Miami Children's hospital to get a CT scan and MRI, she was having bad back problems and fainted at school from the pain medication she was on. We order pizza for dinner and Clyde and Chris took a drive to the hospital to check in on Andi & Loray. We end up caring for and putting all 6 kids to bed and enjoyed a quite PM. That night we also hear news from NASA that the new launch date is set for March 15th at 7:43 PM.

Repairs Work Proceeds - Weather Forecast is Good Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:52:40 AM EDT Repairs are under way on the Ground Umbilical Carrier Plate (GUCP) interface, where gaseous hydrogen leaked during Wednesday's launch attempt. The interface then will be retested and leak checked before Sunday's 7:43 p.m. launch attempt. The Mission Management Team will meet on Saturday at 1 p.m. to review the data and the progress of the teams, and make a final determination on the launch. A Pre-launch News Conference will be held no earlier than 3 p.m. following Saturday's MMT. The weather forecast calls for an 80 percent chance of acceptable conditions at launch time. Meterologists are watching for low cloud ceilings, Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy Winters said. The forecast deteriorates for potential Monday and Tuesday attempts. The mission would last 13 days if Discovery launches Sunday. The astronauts would perform three spacewalks during the flight. Discovery astronauts awoke at 9 a.m. and underwent standard medical exams at 10 a.m.. Commander Lee Archambault and Pilot Tony Antonelli will practice landings in the Shuttle Training Aircraft at 7 p.m.

The family ready to leave for Everglades, in the visitor center theatre to see movie, Zhivanna & Akorren on the mosaic of Everglades, Zhivanna says hello to a bird friend, Akorren & Glenn check out the gator in the water.

Trip Day 6 Photos

Glenn and Daniele relaxing on the couch. He is just one big kid.

Zhivanna gets some love from DJ the funny little dog. He has her pinned to the floor with his chew bone on her back, she was laughing the whole time.

Papa Clyde with just a handful of the grandkids. DJ had to get some attention, too!

The crew of kids engaged in the Wii.

Papa Clyde and Glenn give hugs to the little girls of the family. There were enough adult arms to go around for everyone to have some love.

FL Trip Day 6

We check out of the hotel around 10AM and make our 3 hr. + drive down to see Chris, Loray and kids. It will be nice to be in a home again for a few days. I know our kids enjoy the hotel but being in a house (even if it is not ours) is calming for the kids. They will sleep well tonight. We make it to Homestead and are greeted with hugs and kisses from Papa Clyde and Daniele and cousins Keliana, Chris & Loray. Loray decides to go and get the other kid cousins out of school early since we arrive. This is the first time the kids are all meeting each other. Akorren was around but was just a little guy when he met Andi and Marina.
We spend the afternoon and evening playing with the kids, swimming in the pool making dinner for a clan of 7 kids and 6 adults, and then spent time on the Wii, and at the pool table playing late into the night. Chris had to work that night and made it home by 11PM, we were all still up and Loray ended up cutting out of work early to visit with us. We had a great time just being one big family at home. It was like a mini Johnson reunion with all the kids running around. When bed time came all the kids bunked up for the night. It was a lot of fun. I think tomorrow we will be taking a visit to the famous Florida Everglades, the visitor center is less then 20 minutes away from the house. It should be fun.
Cousins Keliana & Kona, big girl Marina in the back seat, Glenn & the boys, the little gals play pool, Zhivanna gets her hair done by big cousin Andi.

Trip Day 6 More Photos

The boys finally crash out on the couch downstairs.

All the girls piled into Andi's for the night. You can see Zhivanna in the back, they were all so tired after a full day of play.

The Johnson men hit the pool table for a game or two and lot's of talking.

