The Eclipse

 My family decided to stay home for the Eclipse.  The Seattle area was in the 92% range.  So not bad.   It was fun to actually look at the sun with the eclipse glasses.

 We also watched it on the laptop.

At 10:15 am, we went outside-it was very cold, and dark (10:20 am was the 92% coverage of the sun).  

The dog acted as she always did, and took a nap!

It was a very cool experience.

The Seven Swords, Warrior Life Center

Andy and I started going to the Seven Swords/Warrior Life Academy in Tacoma on Monday & Wednesday evenings.  The class is split up-the first half hour is with Nikki learning jujitsu.  Recently, we have been learning : "How to fall without hurting yourself".

 The last half hour is with Ken., we get to learn to handle plastic swords and medieval European martial arts.  The blending of the two styles makes it super fun!

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Presently, I only have plans to go here through the end of August.  Once school starts, I will being doing my Hapkido and Improv classes like last year.

Smoke form British Columbia and the Burke Museum at University of Washington

August blew in with high temperatures and smoke form all the wild fires in British Columbia.  This was taken from our morning walk.  It's a view of the Des Moines marina and Mt. Rainier.  Our region had the worst air quality for 10 days.  It was great when it finally blew out and we could see the blue of the sky again.

This way (west ) is the Sound and the Olympic mountain range......

On one of these smokey days, Mom and I drove to the University of Washington to visit the Burke Museum,   They have the best dinosaur collection in Western Washington.  As you can see, I am not even as tall as this leg bone.

This coastal native american carved seal was stolen from an Alaskan village.  Fortunately, the tribe is allowing the seal to be on display at the Burke, it will go back some day.

After our time at the Burke we meet up with Andrea, got a coffee and walked around campus.  My Dad did his undergraduate degree here in Computer Science.  Below is their gothic library built in the 1920"s.

Inside the library..

 Outside the reference room there was one of the world's largest books.  That's Andrea.

Mom and I at the fountain.  Mt. Rainier is supposed to be in the background......

I enjoyed walking around Dad's University.  I look forward to going myself someday in the future.

Funny Pictures.

On my last day of school, two 6th Graders (Zach & Aiden) had a Green Screen, where they took your picture and you could choose the background.  I did this one with Mom.

 And I did the Titanic with Andy, Elliot, Mom & Andrea

Visiting the Mid-West-Chicago

Grandma decided to stay in Minnesota, so Mom and I rented a car and drove to Chicago to visit Uncle Colin, Aunt Lori, and my cousins Jack (15), Sophie (13), & Gavin (12).  It was for only a day and a half, but I had a really good time.

 Our full day was Saturday, July 1.  We took the green line down town and we started off doing the River Walk.

 There are some crazy buildings here!

 We used a hotel bathroom that was entirely covered in little mirror tiles!

 Our main destination was Maggie Daley Park just north of the the Chicago Art Institute.  It was so much fun!  There were lots of structures to climb on.

 All with skyscrapers in the back ground.

 I hit the slides!

 The park also had water features.  This one cooled us down.

 We also went up the lighthouse.

 Uncle Colin, Jack, and Aunt Lori waited in the shade.

 We crossed the highway on the Serpentine Bridge by Frank Gehry.

 There was another park called "The Prairie"  

 We got to soak our feet in the cool water.

 After walking 5 miles, we took the Green Line back to Oak Park.  I had a lot of fun and I slept really well that night.

Visiting the Mid-West-Minnesota

 Grandma Judy and Tha Tha have moved into a retirement community.  Their apartment strangely looked like all of their other  homes.  Grandma said it was because she still had the same furniture.  I like their home, it reminds me of a magazine.  Unfortunately, Tha tha was in the hospital during our visit.

 Mayowood is one of the big old homes in Rochester Minnesota, own originally by one of the Mayo brothers.  We had a tour with Grandma Judy.  The Mayo Clinic took ownership of it in 2014 and had done a lot of needed preservation work.  The house looked great!

 It was strangely cool in Minnesota for late June.  Fortunately, I had my sweatshirt.

 This garage has a fountain on top.  Mom and I found that to be odd.  On Monday, I started another camp at Quarry Hill.  This year it was about fossils, rocks in general and a lot of digging.  Excavating is not my thing, but I had to do it to know it.

 My class met out in the garage.  We got to ride a bus to one of our excavation sites.  It poured on the way back to Quarry Hill.  It was a good camp, but next year I will chose a different area to study.

Grandma bought me this book on our trip.  Ryan Higa is one of my favorite You tubers.

10th Birthday Party

This year I did something different.  I invited my two of my three best friends (The third one is Sabrina, and she is in Russia for two months.) Andy & Seth.  We started out by having Go kart races!   Seth was 10 minutes late, so Andy and I played some video games and air hokey.

 Dad decided to drive with us.

 Getting strapped in..

 And GO!!!!!!!  Andy kicked all of our butts and was definitely the fastest.  The blurry one is Andy.

 Waiting for our second race-I'm in the middle.

After go karts we had lunch and then went to the movie theatre to see Cars 3.

We got there a little early, so we got to play some video games.

It was a good party!  The three of us had a fun time.  I wonder what I will do next year.