Aerial view.

I had to trim some trees that were approaching my shed Saturday.  Skyler crawled up on the roof with me and asked that I take a picture of the garden.  Here it is!

That sweet corn is sure looking nice.

Faster!

There's a radar unit in the neighborhood around the corner.  This morning while riding bikes, Skyler wanted to see how fast he could go in front of the radar.

I saw 15 miles per hour on the sign.  He was really moving uphill!

Dog buddy.

Skyler seems to have a special bond with Maxwell.   Maxwell seems to enjoy Skyler's company.

Hanging out together on the cooleroo!

RIP West Jordan Middle School.

I stopped by the old Middle School on my bike yesterday to see the demolition progress.  What a mess!  I can't even imagine how they could possibly sort through the various materials.  I have a sad feeling that it's all going into a landfill somewhere...

Looking East from the back of the school.  Chimney is for the old boiler room and incinerator.

Southwest wing is gone.  There appears to be a crawl space underneath.

Front entrance is no more!

Auditorium.  Note the tiny roof access door in the middle.

Scrambled debris!

Looking to the North.

More of the auditorium.  Basement if full of debris now.

There's still filing cabinets, desks, and wall hangings in the building.  Lockers are also still intact.  What a shame and a waste of resources!

Dog watch.

We're on dog watch duty again this weekend.  Skyler sure does a great job keeping Maxwell happy while his owners are away.

Maxwell is allowed up on the chair since he's old.

Catnip paradise!

Eddy cat has the biggest catnip patch around!  He munches on a little and just lays down next to it to bake.

That's one content cat!

Getting close.

Our sweet corn is in full tassel right now.  This means fresh sweet corn is only a few weeks away!

The bees are also quite happy about the tassels!

Plastic model.

I helped Skyler assemble his plastic model of an A-10 Warthog airplane yesterday.   He seemed to really enjoy the painting part of modeling.  I kind of lost him during assembly and when it came time to apply the decals however.

Carefully painting the exhaust nacelles while they were still attached to the sprue.

National Hammock Day!

It was yesterday.  Skyler celebrated it (briefly, it was 103 here yesterday) by laying in the hammock out back.

Pretty great!  Hopefully we start to see some monsoon moisture today.

Going in deep.

I caught this bumblebee working hard for some hollyhock pollen the other day.

It was covered in pollen!

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.

Skyler and I built the Lego Lunar Module or "LM" for short.

Halfway finished on July 19th.

Finished!  Just in time to celebrate the landing.

Lego Expert kit designed for ages 16 and up.  He did a nice job!

Pool play date!

With Whitney!

Her new pool has a window!

Apollo 11 augmented reality.

Skyler and I have been tracking the journey Apollo 11 took 50 years ago in real time this week.  There's an app that allows A/R (augmented reality) viewing of the mission.  It's been rather fun watching an 8 year old's reaction to this historic event.

Realtime launch on July 16th at 7:32am!

Run!

Skyler had a track meet at the high school Saturday.  He can really run!

He was first!

Huli Huli Chicken.

We enjoyed this Hawaiian dish Friday evening on the patio.  Yum!

Marinated in soy sauce, ginger, and garlic.

Glazed with pineapple juice, ketchup, soy sauce, garlic and ginger.

Served with house rice (white and brown rice with a little onion) and pineapple. 

On this day 50 years ago.

National Model Railroad Association show.

Friday, we picked up Grandpa and headed to the NMRA show to see some model railroads and get ideas.  Skyler was nearly over-stimulated the entire time!  Lots of time and money devoted to the hobby.

Model drive in movie!

He really wanted one of these signals!

N scale Frontrunner!

More Frontrunner.

Most of the layouts were at his eye level.

Lego model railroad!

Wow!

More N scale layout.

Hot.

We finally hit 100 degrees here in Salt Lake City this week.  Skyler and I would head out first thing in the morning and walk the dog and avoid the heat.  Thursday, (after his Slurpee with Grandpa) he wanted to play on the iPad for a while.  He stopped mid game and declared "it's so hot I need to take my shirt off!"  Nothing like shirtless iPad time!

Ahh... Nice and cool now!

July 11th!

7-11 day!!!  It's a tradition now Grandpa said yesterday.   He took Skyler to get a free Slurpee and Skyler requested that he enjoy it in the shade of Grandpa's apple tree like years past.

Pretty good!

Kitty!

We found a kitty on yesterday's walk!

After I got the dog away, he called the kitty and it started to walk over to him.

Smell.

LOTS of pats!  Kitty was super happy to have some loves.

Butterfly.

I spotted a cabbage butterfly in the garden on Monday morning and called Skyler over to see it.  He sat right down and watched and in doing so, found a baby praying mantis!

Taking a break on the grass.

Sitting down in the grass & observing.

Look at the detail the magic iPhone captured!

Baby praying mantis next to the seed head.

Pogo!

Skyler took his pogo stick to the park Sunday evening.  He made it to 47 bounces in a row!

National Fried Chicken Day!!

We celebrated the day by making homemade fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and some pretty decent corn on the cob Saturday evening.

Delicious!  There was no leftover chicken...

4th of July flyover!

We were lucky enough to experience a flyover of F-35s during the parade Thursday.

A hike.

We took advantage of the cool weather and headed up Butterfield Canyon to hike yesterday morning. As always, it never disappoints!  We only saw 4 others on the trail, nothing like having the place all to yourself.

We were up on the trail before 10:00!  Pretty incredible considering we run on 8 year old child time!

View into the Tooele Valley.

Possibly the worlds best loamy singletrack.

Stream.

He was rather happy to be out on an adventure.

The thunderstorms from the day before made for lots of dew.

Meadow.  Everything is still super lush from all the snowmelt and wetter than normal Spring.

Forrest greatness.