10

My name is Charlotte Kelly. I am an average 6^th grader that goes to school every day and likes to hang out with my friends on the weekends. I love to read, play video games, draw and I really enjoy listening   to music. I am pretty much like any other kid, except my dad just happens to pretty popular right now. For the past year, he has helped me with homework and he even listened to my tween-age stories all over a secure phone connection from the International Space Station to my living room in Virginia Beach. He is an American Astronaut who just finished living and working on the International Space Station for a year. Scott Kelly is many things to many people, but to me – he is just my dad!

My dad came back to Earth last week and I went to Houston to see him. When I first hugged him, I could only give him a half-hug. Once I saw an opportunity, I rushed back over to him to give him a giant bear-hug. One of the first things he said to me was, “you got bigger”, and I find that funny since he did too! I was so happy to see my dad that I wasn’t able to stop smiling.

So, like I stated earlier, he is just my dad and we all knew that my long weekend away from school would soon come to an end. He is pretty strict when it comes to my grades and not missing too many days of school. I don’t mind, since I have grown up seeing what hard work and studying can do for a person. My Spring Break is coming up soon anyways, and I can’t wait to hang out with him again.

9

Charli Kelly/Great Neck Middle School Library 

It has been a while since my last post. My apologies! I have stayed quite busy. TIME Magazine sent a couple of photo journalists out to interview me. They came to my school to do some of their filming – and everyone there was very understanding and accommodating for the crew. I also had a great time hanging out with the crew again. I hadn’t seen them since my dad’s launch in Baikonur, Kazakhstan last March. I also hadn’t seen my sister since then either. She came out to visit over the holidays. I had really missed her and it was great to see her. She and I were able to video-conference our dad on December 24^th. We had sent him some gifts and he opened them while we opened our gifts from him. It was kind-of like spending the holidays with him. I am back to school now and everything is going well as I count down the days before my dad gets home. A GOOD sign was when I got my airline ticket confirmation for my travel dates to Houston. I can’t wait to see him and hug him!

8

Since I last checked in, my dad has done a video conference with my class at school and we have celebrated Thanksgiving. My classmates were very thrilled to be able to speak to an astronaut aboard the space station. I must admit, they asked some pretty interesting question and just as expected – laughed loudly when he performed his zero gravity tricks, such as flipping upside down while spinning and playing with his food. I wish he would have let me play with my food when I was younger!

Our Thanksgiving was very low-key. My mom and I celebrated with some friends from Japan., as well as a few others. Before dinner, I had a video conference with my dad and he met my friends and classmate. He was even able to introduce them to the Japanese astronaut on board with him.

This will be a short month as we prepare for the holidays. Star Wars will come out soon and I can’t wait for my dad to get his Christmas gift!

7

My name is Charlotte Kelly, and in a few days I will have reached the six month mark of seeing my dad off on his greatest adventure. Some might say that it is the ultimate adventure, but to my dad and our family – it’s just another day of him at work. You see, my dad is an out of this world dad. Literally – he is out of this world. He is currently living and working aboard the International Space Station. Many of you know and hear about him as Astronaut Scott Kelly, the American Astronaut testing the limits and capabilities of the human body living and working in space for one year. To me – he is just “dad”, and in a few days, I will turn 12 and my dad will mark his halfway point of his journey. We will celebrate our events by having dinner together via teleconference. It’s not much, but it means the world to me.

I usually spend a better part of my summer break with my dad at his house. I could not stay at his house this summer, and I’m not so sure I would be up to it either. It does look like fun floating around and spinning from one end of the space station to the next, but he works a lot and I think I would have gotten in the way. Summer did make the past three months go by pretty quick, but the next three months will be a challenge. I will miss spending part of the holidays with my dad. This part is where having a dad with a cool job stinks.

6

It is the last week of summer vacation. The summer seemed to fly by, but I am still looking forward to starting sixth grade in a new school. I had school orientation about 2 weeks ago, where I met my teachers, received my locker assignment and learned my class routes. I spoke to my dad today and reassured him that mom and I had gotten all my new school clothes, shoes and school supplies. Mom has been getting on to me about getting to bed early. I don’t know what it is, but there is just something fun about staying up late.

5

I’m about halfway through my summer break. I am really enjoying hanging out with my friends without any pressure to complete any school work, yet in an odd kind-of way, I am looking forward to getting into 6th grade! My mom has been letting me do pretty much whatever I want – as long as I don’t play X-Box all day and night! 

All of our neighbors have been gathering at our pool and having cookouts every weekend. It is a lot of fun. Last weekend, I was scheduled to have a video conference with my dad that was going to last for a long time. I brought most of my neighborhood friends over so they could talk to him too. My mom set it up so my friends could see him on our living room television. They loved it and thought it was very funny to watch him in zero gravity. He showed us around the Space Station, his room and even their garden.  My dad took a picture of us in my living room, from the Space Station. If you look closely at the photo above, you can see me holding my cat, Shelbi.

4

I am on summer break from school right now, but before school ended, my dad was able to set up a video conference with my class. All of the kids really enjoyed seeing him and asking him questions about space. I don’t care how many times I see it, I still have to laugh when I see him flip around in zero gravity and eat floating M&M’s.

Two nights ago, my mom and I went to a beach party with my classmate Joe and his family. Just around 9:10pm, we were all able to look into the night sky and see the International Space Station fly over. It looked like a bright star just moving across the sky. For those four minutes we were all watching, I couldn’t help but miss my dad.

Today is Father’s Day. My sister and I were able to do a video conference with our dad at the same time. She was in Houston, I was in Virginia Beach and my dad was flying over us! Really! He was actually flying over us. He put his video monitor in his window and took a picture of us with Virginia Beach in the background.