Kiddie songs from your preschool days

Earlier this week while going through my computer looking for files to delete - having less stuff on your computer helps it run faster, as it frees up memory - I came across some memories of us: a collection of children's songs that we often listened to when living in the green house in Lancaster.

Among the songs were "B-I-N-G-O," the Chipmunks doing Beatles hits, "If You're Happy and You Know It," and "I'm a Little Tea Pot." I collected them by copying DVDs from the library.

You really liked listening to the Chipmunks songs and some of the railroad songs, especially "I've Been Working on the Railroad." Sometimes, though, you'd ask me to play more adult music, like the pop and rock hits from the Sixties. You had grown-up tastes in music even as a preschooler!

Though you probably wouldn't listen to those kiddie songs now, I refrained from deleting them. Maybe one day you'll want to hear them just for old time's sake...

Recall your City Vehicle Action Set?

Do you remember your City Vehicle Action Set? We bought it at Walmart when you were a preschooler and we lived at the green house in Lancaster.

You may not remember the action set but you probably recall pieces of it - that's because I tossed it in the tote with all of your airplane toys! Most of the pieces in the action set seemed to involve airports, so that only made sense!

Among the pieces in the set were fake wall fronts for an airplane terminal and a gas station/car wash. There are were airport signs and a delivery van.

When snow fell at our SoCal house

Jan. 2, 2011

Three years ago today, we got to enjoy a rare afternoon snow fall at the green house in Lancaster, California! It was the first day our part of the desert had received snow in five years!

I remember that when the snow started falling, I had come over to the window and look with me, and then I asked you if you'd like to outside and play in it. You got superexcited and said "Yes!"

One bad thing about the snow fall was the freezing rain knocked down our apple tree in the backyard. It was the biggest tree in our yard and in the corner.

Here's a bunch of pictures of you enjoying the snow that day!

Remember going to the snowy mountains?

Dec. 28, 2010

Three years ago today, we drove up into the back range of the San Gabriel Mountains and enjoyed some snow!

While temperatures on the desert floor were comfortable in the 40s and 50s (At the time, we lived in the green house in Lancaster, Calif.), a mile up on the mountain tops, snow fell rather than rain. So when the weather cleared up there, we drove up to find several feet of snow, blue skies, and temps in the 20s!

I had bought a blue sled for us, and we went sliding down the Pacific Crest trail near Big Pine, Calif. What is funny is we went hiking there just a few months before!

Here are some photos from our adventure!

Recall 'Luke Skywaker's Amazing Story'?

Our discussion this past weekend of you wanting books to read at your mother's place got me thinking of all of the great books you once had. You probably had close to a hundred of them at the green house in Lancaster.

Then when I went to the book store to purchase a bunch of them for you, I began to wonder if I should rebuy some of those books for you or go for totally new ones?

Anyway, one of the books you had - and one I couldn't find! - was "Luke Skywaker's Amazing Story". About half of the book came from "Star Wars IV: A New Hope", and the other half was a mix of the highlights from the two movies that came after.

You absolutely loved the book! You'd have me read it to you night after night as a bedtime story, and the pictures kept you in rapt attention.

I think if I can find this book somewhere, I will purchase it for you, just for old time's sake!

Your Balok and puppet Star Trek figures

Do you remember your Balok and puppet action figure set? It was a Star Trek collection of three action figures, which included Captain Kirk, Balok, and his menacing-looking puppet.

I had purchased the set back in 1998 when there were tons of Star Trek toys out. I always liked to collect those from The Origianl Series.

I never opened it and kept it packed in totes in our garage at the green house in Lancaster, Calif. After you discovered that I had action figures/toys in the totes, you eventually came across the set!

Though I planned to collect the action figures, so many of them were produced that most were worth less than I paid for them, so I figured why not open 'em and let you play with them? After all, it gave us an extra Captain Kirk (We also got one with the shuttlecraft!)!

Your picture is in a magazine!

Your picture appeared in an online magazine last week! Every few weeks I write an article about hiking for Seattle Backpackers Magazine and usually send along photos to go with the text.

My most recent article is about dressing kids for winter hikes. Of course, I had photos of you dressed for winter, from when we went up into the mountains after a snowfall while living at the greenhouse in Lancaster, Calif. (at right).

The photo shows us sitting in a sled together! You might remember that I pulled up the hill on the sled and then we went sliding down it together.

Here's the article!

Remember playing 'Scary Monster"?

With today being Halloween, I thought I'd share my memories of playing "scary monster" with you! When we were in the green house in Lancaster, you would pretend to be taking a "nap" on the sofa and then say, "Dad, Dad, I think I hear something!"

I'd say, "There's nothing there!"

"There was, there was!" you'd say.

"I'll go check and show you that everything is okay!"

