Two years ago today: William Hart home

Jan. 22, 2012, William S. Hart ranch.

Two years ago today we visited and toured the museum ranch and home of silent film cowboy star William S. Hart. It was in Santa Clarita, Calif.

The visit started with going through the petting zoo, where we fed some animals, in particular a big brown swiss cow and and mule deer fawn. There also were various chickens and hogs, but none of them were hungry.

Then we hiked up the hill to the ranchhouse. I was so impressed by your good behavior on a tour that semmed to run a little long for my tastes!

Afterard, at the gift store, you got a collection of cowboy and Indian toys. These became the characters of your Sheriff Jack stories!

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

Your 'Hikes with Tykes' hoodie?

Do you remember your cool "Hikes with Tykes" hoodie? When I lived in Encinitas, I published my first book, "Hikes with Tykes" (with a picture of you on the cover) and got some clothes made up to promote the book!

One of them was an ash gray hoodie for you. It had front pockets to place your hands in when they got cold and a hood to keep out the wind. The words Hikes with Tykes were in black over the left breask pocket.

For myself, I got a matching black T-shirt and black sweatshirt. Sometimes we'd wear our Hikes with Tykes sweatshirts when we went places together!

Remember your Playmobil knights castle?

Do you remember your Playmobil castle? It was a small portion of a larger set but offered plenty of fun times anyways.

It included part of a wall that could be broken through, a small cell for captured prisoners, a took/tower, and a couple of knights to battle it out! The toy sat in your tote of knights toys.

We usually used the play castle in conjunction with other toys...it might be the lair of the evil Star Wars action figures or the temporary base for the good knights as they held out against an assulat from all of the bad dragons!

Remember our gem hunt in Opal Canyon?

Opal Canyon, Jan. 18, 2011.

Three years today we went hiking in Opal Canyon at Red Rock Canyon State Park north of Mojave, California! It is a gem trail on which we searched and dug for opal and other cool rocks.

Our hike began with a drive down a desert jeep trail to the edge of an dry wash. We then hiked up the arroyo to various fossil sites.

Once at the sites, you helped me chip away at the rock with my geologist's hammer. We found some great gems, and I still have them in a box, all labled for you (I will show them to you one day!)!

Here's a bunch of pictures from our adventure!

Recall your parking ramp toy?

Do you remember your cool parking ramp toy we had at the grene house in Lancaster? It was the Fast Lane Street Linx Parking Garage, and we got it one afternoon at Toys R Us. It ook me about any hour to put together, but we got plenty of hours of fun afterward from it!

The elevator on it didn't work too well, but we had lots of great adventures driving cars around on it. Probably the most exciting part of it, though, was the cool spiral ramp that we'd let cars sail down to see how far they'd go when they cleared the bottom floor.

This was one of two parking ramps you had. The other fell apart (Though we kept the blacktop roads that went with it for our construction toys), so we got this as a replacement!

Sledding in Hudson at the SnowPark

On Saturday, Jan. 11, we went sledding (or more accurately snowtubing) at Badlands SnowPark in Hudson, Wis. The snowpark was a series of hills on which we could slide down with intertubes!

I bought you a bunch of new winter clothes for you for the adventure, including boots and snowpants. You loved the cool skull stocking cap I got and wore it over your Angry Birds stocking cap! You also wore your sunglasses - the same ones you had in California!

We did the bunny hill, which still was quite "fun but scary," as you said. You even rode your own intertube down the hill. There also was a rope that you grabbed onto it, and it automaticlaly pulled you up the hill!

Unfortunatley, my camera batteries went dead in the cold, so I was unable to take any pictures of us...

Your NFL jerseys through the years

In your Phillip Rivers
jersey, 2011.

This past weekend when we were together, you mentioned that you don't recall ever having a Philip Rivers jersey. Probably not - you were just a preschooler when you had it! So I thought today I'd list all of the NFL jerseys you've owned (so far!):
>>Brett Favre (Minnesota Vikings) - We got the purple jersey at the mall in Palmdale, Calif., in 2010, the season that Favre had his big year with the Vikings and they went to the conference championship.
>>Philip Rivers (San Diego Chargers) - We bought this in Encinitas, Calif., in fall 2011. It was the navy blue jersey.
>>Matt Flynn (Oakland Raiders) - Though he as traded to the Green Bay Packers, I got the black jersey for you for Christmas 2013.