Remember Charlie Bown Farms?

Four years ago today, we stopped at Charlie Brown Farms in Little Rock, Calif., to look at the dinosaurs! You may recall that they had all of these statues for sale, and among them were several man-sized dinos.

Charlie Brown Farms always was a fun palce to explore because they had lots of itneresting stuff there to discover and play with. They also had mega amounts of candy and soda pop options!

It was across the road from a McDonalds that we sometimes stopped at. I almost always pulled off there on my way back to San Diego for a little dinner to eat in the car.

Here's some pictures from our adventure!

My email to you from June 15, 2013

Here is my letter to you from June 15, 2013, in case you do not receive it.

Hi Kieran,

How are you today? I am doing fine, though I miss you very much! It was so nice to receive your email on Monday and catch up on what you were doing.

I’m glad to hear that you’re enjoying summer school. Does it go through August? Do you get some time off from school to enjoy summer vacation? Which of your friends are going to summer school with you?

I bet seeing the dinosaurs was a lot of fun! The science museum in St. Paul has a good collection of them. Which dinosaur was your favorite? My favorite dinosaur is the Troodon. It walked on two legs like a bird and had the biggest brain of all of the dinosaurs – and that still was only as large as a chicken’s brain! Some scientists think the Troodon may have had feathers.

The Twins game sounds fun as well! What team did they play? Who won (Hopefully yours!)? My two favorite baseball teams are not doing very well this season – the Dodgers are in last place and the Brewers are in fourth place! Maybe they’ll get things turned around, but usually by the end of June if a team isn’t in second or first place, the odds are against them going to the playoffs. Hopefully next year they’ll do better!

 

I’m so proud that you’ve learned to ride a bicycle! What color is your bike? When I was a little boy, we used to put playing cards in the spokes of our bicycle wheel so that when we cruised down the street it made this neat thwap, thwap, thwap! sound. Maybe you could send a picture of you on your bike.

I bet you had lots of fun at the farm. Did you get to feed any animals? Where was the farm at? Grandma and Grandpa Bignell no longer have animals on their farm, but when they did, there were cows, pigs and chickens. And of course, they had dogs and lots and lots of cats.

Tomorrow is a big day – it’s Father’s Day! This year to celebrate Father’s Day, I am reading essays at a book store in Stillwater about fatherhood and what a great son you are! What will you be doing for Father’s Day this year? Friday (yesterday) also was a holiday – Flag Day, in which we honor an important symbol of our country and all that it stands for. Did you notice a lot of American flags out yesterday? Traditionally people hang flags from their house on Flag Day. Did you hang one from your house?

Next Friday is the first day of summer – and also the 21^st when we get to see one another again! That’s just six days away! I can’t wait to see you then!

Be good in summer school, and I’ll see you on Friday! I definitely will brings the “Star Trek” stuff! I miss and love you very much!

Love,

Dad

My dinosaur memories with you

I received your email on Monday, and you mentioned going to the science musuem in St. Paul to see the dinosaur skeletons. I bet that was a lot of fun!

I have lots of "dinosaur" memoires with you.

When you were a preschooler, we had a whole bunch of plastic dinosaur toys. We'd play with them on plastic mats that showed jungle and volcano scenes.

We also went to see life-sized models of dinosaurs when we could. There were some at the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles, at the Los Angeles County Fair, and at a roadside attraction called Charlie Brown's Farms in Little Rock, Calif.

You also had a great book called "Ten Little Dinosaurs." The cover had a dino with googly eyes on it, so when you shook the bok, his eyeballs spun!

Our last morning together...

One year ago today I took you to school on a Monday morning as you'd spent the weekend with Jane and me at our condo in Palmdale. It was the last morning we spent together for a year now...

While I got breakfast ready for us, you played with your toys in the living room and saw that one of the DVDs I had were the cartoon "Return to the Planet of the Apes". You got all excited and asked if you could watch it, so I put it in - It was one of my favorite cartoons as a little boy!

You were mesmerized by the opening scene and couldn't stop watching it! When Jane joined us for breakfast, I put the DVD on pause so we eat together as a family, and you told her all about the cartoon!

