Jordan

This gorgeous woman is the highly intelligent, funny, caring, dependable, thoughtful, independent, and loving woman I married four years ago yesterday.

I love her more today than even the day we were married.

I'm biased, of course, but DAMN she's a hottie!

To the MOON!

I believe I have mentioned here before that I'm a bit of a nut about the American Space Program. Everything about it fascinates me, and whenever the chance to see any real space memorabilia up close has presented itself, I have always taken the opportunity. My kids are also fascinated by the stuff, so for Spring Break this year, Jordan and I took Sarah and Jack to the rocket center in Hunstville, Alabama.

When you get to Huntsville, it's pretty hard to miss the full scale mockup of the Saturn V rocket on display at the entrance to the center. Standing as tall as a 36 story building, you can see it from virtually anywhere in the area.

They have a new building at the center that was just dedicated in January of 2008. It houses the original test version of the Saturn V. It never actually flew, but instead was the source vehicle for all of the engine, transport, and assembly tests.

While we were there, we took in a 3D movie about Mars. Here's Sarah sporting her 3D glasses.

There's also a Zero Gravity ride outside by the rockets. You strap in and are hurled upward, feeling zero-g for a couple of seconds on the way back down. Unfortunately Jack didn't quite make the height requirement, so he hung out while the rest of us took off.

There were a number of flown items from each of the Apollo moon missions, including this flight suit worn by John Young while inside the Lunar Module on the surface of the moon. John Young is my personal hero. Here are a few of the things he did in his lengthy NASA career.

• He flew on the first manned flight of the Gemini spacecraft with Gus Grissom aboard Gemini 3.
  
• Flying again as Commander of Gemini 10, the mission was the first dual rendezvous with two Agena Target Vehicles.
  
• He first went to the Moon aboard Apollo 10, flying the Command Module solo - the first person to do so in lunar orbit.
  
• He flew to the Moon again as Commander of Apollo 16 and was the ninth man to set foot on the Moon.
  
• He is listed in the Guiness Book of World records as setting a speed record for travel on the surface of the Moon with the lunar rover (11.2 mph!)
  
• He was again Commander on the maiden flight of the Space Shuttle.
  
• He flew the Space Shuttle again on the very first Spacelab mission, also making him the first man to fly in space six times, and is the only man to have commanded Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle missions.
  
• He worked for NASA for 42 years and retired on December 31, 2004 at the age of 74.
  

This is one of the modified Hasselblad cameras used during the Apollo 11 mission, the first time man set foot on the Moon.

These are plaster casts of Neil Armstrong's hands, taken to make custom gloves to be worn on the surface of the Moon.

This is the Command Module "Snoopy" in which John Young, Ken Mattingly, and Charlie Duke rode to the Moon.

Here's Sarah trying her hand in the original Apollo command module simulator.

Jack shows us the shuttle Pathfinder, which was the first Space Shuttle mockup used for construction and transportation testing. It never actually flew, and is in fact hollow. The fuel tank, however, is the very first shuttle fuel tank constructed, used for all of the static launch tests of the shuttle system. The lower two engines on the back end of Pathfinder are the actual engines that flew on the maiden voyage of Columbia, the very first Space Shuttle flight. The booster rockets are inert mockups.

Happy Birthday, Jordan

The love of my life turns 25 today.

She is my best friend. She makes sure I don't leave the house wearing clothes that don't match. She loves me when no one else does. She's so smart and so witty and so good at her job. She really has become quite a success. At 25 she has graduated from college, become the greatest step-mom in the entire world, purchased TWO homes, had a couple of jobs where she blew everyone away with her grace, style, and organizational ability, and now she has become the president of Kevin Barre Photography. Not many people can claim as many accomplishments before turning 25. The best part is that she makes it all look so easy.

I love you, J.

Happy birthday.

Christmas, Part 1

Christmas has been huge this year. It always is, particularly for my kids. They usually get to celebrate by opening presents about six different times. At their mom's house, at my house, at multiple sets of grandparents' houses (they have four sets). It always seems like they open presents for about a week.

This year we started the celebration early with Jordan's sister, Rosie and her significant other, Don. They came from St. Louis on Saturday, the 23rd. They were tons of fun to have around. It turns out that Don and I are amazingly like-minded (keep the faith, brother). Oh, yeah, and they brought a case of wine with them.

On Christmas Eve, the four of us went to Chris and Autumn’s for dinner. Like me, Chris loves to cook and apparently has a tradition where he invites a select number of couples over for a fancy Christmas Eve dinner. More power to you, man. I always end up doing all of my wrapping and such on Christmas Eve, so I was more than happy for him to do the cooking. It was a great spread, and the company was fantastic. Hopefully they will include us in their tradition for years to come.

My lovely wife, Jordan with Chris.

Here I am with Chris’ lovely wife, Autumn.

Petrea with her Papi...

Petrea had a great time putting her finger in Jordan’s key lime pie and then sticking it in my mouth.

My Wife is In Love...

Too bad it isn't with me. No, Jordan is truly, madly, deeply in love with David Duchovney.

Last year we discovered NetFlix in a big fat way. Since then, we have practically stopped watching TV altogether. Seriously, about the only thing we watch is James Woods’ new show, Shark, thursday nights on CBS. We try not to miss that one. Here's the scoop...

With the kids, and jobs, and the new house, and dogs, and photography, and everything else that goes along with modern life, we find it really hard to sit down on a regular basis and watch TV. Almost every night there is something way more pressing that needs to be done during “prime time.” Enter NetFlix.

With Netflix, we can order an entire season of a show and watch every episode, from the beginning, on OUR schedule. AND there are no commercials. AND the shows are in widescreen. AND the shows have great digital sound. But my most favorite thing about watching the shows on DVD is that if by some chance the planets align and we have the time to pull an all-nighter and watch six episodes of something back-to-back, we can. I'm tellin’ you, television nirvana.

So we started out with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. You know, the one in Las Vegas. We worked our way through all of the seasons of it. Then it was on to CSI: Miami. Bada-bing! We tried watching Northern Exposure (I loved it, she didn't). Next up, Numb3rs; another crime show on CBS. Devoured it.

And then something happened. I sheepishly asked Jordan if she would like to watch a few episodes of the X-Files. These were DVDs I actually owned. I figured there was no way in hell she was gonna watch some quasi-UFO-crime-something-or-another show with me. Boy was I wrong. Turns out, J has a serious thing for David Duchovney. I mean like she's ready to bump off his wife kinda serious.

I'm pretty sure Jordan would throw me to the curb in a heartbeat to run her hands through DD’s hair just once.

You’re welcome dear.