columbia
My grandniece, Manuela Ortiz, has had a very exciting year. She and my grandnephew, James Renville are buying a house. The house belongs to his mom, Toni Chase currently, and it is the house where James spent much of his childhood, so it is really a cool thing for his to be buying this particular house. There are some renovations, repairs, and updates that they want to do, so they are working on those, and they aren’t in a big hurry to move in. They want it to be perfect for their move. It is a nice house, and we are all excited for 
them. James and Manuela met in 2019 and married in July of 2021. They have been living in an apartment, and now they are ready to have their own home.
Manuela has been working for the Wyoming Housing Network as a housing counselor. They have been so happy with her that she was recently given a promotion to the title of House Education Manager. We are so proud of her. Manuela immigrated to the United States from Colombia and had originally wanted to work in the United States to learn English. Her plan was to use English, as a way to be a more valuable asset to her employer back in Colombia, but God had other plans for her. Her Spanish and her mastery of English landed her the job she now has because she is able to be not only be a help in the housing market, but to cross a language barrier for people who really need that assistance. Of course, God also had the plan of a match made in Heaven for her and James…a match we are all very happy about.
This last summer, Manuela took James to Colombia to meet the new extended part of his family. It was his first 
visit to Colombia, and his first time to meet any of her family, except for on Skype. As it turns out, James and Manuela’s mother, Consuelo share the same birthday. That made a June trip to Colombia perfect, because they held a birthday party for both of them while they were there. The trip was so much fun for Manuela and James. James loves to travel, and Manuela had a great time showing him all the sights in her homeland. I’m sure there will be many return trips in their future, and before we know it, James will be as fluent in Spanish as Manuela is in English. I’m so glad they got to make the trip. Today is Manuela’s birthday. Happy birthday Manuela!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
After working for the City of Casper since high school, my grandnephew, James Renville decided that it was time for a change. So, he went to work for Red-D-Arc Welderentals. I didn’t know what kind of a company this was, but suspected that it had to do with welding. So, I looked it up and found out that Red-D-Arc Welderentals is an Airgas company that rents and leases welders, welding positioners, welding-related equipment, and electric power generators…anywhere in the world. This past May marked Jamrs’ first full year on the job. James loves what he does and is very good at it. His job is to go out and talk with people and make sales. Not everyone is cut out to be a sales representative, so the fact that James is so good at it speaks volumes. I don’t think it’s a job I would be very good at. Nevertheless, for James it was a definite step up.
This past year has found James having the time of his life in his new life. He and Manuela have been working on 
setting up their new place, They celebrated their first year of marriage, and will soon celebrate their second year. His beauty (Manuela) introduced him to his first Latin concert (Yankee Daddy) in Denver, and James introduced Manuela to her first US Soccer match between James’ all-time favorite team Chelsea FC (England) vs Club America (Mexico) in Las Vegas. They both got to experienced their first college football game at University of Wyoming with Jemez bonus dad, Dave Chase (James’ mom, Toni Chase tells me she was so glad to miss that game). James and Manuela also took several little weekend trips around Wyoming, Colorado, and Montana.
While all that has made for a great year, the big trip is coming up in a few days when they travel to Colombia where James will meet his new family and get to celebrate not only his birthday, but his new mother-in-law, Consuelo Ortiz Montoya’s birthday (which happens to be on the same day as his) and his new sister-in-law, Sara Marin’s birthday which is June 14 (just 1 day before). They are going to have a blast! It will be a great beginning to his next year. There is nothing be little “concern” however. While James is very excited to meet his new family, he really wants to 
be able to speak in some way with Manuela’s parents. James doesn’t speak Spanish and her parents don’t speak English, so that will be interesting. James could speak through Manuela, but it isn’t how he wants this to go.
When James isn’t working or spending time with his bride,he still finds time to rollerblade and play pool with his dad, Jim Renville. Also, he and Manuela still make time to hang out with his mom and bonus dad at least once a week. He was also been dog-sitter for his dad’s and mom’s dogs, taking care of his little “fur” siblings. Today is James’ birthday. Happy birthday James!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
My grandniece, Manuela Ortiz joined our family on July 18, 2021, when she married my grandnephew, James Renville. Manuela is such a happy person, and she brings so much sunshine into the lives of our family. She is an excellent dancer, and James is learning to dance too. They have even done some videos of them dancing and placed them online. Not everyone has the coordination to do things like Salsa dancing, but Manuela certainly does…and I’ll have to leave that to her. It’s best that way.
