Recess!

Skyler enjoying his first recess yesterday.  The merry-go-round is a favorite.

"Wheee!"

National Dog Day!

Our house celebrates every day, but today is National Dog Day!

Model railroading is fun!

Grandpa and Skyler have been working on a model railroad over the last few months.  Skyler begs to go over and run model trains at Grandpa's house nearly every day.  They really seem to have a great time operating, building, and learning about model railroads and even real railroads since Grandpa worked for Union Pacific for a while.

Incredible!  Grandpa even modeled an SLS booster segment to go along with the NASA switcher and caboose I bought.

LED signals in the foreground!  The buildings are all lit with LEDs as well.

The engineer at the controls!  He can operate the trains (now DCC equipped) for hours!

First art of the school year.

Skyler made this beautiful art project in class this week.  He's really enjoying 3rd grade so far!

He was the only kid to use yellow.  Because he said "there are yellow apples".  :)

Making some Oreo cookies.

Mommy and Skyler made some homemade Oreos for Grandpa's birthday.  Skyler helped during the entire process.  They were really tasty!

Frosting them right before we went to see Grandpa last night.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Turkey!

Next door's turkey flew the coupe Monday night and landed in our yard.  The dog was going bananas and Skyler went out back to investigate.  The turkey is safe and back where she belongs now.

She's really tame.  You can pet her and pick her up and she just chirps a bit.

First day of 3rd grade.

I didn't get the obligatory picture out in front of the school.  Instead, I snapped this shot last night that nearly melted my heart!

I missed the little guy around here yesterday.  He sat down next to me last night and grabbed ahold of my hand. 😍

11.25 miles.

We got a nice ride in yesterday morning on the Parkway.  Skyler did awesome!

The tour of phragmites!

Kitty!

We ran into another cat on our walk yesterday.  Skyler was thrilled to have hime come over and get some pats.  The kitty's name is "Pippen" from reading his collar.

He was a very friendly and happy cat.

Mommy even got to give him some pats.

Pippen even said hi to Maizey.

The ultimate taste of Summer.

Garden grown sweet corn cooked on the grill, fresh hamburger sized tomato slice, and garden grown onion on my hamburger last night.  A perfect Summer meal!

The corn is quite possibly the best I've ever had!

A boy and his cat.

Skyler has set up the cat perch, some cat food, and water in his room in hopes to coax Mr. Mittens to stay in there.  It seems to be working, Mittens is laying on his bed and looks pretty happy.

He was purring and not being held against his will this morning.  I think he enjoys the extra attention.

A boy and his dog.

Skyler sure loves Maizey!  Here they are relaxing on the couch the other day.

Enjoying some PBS kids together on TV.

Crystal mining kit.

Skyler hacked away at his birthday present last week to get the pre-placed  crystals out of the plaster.

It was taking forever and making a huge mess so we decided to soak the piece in water to speed up the process.

Golden Spike Train Club.

Saturday, Skyler, Grandpa, and I headed uptown to check out the Golden Spike Train Club's model railroad layout.  It did not disappoint!

Photos not in order...

Wow!

Athearn classic bus.  I found one on eBay but it's outrageously overpriced.

Big Boy!

The scenery left a lot to be desired.

More Big Boy.  It was pulling a 50 car train.

A model of the Roper Yard here in Salt Lake City.

Amtrak coming!

Utah Railway.  Little did we know that Grandpa would get a locomotive just like the lead engine as a gift from Karen's friend a day later! 

Mesmerized.

Classic 4-8-4 pulling the U.P. Heritage fleet.

Control room.

Yard.

More of the Heritage cars.

U.P. #840 coming into the yard.

Big Boy #4024.

EMD 567 engine model.

Amtrak at speed!

We'll probably head back next month.  They have an open house the second Saturday of every month.

Full kit!

Skyler put on his "full kit" cycling clothes to go for our bike ride Saturday morning.

He got to lead on our second lap.

17th anniversary dinner.

I grilled a prime rib with bacon infused green beans (from the garden) and roasted potatoes last night.  Delicious!

Oh, it was also national s'mores day yesterday so we had s'mores (using Nutella) for dessert.

I grilled the bone separately for the dog.

The vegetables almost overshadowed the beef.

Skyler got out our wedding topper...

And then got out the family statue to go with.  Homemade candle! Flowers were from the yard and we got to use our champagne flutes from our wedding.  Cheers!

He also made us this celebratory sign and he made each of us a card.

Maizey got to chew on her beef bone.

S'mores for dessert!

Lucky seventeen.

Today is our 17th wedding anniversary.  I'm lucky to be married to such an amazing, smart, caring and beautiful woman.  I love you Altair!

Sweet corn!

Last night, we enjoyed our first sweet corn of the year from our garden.  Delicious!

Absolute perfection!

We started with 6 ears, I ended up picking another 6.  It was SO delicious!

A trip to the elementary school playground.

We took advantage of the cloud cover yesterday morning and walked North to the elementary school.  Maizey got to play in the sprinklers to stay cool, and Skyler got to play on a new (to him) playground.

We had the place to ourselves.

On TOP of the monkey bars!

Skyler in the sprinklers.

Swing!