*junkyard wars?

Today was Henry's first day on summer break. It was a great day!   He slept late. Eric and I took him out to lunch today to celebrate the ending of his freshman year.  He got to choose the lunch spot, and he chose Smokey Bones - one of my favorites! When we got home from lunch he played a few games on X-box Live and then he headed out to create.

He has been talking about making a trebuchet for sometime now.  He has been given free use to any of the wood in our recently clean and organized garage since we are clearing things out for our move.  His design was not on paper with specific measurements, but rather in his head.  It is really cool to see the things he does out of his head and I sometimes wonder what refined piece he could make if he would slow down long enough to put it on paper working out all the tiny details.  Perhaps that will come with some more maturity!

These pieces of lumber were initially purchased about three years ago to do some repairs on our fireplace, but we ended up prolonging that repair.  Then we decided to add an addition on the back of our house so this lumber was no longer needed.  Henry has been looking at this wood for a long time. Now he finally gets to use it. 

I made dinner, but he didn't come. He asked if he could continue working. 

Here you see him digging through the back of "his" truck where we have recently loaded up some scrap metal from the garage which will soon take a trip to the local land fill.  He needed some weight to help tip the trebuchet and the boxes held some large heavy pieces that he could put to use! 

The sun has now gone down.. so he is making use of the flood lamps from the clean garage.

See that sweet smile? and the moon?

This little critter was benefiting from the effects of the flood lights, dinner was showing up in troves! 

The apple did not fall far from the tree.. that is my barefooted boy!