Summertime and T-Rex

Summer!! This one little word can make a kids heart skip a beat. Summer to me means watermelon, rivers, no school (of course) and lots of adventure! When I was 10 years old I lived out in the country. I only had ONE channel on my TV and all it ever seemed to play was the news (BORING). This meant I had to make my own fun. My house has a tiny stream running though it that leads to a little pond. I used to beg my mom for old kitchen utensils so I could bake mud pies and "boil" soup. The forest was my favorite place to play. I was hidden and in my own little world.

I used to explain in great detail to my dad the intense adventures I experienced in that little forest. I would share with him how I narrowly escaped the giants and dinosaurs that loomed behind my little blue playhouse, in between the dense tree's and foliage. My dad would laugh and my stories and tease me with stories of his own escapes from the T-Rex that lived behind the garage. These great adventures turned into one of the fondest memories that I have with my dad. He knew how much imagination I had and he came up with the best project I could have possibly imagined as a 10 year old to help cure me of my summer boredom.

There was a "model kit" that my dad and I had put together earlier that year. It was about a foot and half tall replica of a T-Rex. We had cut out all these little pieces of "bone" and then glued them together, resulting in a tiny little version of something you would see in a museum. My dad devised a plan to blow up the "bone" pieces and draw them out on huge pieces of wood. We painted the wood a dazzling white color. After all the "bones" were cut out we proceeded to put together the HUGE model of our new T-Rex. The dinosaur was taller than my dad! I defiantly thought that this was the coolest thing I had ever done. I knew for sure none of my friends had every seen anything like this. My dad and I chose the perfect spot to put our new pet. We hid the giant guy in the forest, covered by trees and peeking his ginormous head out of my favorite play spot. You can only imagine the adventures and creativity that this amazing dinosaur inspired for years to come...