Discovery Launch!

Jason and I are in Florida with Kaden and Colin for the STS-133 launch of space shuttle Discovery! This has been a life long dream of mine, and I cannot believe that we all witnessed the launch up close and personal with congressional launch tickets from our Senator John Cornyn! There are no words!
NASA picked us up in the mall parking lot several hours prior to the launch. We made our way to Kennedy Space Center in time to see the Winnebago type trailer take the astronauts to the launch pad! We finally made it to the viewing site, and I was a little disappointed, as I was so hoping to be closer! We were still about 3 miles away. Still, thrilled to be there! Kaden and Colin did great, as they were distraced by their itouches. Sadly, the itouches batteries died about an hour prior to launch. At that time, they resorted to beating up on each other a little bit. Strange behavior for them. They are only recently becoming more aggressive with each other. Thank goodness, we did not have to throw them out in the swamp as alligator dinner, as we were saved by the launch!
The launch was postponed 3 minutes due to some sort of security issue. People were speculating that some goofball was out in his boat in the solid rocket booster water landing area. Goofy! At any rate, there was only 90 seconds left in the launch window when they restarted the clock! Whew!
Kaden and Colin wanted to take photos with our iphones while I did video, and Jason did camera. There are no words to describe the launch! It was very quiet. Viewers were quiet. It was like we were all in awe of the sight. We saw the plume of smoke for what seemed like several seconds before we heard the sounds of the launch. It was stunning. Speechless. Everyone was speechless. Then we heard the noise of the launch, heard that Discovery was clearing the tower, and then it was elation! Everyone whooping and clapping! So wonderful and stunningly beautiful. So amazing to witness Discovery propel herself into space. To witness people do what they dream. Breathtaking. And during that time, I was a 12 year old girl in elementary school, watching in awe.
Colin and Kaden said that it was "Awesome!" Their photos are fantastic! Kaden said he was so happy that my dream came true! It was amazing to share this with them. NASA says that the astronauts that will explore Mars are not engineers, or in college. They are in Kindergarten and first grade. Who knows? Maybe they will be Kaden or Colin or Katharine for that matter! I am so eternally grateful for the opportunity to witness a launch in person.
#1 on my bucket list: check :-) God speed Discovery!!!