Then I'd go into the hallway where you couldn't quite see me, and I'd say really loud, "There's nothing here. Now you go back to taking your nap!" I'd start walking back to you and go, "Hey, what was that noise?" Turning around, I'd go, "Oh my God, what is that?"
Then I'd make loud monster growling noises and go "Aggh!" and pretend to slam myself into the wall and slide down it.

A second of silence would pass (You'd be peeking over the sofa to try to see what was happening.), and then I'd start walking with a limp like a zombie toward you, making monster growling noises and saying, "Now I can eat that little boy!"

You'd jump off the sofa and run screaming into the kitchen, where you'd break out in laughter!

Happy Halloween, Kieran!

Recall our Peter Pan playset?

Do you remember our Peter Pan playset? It consisted of figurines of the major characters from the movie and some other cool accessories.

We purchased the playset during one of our many visits to Disneyland. It formed the core of our box of "pirate toys."

Often we used the figures and accessories when playing with our "ocean" toys - especially the rowboat and gazebo. We usually played with them on the glass coffee table, which served as the "water surface" of many ocean and island adventures, at the green house in Lancaster.

Theonly real downside to the figures is that they didn't move like our many other action figures!

Your first 'Star Wars' action figure!

Do you remember what your first "Star Wars" action figure was? It was Grand Moff Tarkin, the evil general who ran the Death Star in "Star Wars IV: A New Hope."

We never purchased Grand Moff Tarkin. Instead, we found him the flower bed at the green house in Lancaster. I washed him up, and viola! we had a new action figure.

At the time, you were more into the "Star Trek" action figures I had squirreled away in the garage. Once we started watching "The Clone Wars" and "Star Wars" rerun marathons, though, you got quite interested in "Star Wars" action figures, and our collection took off!

You really liked to collect clone troopers - but I'll save that for another entry!

Your Matchbox Car Wash Mini Playset

Do you remember your Matchbox Car Wash Mini Playset? It was one of many Matchbox car playsets that you had.

This one was neat, though, because it folded up into a box that you could carry around! We kept it in an end table between the sofa and the wall in the green house we lived in at Lancaster, Calif., along with all of the other Matchbox and Hot Wheel sets.

I think you were more of a collector than a player with the Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars, though. You'd play a little with them each day, but you were more into your action figures.

The two purple guys who came with the car wash got put in with our airport toys, if I remember correctly. I think we used the guy carrying the rag as an airplane mechanic at the airport hangar!

Remember your basketball set?

Do you remember your Little Tikes basketball hoop? It was a basketball hoop with backboard on a short stand that I bought you when a preschooler while we lived in the green house in Lancaster.

You had a soft Nerf basketball that you could use to make buckets. We kept it inside until the weather got warm then moved it outside onto the side of the house by the grill.

Generally you preferred to play football or hit the baseball off a t-ball stand rather than "shoot buckets." Still, you played with it just about every time we went outside, usually by tossing the ball at it a couple of times.

Remember that big St. Bernard stuffy?

When we lived in the grene house in Lancaster, you might recall that I had a couple of big pillows a large fluffy St. Bernard dog stacked next to the television in the living room.

Sometimes you way lay on the pillows and dog while watching television. Other times you'd play tackle the dog!
When we did football, "tackle drills," I'd place the the pillow beneath my knees so I'd beyour height for you to ram into.

The dog was a stuffy I got for your mother before you were born. She liked St. Bernards, and for a while we were putting together a mystery novel about a nurse whose St. Bernard solves murders that the nurse gets entangled in!

Remember our wampa action figures?

One "Star Wars" toy that we always had fun with were the action figures from the wampa scenes in "The Empire Strikes Back."

I can't recall if we bought these pieces as from a couple of different sets, but in any case we quickly combined them into one. It included a wampa, the white monster that captured Luke Skywalker, Luke himself, and his taun-taun, the dinosaur-like creature they used as a horse. I recall that pieces of raw meat that the wamp ate came with the set - yech!

We also had a Han Solo dressed up for the winter scene on Hoth (the planet where the wampa lives), so I think we combined two kits: Han Solo and the taun-taun; Luke Skywalker and the wampa.

Unfortunately, I don't remember any specific stories about playing with these toys, only that they always were part of the starfighter base that we typically built on the glass coffee table in the green house in Lancaster.

Remember your room's Star Wars poster?

When we lived at the green house in Lancaster, Calif. your room was decorated with Star Wars stuff, such as the bedspread and posters. One poster that hung over your bed was a collage of famous characters and scenes from the fourth through the sixth Star Wars movies.

Sometimes I'd tease you about the characters saying "Oh look, you have a Sesame Street poster!" Then pointing to Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, I'd say "There's Ernie and Bert!" Then pointing at another character, I'd go "And there's Cookie Monster!"

At first you'd take me seriously and go, "No, no, that's not Sesame Street, it's Star Wars." Eventually you caught on that I was just foolingwith  you and would get exasperated. So then I'd stop.

At upper right is a picture of the poster. I may still have it, actually, in a tote of your stuff.

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!

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!