Speaking fluent Spanish makes Manuela as asset to Wyoming 
Housing Network, where she is a housing counselor. When Manuela first came to America from Columbia, it was with the intent to study English, so that when she went back home, she could move up in her company. Things changed as time went by, and before long, she knew that she wanted to immigrate to America permanently. That was in the works, when she met her future husband, my grandnephew, James Renville. They met in 2019 and have been inseparable ever since.
Recently, Manuela decided to write an e-book called The Stages of an Immigrant: Stories of an Immigrant. In her book, she tells about her own experiences as she navigated the immigration system of the United States. We are all very proud of Manuela and her journey to become an American citizen the right way.
This past Christmas, Manuela got to go back to Columbia to visit her family for the holidays. Having been here when Covid hit, she hasn’t been able to go back home, and that has been so hard. Manuela has embraced her 
Wyoming family, and totally loves her Wyoming Cowboy (her husband, James), but this was a special trip and very fun for her. Aside from the climate difference, there are many different customs that go along with the holidays too. The decorations alone are very different. I’m sure that as the years go by, Manuela will incorporate some of her family’s traditions into Christmases here and maybe some of ours in future Christmases there. Today is Manuela’s birthday. Happy birthday Manuela!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
My grandniece, Manuela Ortiz (Renville) is a sweet girl, who is full of life and joy. She married my grandnephew, James Renville last summer, and they have been enjoying their new life together. They both love to travel, and they go as much as they can. I think their favorite places will most likely always include beaches. Manuela, or Manu, as she is lovingly called by all who know her well, immigrated to the United States from Medellín, Antioquia, Columbia, and so she is used to the warm equatorial climate, making the warm beaches feel a lot like home. Still, she has adapted well to the cold northern climate too. Manuela and James love to go skiing and play in the snow, something Manuela probably never saw, until he moved here. They are open to all kinds of climates and will find a way to have fun anywhere.
Manuela has a bubbly personality and makes life fun for anyone who knows her. She has been such a wonderful blessing to my niece Toni Chase and her husband, Dave. For most of his life, James has been their only child, 
and now they have been given a daughter (daughter-in-law, but they don’t think of her as just a daughter-in-law) to complete their family…until grandbabies can come along…someday, hehehe. I think that whenever James and Manuela decide to have children, they will make beautiful babies, and I can’t wait to see them. Manuela has been so good for James, because he has a more reserved personality, but she brings out the other side of him, the side he only shows to those he knows well. When they are ready to have children, they will be a beautiful mix of both of them.
Manuela loves to dance, and coming from Columbia, she knows all the cool dances of that area. Dances like the Salsa, and many others that I would not know the names of, come as naturally to Manuela as walking, because she comes from a culture where these things are a part of everyday life. In fact, it is really fun to watch her dance, because she is so good at it. James can dance, but like most of us in this family, it is not something we do every day, so Manuela has been teaching him these dances, and he is getting very good as well. I’m sure 
that comes as part natural ability and part having a great teacher. James is such a good man, and I know that whether he is a natural at dancing or not, Manuela’s family loves him just because he is who he is…as good a husband to Manuela and she is a wife to him. Speaking of teaching, this happens to be one of Manuela’s many talents! She is also teaching James Spanish and loves to make tic-toc videos to share his progress. They are pretty funny to watch. She also teaches English on-line to private students. She is a great teacher! She is a podcaster in her free time on YouTube at Con Manu en la sala and a Tik-Tok @manuejames. As they go through their lives, I know that they will continue to be a blessing to each other and to their families. Today is Manuela’s birthday. Happy birthday Manuela!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
September 17, 1976 was an epic day in American history, and truly in world history as well. This was the day that the seemingly impossible became possible. Man had been in space many times by that date, but the crafts taken were disposable, and the cost to build new ones was great. It would be an amazing thing to have a craft that could take man into space, and then make a smooth landing back on Earth. It was unheard of, but it was no longer impossible.
On this day in 1976, NASA publicly unveiled its first space shuttle. The shuttle was called Enterprise, and during a ceremony in Palmdale, California, the world got its first glimpse of the future. The Space Shuttle looked like an airplane. Its development cost almost $10 billion and took nearly a decade. The shuttle would not actually fly until 1977. Enterprise became the first space shuttle to fly freely when it was lifted to a height of 25,000 feet by a Boeing 747 airplane and then released, gliding back to Edwards Air Force Base on its own accord. It was a phenomenal accomplishment. What an exciting event in NASA history!!
