Sorry that we won't see each other today

I was looking very forward to seeing you this afternoon, Kieran. I don't think I can express enough to you how much I miss you and long for the times when we are together. You're the kind of a son that every father wants, and I've always been very proud of you.

You need to know that I did not cancel our planned visitation today. You also should know that no reason was given by the visitation center as to why our visitation was canceled, and no offers were made by the canceling party to reschedule it.

*****
Did you know that one year ago today I called you from Wisconsin! I had flown back to the Midwest to move Jane out to California. Jane and I spent the day getting together with people we hadn't seen in a long time, including Grandma and Grandpa Bignell.

They so wanted to see you, and Jane and me had tried to come up with a way to bring you on the trip. But we ultimately decided that it would be awful complicated to do, and the long drive back to California would get boring very quickly for you.

But I did promise Grandma and Grandpa Bignell that I would bring you back to Wisconson on vacation to see them. It's a promise I have yet to fulfil, but it is one I will keep - after all, I also promised you that one day I would bring you to their farm to meet them. And I always keep my promises!

Writings from my past

For the last couple of days, I've been editing a book about a man whose young wife died. He then receives a mysterious letter and a key to a storage shed; the letter says that stuff belonging to his former wife is stored there. He goes to the shed and finds all of her diaries and writings from her childhood. Then he begins to read them and discover things about his wife that he never knew.

I wanted to tell you about this story because I also have many writings from my past stored away and want you to have them should anything happen to me. Grandma and Grandpa Bignell will keep them for you.

Unfortunately (Well, given their lack of quality, maybe not fortunately!), my writings from childhood have been lost over time, but my journal entries largely begin in junior high with some writings from college.

Most of the stories lsot from my childhood were short stories I wrote in fourth through eighth grade. Almost all of them were set in the Star Trek universe or other science fiction pieces.

You always enjoyed creating stories when we were togther. Do you like to write stories, too?

Sharing some pictures with you

Scandinavian Festival, April 17, 2010

The other night your cousin Rebekah was visiting Grandma and Grandpa Bignell the same night that I was, and she wanted to look at pictures of you and all of your adventures. I have many of them online so was able to show her some that I have posted for all of my Facebook friends to see.

Rebekah is the same age as you and also in kindergarten, so she's very interested in the fun that you've had.

We looked at pictures of your trips to Legoland, Disneyland, the beach, and to the Poppy Festival last year in Lancaster. I think she was a little envious of all of the great adventures we've taken together!

Showing her the pictures was fun because I got to recall all of our fun times together and to tell her fun stories about you. She says she can't wait to meet you in person!

Memories of spring breaks past

During the last week or so you've probably been on spring break - that week long vacation from school that usually occurs around Easter.

During elementary school, I didn't have spring break! We usually just got a day or two off of school around Easter, typically Good Friday or the Monday after.

When I was in high school, my school started doing spring break. I kind of liked having the break from homework and classes, but after a couple of days I always missed my friends.

In college, we always had spring break. For me, it was a great chance to catch up (and even get ahead) on schoolwork I had to do. That made the rest of the school year easier and gave me more time to have fun once all of my friends got back to college!

How did/are you spend/ing your spring break?

Remember hiking into a volcano?

Do you know where you were standing four years ago on Monday? You were in the middle of a volcano!

We went on a hike to the Amboy Crater, a famous extinct volcano in the Mojave Desert near the historical Route 66. As you were very young, I took you up into the volcano on my back in a child carrier, and when we got to the middle of the it, I let you out. The picture at above right shows you playing in the cone.

The black rock is called basalt and was lava that flowed out of the cinder cone and hardened. Lava last flowed out of the volcano some 5,000 years ago.

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

My email to you for March 23, 2013

Here is my email from March 23, 2013, just in case you do not receive it.

Hi Kieran!

How are you today? I love and miss and very much. The good news is we get to see one another again in just six days on March 29! I can’t wait. Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Chris and Aunt Susie have some Easter presents for you, and of course I’ll be bringing some surprises, too!

Did you have Spring Break this past week or do you go on it next week? Your cousins Bryan and Rebekah were on Spring Break this past week. While getting a week off of school was nice when I was a boy, it also got boring real fast for me! I always missed my friends and learning about new stuff. Before going home on Spring Break, I always made sure I brought home lots of books from the library!

Do you get to go to the library and check out books? I miss not being able to go to the library with you. When we were together in Lancaster, we went to storytimes at the library and always checked out books to read at home. Some days we read 10 books! Some days you liked a book so much that we read just that book 10 times!

Easter is coming up soon. What do you plan to do for the Easter holiday? I think I mentioned in my last email that you I was eating at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, where Uncle Chris, Aunt Susie, your cousins Bryan and Rebekah, and Aunt Susie and Uncle Mark will be getting together for Easter dinner and the afternoon. We are having ham and prime rib for dinner. Yummy!

I don’t believe you’ve ever met Aunt Sandy and Uncle Mark (If you did, you were just a baby at the time). Aunt Sandy is Grandma’s sister. They are very nice and have a big house in Stillwater. They also have a dog, a very old black and white border collie. They have seen pictures of you, I’ve told them lots of great stories about you, and they can’t wait to meet you!

In addition to editing and writing books, I have taken up snowshoeing! As you know, I like to hike, yet hiking in the snow is too difficult – but it’s not if you have snowshoes! You then can walk almost anywhere. Snowshoeing does take a lot of energy at first, though, but seeing new things outdoors is a lot of fun – and so is the steaming cup of hot chocolate you enjoy afterwards when you go back inside! Would you like to go snowshoeing one day?

Have you read any good books lately? I have. It was called “Ruthie and the (Not So) Teeny Tiny Lie,” by Laura Rankin. It was about a little girl name Ruthie who finds a teeny tiny toy on the school playground. Even though it’s not her toy, she tells everyone it is and then tells more lies so she can keep it for herself! Will she get caught lying? You will have to read the book and find out! I bet you can find it at your school or city library.

Well, that is all for now. You have a good week, and I will see you Friday afternoon!

Love,

Dad

Your two big trips to Palm Springs

Donning the trainer's helmet
at Palm Springs air museum.

Last night while watching a "Six Million Dolalr Man" DVD, I noticed the episode was filmed in a place we'd gone before: the desert road north of Palm Springs where the tram goes to the top of the mountain.

You may not remember visiting Palm Springs, as you were very young, but we went there twice. The first time, we visited volcanic features on the Salton Sea and then enjoyed dinner downtown. I purchased a captain's sailor cap for you in the hat store.

The second time we went was to visit the airplane museum. The weekend was very rainy and cold, an oddity for Southern California, and the only place I could find that was moderately dry (though it was a little cloudy) was Palm Springs. We ate lunch at Ruby's Diner downtown.

I actually lived in Palm Springs for a couple of years and worked at the newspaper there as its editorial page editor.