I must be honest, I'm an anxious person, and this is my first exchange other than cards. So I was very nervous about participating. My Santa did a fabulous job though, and I love my surprise! I just got the box at the front door not 15 minutes ago, and couldn't wait to open it!

I got 2 wonderful books that have been on my list for a long time: Contact by Carl Sagan; and Into That Silent Sea by French and Burgess. Regarding Contact, I thoroughly enjoy Sagan's non-fiction, but have never gotten around to picking up a copy of this book. It'll be nice to finally read the classic. Into That Silent Sea is part of a 3 book trilogy on human spaceflight. I only had and read In the Shadow of the Moon, which is the part of the trilogy that covers Gemini and Apollo as well as Soyuz. It's an excellent look at not only the programs, but the personalities involved in them (namely the astro/cosmonauts). This new one covers the earliest parts of the US and Russian space programs, and I've wanted to dig into it for a while now. That space history stuff fascinates me... went from no program to putting a man on the moon in around a decade... mind blowing.

Anyway Santa, thank you for your generosity and your well wishes for school. I am so happy with my books and can't wait to finish my current one so I can dig into these (reading Failure is Not and Option, so that'll segway nicely into the new books). This week is my birthday too, so you timed it just right. lol