The Power of the Box
Hello to you all!
Ever as yourself "What is happening to America's youth?"
I think this picture suggests an answer to that question.
In case you did not guess it, what out of frame item holds his attention is the television. Note the remote control in his hand.
Valentines Day 2017
Greetings to all, and Happy Valentine's Day.
Xavier's fascination with car washes continues. He continually finds new video on YouTube.com featuring either toy or real car washes. He will watch them for a while, then get excited and run off to play with washes of his own design.
Coincidentally with this year's Valentine's Day, K-Mart is going out of business. Rebecca stumbled upon this fact and found something fun for Xaiver's V-Day gift.
The wrapped present sat on the table, taunting Xavier through dinner. We used it as an incentive for him to eat all his super.
After we cleaned up the table and kitchen, it was time to open the gift.
After some time playing with it, Xavier's one observation about the play set was it did not have a "top roller" to clean the tops of his cars.
You can see from his expressions the growing revelation of what the wrapping paper concealed. A car wash play set!
Xavier helped build the set. Then it was off to test it out! This one has a lift and a trigger that gates the car down a ramp and through a ring, leading the car finally to go through two brushes at the end of the ride.
The Fallen Tree
Greetings to everyone.
Very early the Monday morning before Christmas 2016, we had a little wind whip through the neighborhood. It took down a forty plus year old Blue Spruce which stood some thirty feet tall on the southwest side of our lawn. Strange the wind did not topple any other trees in the neighborhood.
Even more interesting, the tree fell in the only way possible so that nothing else was damaged. If it had fallen even a few degrees in any other direction, fences, other trees, cars or roofs may have been damaged. Thank you, Father!
While we were collecting bids to have the tree removed, another more powerful and longer-lasting wind storm swept through the Denver area. No point in collecting bids now; everyone was going to be busy.
It took the tree guys four trips to get rid of the tree and more than three weeks. The weather played a little in the three week part.
Xavier watched it all from behind the picture window inside the house. The first crew arrived and removed the branches. It took a couple of hours even with chainsaws.
The second crew pulled the thirty foot log off the lawn with a crane. Xavier and I watched from outside on the porch and in the falling snow.
The third crew spent two hours grinding and removing half of the stump. Again, Xavier watched from inside the house. The forth crew finished the stump removal while Xavier was in school.
Xavier watched the first crew with the stump grinder for about :45 minutes, then dropped out of the chair and ran to build his own stump grinder. You can see in the picture above (taken through the picture window) above the grinder he watched and modeled his own after.
He cobbled together his big Tonka dump truck and Lightning McQueen and another Tonka car.
Once he built his grinder, he used other toys to acts as tree roots for him to grind away at. You can see his recorder acting the part of a tree root in the picture above. Also, you can see a tree from his dinosaur world set acting the tree roll.