Henry spent the day at our house today. Since it was the weekend, he knew grampa had the day off and would be ready to do ‘Henry stuff’ rather than shop stuff. With a whole day at our disposal he wanted to immediately head out to the shop. I convinced Henry we should first plan a project we could work on together. A few weeks ago we had built a wood dinosaur and although Henry thought it was cool it wasn’t at all what he had in mind. He wanted a dinosaur he could sit in and actually drive. It was a very ambitious wish! This morning I first tried to convince him we could build a dinosaur trailer for the little car we had used in last year’s parade. He didn’t warm up to that idea at all. I then suggested that instead of starting from scratch we could modify the car to look like a dinosaur. Henry was a little dubious. We did some research online and found picture of a toy dinosaur Henry loved. I used that reference to create a drawing as Henry art directed. He was adamant the dinosaur had to be bright blue and be modified to be a ‘SPINOSAURUS’. Once the concept was approved by Henry we eagerly headed out to the shop. We pushed the little car inside and began our work. Once we had marked out the cuts Henry watched from a safe distance as I did the cutting. Every once in a while Henry would signal me to stop and he would come in with his tools and measuring devices to make adjustments. At lunch we took a break to go to town to buy Henry some new work gloves , get some food and run grandma’s car through an automatic car wash. Henry thought it a good idea to get out of his car seat and dance to the LED light shop while the machine laid on the soap and rinsed. Then it was back to the shop for more work. By the time it was time for Henry to head home the little car was a highboy and we had welded up the armature for the dino’s head and arms. Henry is excited about continuing the work next time he visits. Stay tuned for progress updates…