SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468

Holidays, Housework and Hamming It Up

ISS014-E-10250 --- Christmas decorations in the Zvezda Service Module. Image above: Christmas decorations in the Zvezda Service Module of the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA TO SEE PICTURE GO TO: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

In celebration of the Russian Orthodox Christmas, the Expedition 14 crew had off-duty days Jan. 6 and Jan. 7. On Sunday Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin received a 10-minute VIP call from Patriarch Alexis II of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Despite the days off, the crew conducted its weekly three-hour station cleaning last Saturday. Flight Engineer Suni Williams made the rounds servicing laptops. She first performed the regular bi-monthly reboot of a router and file server and the weekly rebooting of all laptops. Commander Mike Lopez-Alegria and Williams also continued their weekly food frequency questionnaires.

Sunday morning Williams conducted a ham radio session with participants in the Australian Scout Jamboree 2007 at Elmore, Victoria, Australia. On Monday, she conducted two more sessions - one with the Sherman Elementary School in Henrietta, N. Y. and the other with the Dilworth Elementary School in San Jose, Calif.

+ Read more about Expedition 14 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition14/index.html + Read more about Expedition 15 http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition15/index.html + View crew's daily timelines http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/timelines/index.html