Recall seeing the rare desert tortoise?

Kieran watching the desert tortoise.

Three years ago today we hiked the Desert Tortoise Natural Area in the Mojave Desert. The reserve was about 40 minutes north of where we lived in Lancaster, Calif.

Yes, we got to see the rare desert tortoise! We found one sitting outside of its den just off the trail. This particular species of tortoise has been on the Earth for about 2 million years but is facing extinction.

The highlight of the hike for you was finding the numbered posts along the trail. They corresponded to a guide that pointed out interesting sites along the trail. You turned it into quite the game to find the next numberered post!

Here's a whole bunch of pictures from our big adventure!

My email sent to you on Jan. 26, 2013

Here is the email I sent to you on Jan. 26, 2013, just in case you don’t get to see it:

Hi Kieran,

How are you doing? I’m doing fine, though I miss you very much and think about you every day. The good news is that we finally will be able to see one another again in just six days, on Feb. 1! I will enjoy catching up with you since I have not received your emails during the past months. Hopefully you have been receiving mine; I have kept all of my emails to you and will show them to you once we are allowed to see one another again.

We have much to celebrate when we see each other on Friday. First, there is Valentine’s Day! Do you get to exchange valentines with your classmates on Feb. 14? I always did when I went to school. We also had parties, too, usually in the afternoon. Everybody in school looked forward to them. We also got to make valentine mailboxes that we’d put on our desk for our classmates to drop valentines into. One year, I made a valentine box that looked like a gas station!

We’ll celebrate Valentine’s Day together on Feb. 1 with some of grandma’s yummy valentine sugar cookies! She also is baking another special treat that you’ll really like – it’s one of your favorite sweets!

The second thing we have to celebrate is your birthday! Everybody has birthday presents for you, and I can’t wait for you to open them. Is there anything special you wanted for your birthday this year? Last year for your birthday on Feb. 23, you and I went to Chuck E Cheese together in Lancaster, and you got a Transformer toy and an art set. We then played all kinds of games together. I had lots of fun with you!

There’s another big day coming up in February – President’s Day. We usually celebrate George Washington’s and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays on President Day, which is Feb. 18 this year. Speaking of Abraham Lincoln, today I saw a movie about him at the theater. It was a very good movie, and one day when you’re older I’m sure you’ll want to watch it. Some people said the movie is too serious, but you’re a very smart boy, so when you get older I’m certain you’ll enjoy it.

Have you read any good books lately? I have. It was about Abraham Lincoln! The book was called “Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek” by Deborah Hopkinson. Actually, it’s about when Abraham Lincoln was a boy, maybe 6 or 7 years old. He and his friend Austin have to get across a very dangerous creek but because there’s no bridge they run into problems. I bet your school library or the public library has a copy of the book that you could check you. Perhaps your mother or Grandpa Don could read it to you!

Well, that it is all for now. I can’t wait to see you in just a few days!

Love,

Dad

Living at 'the green house' in Lancaster

Pear tree in backyard of "the green house."

In February 2009, we moved from Santa Clarita to Lancaster, Calif., specifically to the "green house" as you called it. Your mother worked at the hospital in Lancaster, and I was a stay-at-home dad, taking care of you!

I loved the "green house". It had a garage (that we used more as a storage shed), a neat galley kitchen, a cool bedroom for you (That I put these wonderful tote shelves into for your toys and boys), and a family room (that opened up to the backyard), where I had my "office." We had beautiful plants growing in our backyard and a grille on the side porch.

We had many great adventures together when living in Lancaster, especially hikes. Much of our day was spent playing, punctuated by trips to the library or errands we neded to run.

We stayed in the green house until April 2011,  a little more than two full years!

Recall your play fire station?

One of your favorite toys to play with when a preschooler was the Fisher Price Imaginext fire station pictured at right. I bought it for you when you were two, but you played with it no matter what your age!

It had neat doors that you could park the fire truck behind, as well as bunkbeds so you could pretend that the firefighters were at the station before they got called to put out a big fire. One feature I really liked was the pole on which the firefighter could spin down from the roof to the ground level.

I bought some additional fire trucks and ambulances as well, so we could have quite the adventure with the play set. Often after the firefighters left the station, it became the burning building they had to save!

I always kept it on the mantle next to the fireplace, as it was a favorite toy of yours to enjoy. You'll probably see it in the background of several photos from our time at the green house in Lancaster!

Your first California snowfall!

It never rains in Southern California - but it does snow! Snowfall covered the Mojave Desert the afternoon two years ago today. It was the first time in five years that snow had fallen where I'd lived near Los Angeles - and it was YOUR first snow fall in California!

 

You'd played in the snow in the mountains near where we lived in Lancaster so knew how much fun it could be to be outside, so you asked if you could go out in it. I got you quick dressed, and once outside you ran through it like crazy and made snowballs.

