TO MATTHEW, THE BESTEST GRANDSON EVER

LOVE BEPPE AND GRAMPS

2021

Riley was such a curious monkey. His head was always full of dreams. The one thing Riley wanted more than anything was to travel into space,

and he wanted to travel there with his 

best friend Matthew.

Riley loved everything about space. There was so much going on in that vast expanse above his head. It didn't look like much was up there, but he knew better.

Every night Riley would lie in bed and dream of all the things he and Matthew would explore in space together, after they became astronauts that is.

The first thing they had to do was sign up for Astronaut School. How exciting!

UNIVERSITY OF ASTRONAUTS             

 BRITISH COLUMBIA

 Riley imagined how amazingly AWESOME they would look in their spacesuits. The day came and they were officially declared FIRST CLASS ASTRONAUTS. Matthew told him, (because he was SO smart) the suits would cost $150,000,000.00. JUMPIN' SNEMPTERGerS, would they have to pay for them? 

(Maybe Mom and Dad would help and Priya and Piper would save their allowance!)

THE VERY NEXT MORNING their commander phoned to say they had a rocket leaving in TWO DAYS and he wanted THEM flying it. There was a very critical problem with the Waste Expulsion System on the International Space Station.

The Commander thought they were the only ones skilled enough to fix it.

It was a very proud moment to know the commander had such confidence in them. Matthew asked if they would have time to land on the moon first. He wanted to get some moon rocks for his sister, who just loved collecting rocks. His commander granted the request.

As the two friends sat before the rocket controls, waiting for the countdown to blast off, they talked of their mission and other things they hoped to see and do.

               (Mostly to settle their nerves)

They were intrigued with the whole zero gravity thing. How would they manage to grab hold of anything with their cumbersome space gloves as it floated around weightlessly in front of them. It was a                                                            CONUMDRUM.

 They imagined what they hoped to see. 

Suddenly, through the communications radio, it began...10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1, BLAST OFF! 

They heard what sounded like an explosion under them, the rocket shook and vibrated, the engines rumbled and roared. 

The two new astronauts looked at each other with nervous grins. They swallowed, took a deep breath, turned and got down to business, manning their controls.

It seemed in the blink of an eye, there it was, The Milkyway! Riley could see how it was called that. It sure looked milky!!!

He had heard somewhere, maybe from Matthew, (he was SO smart) that there were more trees on earth than stars in the milkyay. How could that be? There looked to be trillions and trillions of stars in there.

Interesting Fact: There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on the earth.

When you think of how many grains of sand ore in ONE sandbox, that's a lot of stars.

Matthew even thought he might have caught a glimpsed the planet 55 Cancrie, what a strange name. Maybe on another mission, they can explore that planet because it was made of DIAMONDS. Imagine that!  

After a very long time they heard the Mission Control telling them to prepare for touch down on the moon.

 An extraordinary thought.

Riley envisioned the two friends soon landing on the moon in their space shuttle, gingerly stepping out onto the moon's foreign surface and creating historic footprints in moon dust, then turning to see the earth behind them.