Our day together on Jan. 25, 2014

Playing with the new racetrack toy, Jan. 25, 2014.

I had so much fun with you on Saturday! We began the day by stopping in Hudson, where we stopped at the Dollar Tree and picked up football/basketball/baseball stickers, then at Target where we picked up BeyBlade tops and Lego kits, then at Culvers for lunch, and finally at Walgreens for football cards!

Then we went back to Grandma and Gandpa's where we looked at all of the football cards, put together the Lego sets, and placed stickers in our NFL book. Then we put togther and played quite a while with our racetrack set!

We also took some time to look at your report card. I am very proud of you - your grades and conduct improved across the board from first to second quarter!

While enjoying an early dinenr of hand sandwiches, we played Trouble and Hi-Ho Cherry-O. On the ride back, you watched the opening episode of Jonny Quest on my Kindle Fire.

A great day at Nickelodeon Universe

I had a wonderful day with you Kieran! I had a lot of fun, and we made some great memories, too!

We started the day with lunch at A&W at the Mall of America, showing each other all of our new neat stuff. Then we went on to Nickelodeon Universe and rode tons of rides! You really liked the bumper cars and one that whipped around when it went around corners.

After that, we went to Dollar Tree and got loads of football stickers for your sticker book and football cards for your collection. I was really impressed with the way you broke down the sticker book into a series of logical steps so that finding where they went would be easy! We then went to Kokomos for quesadillas and to paste our stickers into the book!

Here's a whole bunch of photos from our adventure!

The History of the Miami Dolphins

1973 Larry Csonka football card.

This past weekend you told me that your favorite football team was the Miami Dolphins. I found that amazing because my favorite team when I was your age was the Miami Dolphins, too!

That year the Miami Dolphins went undefeated. They're the only team that has won every single game in a season. A few teams have come close, but no one has matched it. Their quarterback was Bob Greise, their running back was Larry Csonka, and their coach was Don Shula.

The Miami Dolphins started playing football in 1966 in the American Football League. Their colors are aqua and orange.

They went to the Super Bowl three years in a row - 1971, 1972 and 1973 - and won the last two of those. With Dan Marino as quarterback, they went back to the Super Bowl in 1982 and 1985 but lost each time. My favorite years of the Dolphins were those in the warly 1970s, though, and after they started getting different players and losing during the late 1970s, I wasn't much into them.

Our day at the Mall of America

I had so much fun with your yesterday, Kieran!

We spent the day at the Mall of America, and here is a rundown of all that we did:
>>Lunch at Johnny Rockets, where you showed me your cool new NFL sticker book.
>>Camp Ice Age, where we played carnival games, watched a cartoon, and met Sid the Sloth
>>Lego store, where we bought a new Chima lego set
>>Searched for football stickers and cards; we found some football and baseball cards at one store
>>A&W malts; we enjoyed them while playing with the football cards int he food court

Here are a whole bunch of pictures from our adventure!

Collecting Topps pro football cards

One of my favorite things to collect when I was in first grade were football cards!

That year, the Miami Dolphins were the best team in the NFL, and along with the Packers my favorite team. So I always wanted to get Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers players whenever I bought football cards. My favorite football card was of Dolphins player Nick Buoniconti!

I started buying football cards for you the year before you went into first grade. They were the Topps cards with New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez on the package.

The current football cards I'm purchasing for you also are from Topps but have Adrian Peterson on the package. You told me Saturday that you wanted to collect cards from California teams! I hope you get lots of them in your packages!