One year ago today: Christmas presents!

One year ago today we spent the day together opening Christmas presents!

Among the many presents you received were a Go Fish card game, tub of Legos, Imaginext superhero action figures (including CatWoman), PlayDoh, U.S. puzzle map, Transformers, and Hot Wheels cars. You took most of the gifts back to your mother's place, though I kept a couple for our next visit.

I wonder what you'll receive this year for Christmas?

Here's a whole bunch of photos of our time together!

Attending your Christmas program

Dec. 19, 2013

I enjoyed attending your school's Christmas program last night, Kieran! You and your schoolmates sang very beautifully!

Getting to talk with you after the program in your classroom also was a lot of fun. I'm so glad you showed me around the room and some of the projects you worked on!

Hopefully during the weeks and months ahead, I'll be able to attend more of your school events and get to enjoy finding out about all the great work that you're doing in class!

Here are a few pictures I took of the program.

P.S. Congratulations on your great work on the Brazil booklet!

Remember playing Hi-Ho Cherry-O?

Do you remember your game Hi-Ho Cherry-O? I got it for you while I lived in Encinitas.

The game involved spinning to see how many fruits you would "pick" from a tree and place in your basket. You could choose from cherries,blueberries, oranges or apples to pick.

You always had to be careful to not spin the dog. He would tip over your basket,and you;d have to start picking fruit all over again!

Recall our gem trail hiking guidebook?

Do you remember the gem trail book that I used to have? I often used it to plan hiking trips for us where we could find fossils and cool rocks in Southern California.

Though the book was borrowed from the library, I photocopied a number of the pages, and read it quite a lot, so it sat prominently on my desk.

I remember when we once hiked Red Rock Canyon State Park in the Mojave Desert, and while we we were in the gift shop, you saw it on the bookshelf and said, "Hey, we have that book!" So I wonder if you still remember it today...

I think that day I got you stuffie at the gift store, though I can't remember if it was a bat, a road runner, or a songbird. Anyway, there are lots of photo albums on my Facebook site of our gem and fossil trail hikes, and I will show them to you one day (as well as some of the rocks that we'd collected!).

Four years ago today in Disneyland

Dec. 17, 2009, at Disneyland.

Four years ago today, we spent the day in Disneyland! It was my birthday!

I remember you being very impressed with all of the Christmas decorations at Disneyland, especially those on Main Street USA and the big Christmas tree at the center. At the time, you favorite ride was the carousel, so we went on that right away, as well as the teacups, which you also liked a lot!

We also spent a fair amount of time in Toontown, where you got to meet Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. You were just 2 years 10 months old, and cute as all heck!

Here's a whole bunch of pictures of our trip together!

Pictures of us when we were 6 years old

On my Facebook page I recently posted a retro photo of myself - my first grade picture, taken in autumn 1972 for my elementary school picture. I was 6-3/4 years old.

I posted the retro picture because my cover photo is of you ... from autumn 2013 during our visits, when you were 6-1/2 years old.

We look a lot alike - even have the same early Beatles mop top hair cuts, don't we?

When I was six, I lived on a small farm east of Elmwood, Wis. I attended Elmwood Elementary School. My first grade teacher's name was Mrs. Rhiel. I shared a room with my brother, and the room was turquoise,. My favorite football teams were the Miami Dolphins and the Green Bay Packers! I loved to watch Star Trek, and would catch each weekday after school from 4 to 5 pm on WKBT-TV out of La Crosse, Wis. My best friend in school was Ronald Wolfe. When my parents went out for the evening, usually our next door neighbor, whose name was Hazel, babysat us.

I am very proud of you and love you more than anything, Kieran!

Our day at Action City in Eau Claire

I had so much fun with you yesterday, Kieran! We spent most of the day at Action City in Eau Claire and then came back to Grandma and Grandpa Bignells for birthday cake!

At Action City, you started the day with some racing video games. I was impressed by your driving - you definitely drive aggressively like a Bignell!

Then we went on the bumper cars and after that to the gocart racing track. We got first place on the the gocart racing, making a great move at the end that sped us from second to first place!

We must have spent an hour on the Terminator video game. I think you got ripped off, because when I used your machine gun, it didn't fire all of the time. When you used the machine gun I had through most of the game, you scored "Elite" and won!