FL trip Day 5

So we make it back to our hotel after a few hours of sleep over at Janeen's place. Later on today we are hoping to see the launch. We need to be at the pick up place by 4:45 PM to get on the buses to take us to KSC. By this time in our travels we need to do laundry and Glenn is kind to offer to do it. So he sends the girls and I to the beach to play while he and Akorren make sure we have clean clothes for the next few days. Our current plans are to see the launch then leave tomorrow morning and casually drive down to Homestead, FL to see his nephew Chris and the family.
So we rest a little, then I get the girls and our beach gear on and we walk less then a block to Coco Beach and enjoy several hours of playing in the water and sand. We bump into Tony's Aunts and family walking the beach and comment on the excitement of the launch tonight. The girls and I also befriend Koichi Wakata, the Japanese Astronauts friends, as they amusingly watch my silly girls digging and being buried in the sand by mom. We talk, take some photos and give a thumbs up to the fun of the events tonight. Glenn and Akorren meet us back down by the beach and then I take the girls very briefly to the pirate ship pool, then back to the hotel for showers and naps. I want to make sure they are ready for the nights events, launch time is at 9:20PM so we will need to be up later then normal. Glenn comes back from the beach with Akorren and then we all start to get into our STS-119 launch T-shirts, around 2:00 PM. Glenn's cell phone rings and it's a colleage from Houston, TX who calls to say that they are having a problem with fueling up the shuttle and that is scrubbed for tonight. Now knowing this friend, we want to make sure our legs are not being pulled so Glenn calls his more reliable source and we get word that their is a problem and it is a no go for launch tonight. We are bummed, we start to text and call others about this. Our nephew Chris wants to know if we will be coming down tomorrow then. We take about 1 hour and turn on the NASA news to get the details and learn that the next day they are looking to give it a go is on Sunday, March 15th at 7:20 PM, so we make plans to check out of this hotel tomorrow AM and drive down to Homestead to be with family. The fun thing about this is that Glenn's Dad and Daniele will be there visiting as well so we get to see them too. (yay Papa & Grandma!)
Not wanting to have a downer of night since the shuttle got scrubbed. We go out to shop and be like tourist. We go to the Ron Jon shop (a well know surf and skateboard place) and then decided to take our selves out for wonderful Tai food dinner. By the time we eat the kids are so hungry they eat all the good, different food too. We stroll though this dinosaur shop and look at the great fossils and replicas, we also by a few books for the kids. After we get back to our hotel Glenn convinces us to take a night walk out to the beach, it is a little after 9 PM and we can see the light from the direction of KSC, the moon is full tonight and the sounds of the waves and kids trying not to get wet fill our surrounding. Tonight would have been a beautiful night to see the shuttle take off. Glenn and I sigh and then hope that it all that needs to be fixed will be so that we can come back on Sunday and see it launch. After all that was the main reason we took this vacation. Here is to keeping our fingers crossed. It will be fun to see family tomorrow. The girls meet Japanese Astronaut Wakata Sans' friends, my 2 sand bugs, mommy and girls in the big hole, Glenn and kids in front of Ron Jon shop.

FL Trip day 4

Today we got our crew up and going, I had 2 cups of coffee to get myself ready for the day and then we made our way over the secrete location when the astronaut families were staying. The kids were so excited to see the boys Michael & Danny. So it looked like we would have a great day together. Now none of them got their normal sleep as you can expect so some were in bed by 11, 12 or 3 AM but Glenn and I knew we could wrangle them all.
First stop was Kennedy for the astronaut briefing and family & guests tour. This was going to culminate in the very important wave across the ditch. This would be when the boys would get to see their mom and dad together on last time before he goes into in space. A very big deal!!! So the kids stay contained in the auditorium for most of the briefing interested seeing photo of dad or Mr. Tony, shuffling her and there. We keep trying to get them all to have toilet breaks, and time to do some walking around before going on to the next thing. We then make our way herding the clan on the nice comfy buses to take the tour around 12:30 PM and by luck we get on the least filled bus. This allows the kids time to spread out, eat snacks, switch seats, look out the window, play, be somewhat quite and actually look out the windows to see shuttle pad, and other sites at Kennedy. Glenn and I get moments of peace and the feeling of WOW we are here doing this, we are so excited!
Now Danny and Merlova are so tired by the time we do the wave across the ditch to Tony and he ends up in his grandmothers arms but Michael and the rest of the kids do a great job. NASA Photos are be taken of the group and I am trying to take as many as I can and Glenn is doing video. It ends up being a great moment and then Danny is out asleep when we take the bus ride back to the center. It works in our interest as Glenn takes him and part of the crew to the car I do one last restroom break and now by 3:00 pm we are off to let the kids have some down time. Akorren, Zhivanna and Michael enjoy "Hook" on the DVD player on the ride home while Danny & Merlova sleep. We do a Mc'D drive through and then rest up at the hotel. Merlova sleeps for a hour while Glenn wrangles the older 4 and they get a trip to the pirate kiddie play pool and beach visit. I have time to gather my mommy mind, drink some iced starbucks, and then help clean up the boys real well so they look sharp for their dad's astronaut reception. The Antonelli boys then our crew during the briefing, best buddies on the bus tour of the shuttle, our family in front of the shuttle before the wave across the ditch, our astronaut family friends Janeen & Tony (Guido) Antonelli