Afterward, I drove you to preschool where we played a little with some of the dinosaur toys there! They had some of the dinosaur play action sets that we did.

Standing in front of a pteranodon

Here's a great photo of us I found in my files; I don't remember the name of the place, but it was on the coast in southern Oregon where you walk through the forest, which has a bunch of fake dinosaurs arranged in dioramas. Kind of kitschy, I know, but it was pretty drive and lots of fun! I'm a sucker for kitschy dinosaur displays, btw.

The trail through the displays started with concrete, so we took you in your stroller. Then the trail turned to dirt and got rough, so we had to carry you and bring the stroller back to the beginning!

Here we are in front of a pteranodon. We did this trip in September 2007, so you are only 6 months old! On the way back, we stopped for a nice meal at a restaurant in Brookings, Ore. We were living in Crescent City, Calif., at the time.

Recall laying on a bed of nails?

A year ago today we visited the California Science Museum in Santa Ana, Calif. The day was a bit cold and wet still had lots of fun.

The first part of the expedition was spent indoors exploring and playing with the cool science exhibits. One of them was a bed of nails that you bravely laid upon! There also was a sand/water tp demonstrate erosion. We then watched a large IMAX showing of a dinosaur movie that kind of freaked you out, but by the end you wanted to see more!

We then went outside to the dinosaur part of the exhibit. I'd last taken you there about two years before, so I was neat to see how big you'd grown since then!

Here's a whole bunch of pictures from our visit.

My response to your second email

Received an email from you on Friday and wanted to print my response to it below, just in case you don't receive it. I sent it to you today.

Dear Kieran,

It is so good to hear from you! I miss and love you very much and am glad you let me know how you are doing.

I do have one favor to ask of you: Could you ask your mother to remove “Dingle Fritz” from the name she has assigned me on her email. “Dingle Fritz” is not a very nice word and inappropriate for an email between a son and his father. I hope it is not a word you use in school or with your friends or to refer to your mother. Okay?

You must have had only half a day of school today – I see your email was sent at 1:40 in the afternoon! I hope you enjoyed your time off of school!

Playing football and tag with your friends and classmates sounds like a lot of fun. What position do you usually play when playing football? When my friends and I played football in school, our punter always kicked the ball backward so that it went behind him! When I told my Uncle George this, he suggested that we have our punter stand backward so that the ball went the right way. So we tried that – except he actually kicked it correctly, which meant the ball still went the “wrong way”! After that, we just decided to always go for it on fourth down.

Anakin or a firefighter for Halloween – that would be a difficult choice! Whichever you decide, I know you’ll look good in it. Maybe you could send a picture of yourself in your costume – surprise me with which one you choose!

If you have to wait until spring to learn to ride a bicycle, that’s okay. By that time, we hopefully will be able to see each other, and I can help teach you how to ride the bicycle (Now I better go out and remember how to ride one myself – It’s been a long time I’ve been on a bike! Don’t worry, once you learn, it’s something you never forget.).

What are you doing this weekend? Have you gone to the Minnesota Zoo yet some weekend? I like the jungle part at the zoo.

A guinea pig sounds like lots of fun in the classroom! Whenever we used to visit pet stores together, you always liked to watch the guinea pigs. Do you get to help take care of the guinea pig? When I was in kindergarten, our classroom had a salamander. I always liked the way his home in the glass cage was decorated with lots of green plants and rocks. It looked like a miniature jungle!

Have you read any good books lately? I just read “Time Train” by Paul Fleischman. It’s about all of these different places where you can find dinosaur bones – like Utah and Pennsylvania – and shows what those places used to look like when dinosaurs lived there.

Well, that is all for now. I miss and love you very much!

Daddy

Here's what you wrote to me on Friday:

Dad:

I go to school all day. Like playing outside, sometimes we play football or tag.

For Halloween I'm going to go as Anakin from Clone Wars, or maybe a fire fighter, I haven't decided yet.

Not sure if I'll learn how to ride a bike right now, maybe in the Spring.

Lots of different things to do on weekends so they fly by.

We have a guiena pig at school. So that is really exciting.

Love,

Kieran