With the success of the first flight, came regular flights of the space shuttle, which began on April 12, 1981, with the launching of Columbia from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The shuttle had to be able to get into space, and so it was launched by two solid-rocket boosters and an external tank. These were ejected prior to the actual entrance into space, and only the shuttle, which looked like an actual airplane, entered into orbit around Earth. When the two-day mission was completed, the shuttle fired its engines to reduce speed and, after descending through the atmosphere, landed like a glider at California’s Air Force Base…brought to a stop with the help of three parachutes.
Early shuttles took satellite equipment into space and carried out various scientific experiments. On January 28, 1986, NASA and the space shuttle program suffered a major setback when the Challenger exploded 74 seconds after takeoff and all seven people aboard were killed. That was a horrible day in shuttle history. After changing the things that caused the problem, the shuttle flew again beginning in September 1988, when Discovery went up successfully. Since 
then, the space shuttle has carried out numerous important missions, such as the repair and maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction and manning of the International Space Station. A tragedy in space again rocked the nation on February 1, 2003, when Columbia, on its 28th mission, disintegrated during re-entry of the earth’s atmosphere. All seven astronauts aboard were killed. In the aftermath, the space-shuttle program was grounded until Discovery returned to space in July 2005, amid concerns that the problems that had downed Columbia had not yet been fully solved. On July 21, 2011, Space Shuttle Atlantis touched down for the final time, at the end of STS-135, with the official retirement of NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet taking place from March to July 2011.
After a horrific accident such as Space Shuttle Challenger’s explosion 73 seconds after liftoff on January 28, 1986, taking with it seven astronauts, it is only prudent for NASA to have stopped all future flights until they knew the cause and had a fix in place. The Space Shuttle program was really NASA’s greatest achievement, and Challenger was its second shuttle into space. Challenger had a great record, having been sent into space nine times…before disaster struck on the tenth trip.
The Space Shuttle Challenger was first intended to be a test vehicle, Construction began in November of 1975. It was sent for testing on April 2, 1978, and after eleven months of vibration testing they decided to make it an actual vehicle. The first shuttle to be built into an actual workable unit was the Columbia, which ended up breaking up on February 1, 2003, to become the second time NASA lost lives in flight.
After Challenger blew up shortly after liftoff, NASA had to see what went wrong, and the space program was on hold for two years and eight months. Finally, after it was determined that an O-Ring failed due to weather that was too cold, a different NASA emerged. No longer would there be a rush to launch. Conditions would be right, or the launch would be scrubbed. It had to be that way. And yet we, as a nation, knew that America belonged in 
space. This was more that just a whim, but was rather an important contribution in many areas. The scientists who went into space performed experiments that led to many things we use today. Not to mention all of the information we have learned about our own little part of the universe. It was time to put America back in space.
So, on this day, September 29, 1988, NASA launched STS-26. It was the return to flight mission, and it was a success. The mission lasted four days, one hour, and eleven seconds, and traveled 1,680,000 miles, making 64 orbits around the Earth. The Shuttle that made the return to flight mission was the Discovery. On board were Frederick H Hauck, Richard O Covey, John M Lounge, Davis C Hilmers, and George D Nelson. I’m sure there were moments of anxiety, especially at the moment when the command to Go with Throttle Up, the very command that led to the explosion of the Challenger, was given. Nevertheless, these men went, and made it through that anxious moment, to have a successful mission. It was the first mission since STS-9 to use the original STS numbering system, the first to have all its crew members wear pressure suits for launch and landing since STS-4, and the first mission with bailout capacity since STS-4. STS-26 was also the first all-veteran crew mission since Apollo 11, with all of its crew members having flown at least one prior mission. I’m sure there were specific reason for each of those things, but my guess is that it was mainly to have all the best 
possible precautions in place.
Besides conducting the mission’s various experiments, crew members practiced suiting up in new partial-pressure “launch-and-entry” flight suits, and also practiced the unstowing and attaching of the new crew escape system. On 2 October, the day before the mission ended, the five man crew paid tribute to the seven crew members lost in the Challenger disaster. Discovery landed on Runway 17 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, at 12:37 pm EDT on 3 October 1988, after a mission duration of four days, one hour and eleven seconds. Capsule Communicator Blaine Hammond Jr welcomed the crew, saying it was “a great ending to a new beginning.”