 

Later that day, one of our trees in our backyard fell over! It couldn't handle all of the wind and the heavy snow on its branches.

 

Here's a whole bunch of photos from your fun hours outside in the snow!

Rainbows and waterways in Lancaster

You might recall that a waterway ran behind our green house when we lived in Lancaster, California. A tall brick wall separated the waterway from our yard, but every once in a while I'd lift you up high so you could see over.

Living in the desert, we never got too much rain, so there wasn't much of a flow in the waterway. You can see from one of the pictures here how little water there was, even after six days of rain (and 5 inches total!) this time in 2010!

But what's really neat about these photos is that two years ago yesterday (or on Dec. 22, 2010), the sun finally came out after those six days of rain - and we got to see some great rainbows together!

My birthday wish

Today is my birthday, and I have only one wish: That I could see you. Even a phone call or an email would be okay. Unfortunatley, several people who have very sick minds have prevented us from being together today or even being able to communicate with one another. I do not feel angry toward these people, though, and I hope you do not either, for the sickness of their minds prevents them from knowing right or wrong, prevents them from understanding the deep hurt they have caused. In any case, we shall prevail, and should dedicate our energies today to realizing our wish for the day that did not come true.

Last year on this day, we drove to San Diego together to pick up some of my belongings at my trailer. I had moved earlier that week back to Lancaster/Palmdale so that I could be closer to you. After we filled my car full of totes, we spent a few hours at Legoland and then on our drive back, stopped at Chuck E Cheese's in a suburb north of San Diego - I think it was Vista - where we had a great time playing games and eating pizza. I even have a picture of us taken where you sit in a booth and a machine draws us.

For me, the past 12 months truly lived up to Charles Dickens' oft-quoted words, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." But I hold a strong belief that during the year ahead we will be reunited, and then it truly will be a time "of wisdom...a season of Light...the spring of hope" in which we have "...everything before us."

Recall your shuttlecraft Galileo toy?

Do you remember the fun shuttlecraft toy with Captain Kirk action figure that you used to have? Here's a picture of it at right.

When you were two, you discovered that in the garage at the green house (in Lancaster) that I had all of these old Star Trek action figures and toys in totes. You begged me to let you play with them, and I figured there was no need to keep them in packages anymore, so I let you have one a day. Among the larger sets was the cool shuttlecraft and Kirk figure from The Original Series.

We'd often take them on adventures to other "planets" - namely the beds and tables in the house - where they'd have to fight off pillow monsters and strange alien action figures. Often you put your Star Wars action figures in the shuttlecraft for a Clone Wars adventure!

I don't have the shuttlecraft anymore, but I'm fairly certian that I still have your Captain Kirk action figure.

Photo shoot of you in Santa Clarita

Here's an old picture I found of you from 2009. We were at the mall in Santa Clarita, Calif., when walking past a photography studio and were asked if they could take pictures of you with no obligation that we purchase the photos. Of course, we took them up on the offer.

Some of the photos taken were of you sitting on a toy car, playing with a green frog, and looking at the flower (see photo at left). You actually had a lot of fun being the center of attention in the photo shoot!

Of course, we bought the package of pictures anyway! One of the photos of you was turned into a black and white and framed; I had it hanging in my office at our green house in Lancaster and in the trailer I rented in Encinitas. I still have that great picture of you, so you'll soon see it hanging in my new place once we are together again!

The first place I remember living

I suspect the first place you remember living in is the "green house" (as you called it) in Lancaster, Calif. Well, the first place I remember  living as a little boy was a farmhouse in rural Plum City, Wis. The picture at right is of me as a four-year-old in the living room of that farmhouse at Easter 1970.

All of my toys fit in a cardboard box and were kept in the living room, where I spent most of my day playing. My bedroom was upstairs on the second floor.

I had a dog named Scotty when I lived in the farmhouse. We went on lots of adventures together! But winter in the Midwest is long, so I only got to go outdoors for maybe five months during the year!

The house is still standing, though the garage, small barn and various trees that were there when I was a little boy are gone. When we are together again, I will show you the place!

Places you've lived

Although you're only five years old, you've lived lots of places!

Here's a list of them:
g Crescent City, Calif. (birth to Sept. 2007)
g Eureka, Calif. (Sept.-Dec. 2007)
g Knapp, Wis. with Grandma and Grandpa Bignell (Dec. 2007-Sept. 2008)
g Santa Clarita, Calif. (Sept. 2008-Feb. 2009)
g Lancaster, Calif. (the "green house") (March 2009-March 2011)
g Palmdale, Calif. (April 2011-May 2012)
g Plymouth, Minn. (May 2012-current)

Where will you live next?