I had SO much fun today! We went to the Discovery Center of Idaho (kind of like a children's museum about science), for Space Days. We did science for four hours, ate freeze-dried ice cream (not recommended), AND my kids got to meet astronaut Jose Hernandez and the first teacher in space, Barbara Morgan! They were on cloud nine.
Mr. Hernandez gave an awesome speech that brought tears to my eyes. He started out as the youngest child in a family of migrant workers, going to 5 different schools in a year. He had a difficult time learning English - or anything for that matter. In second grade, he told his teacher he was going back to Mexico for 3 months, and his teacher (Mrs. Young) paid a home visit to his family. She told them...."Children are like trees. If you transplant them too much, they grow weak. If you want a tree to grow strong, it needs to stay in one place so that it can plant deep roots, be nourished, and grow. Children are the same way." His parents took it to heart, and they stopped "migrating." He saw a TV program when he was 10 that made him decide he would be an astronaut. He worked hard, and he never gave up. He became an engineer. He applied to NASA 12 times, was turned down 11 times, and finally accepted after 12 years of trying. He flew on a mission in the Discovery in 2009. Before the launch, there was a dinner at NASA and guess who he brought - Mrs. Young, his 2nd grade teacher! Awww.... if that doesn't swell your heart, I don't know what would!
It just goes to show -- sometimes what we do for a child can seem little and maybe we even feel like it didn't matter, but we might find out later that it really did!
(My two darlings with astronaut Jose Hernandez)
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