Remember Your Imaginext Bat Copter?

A couple of days ago while in Kmart I saw one of your old toys - the Bat Copter that went with your Imaginext Bat Cave. That brought back lots of memories!

We often used the Bat Copter when playing with the Bat Cave. Sometimes the villains even tried to capture the copter!

You really liked playing with the copter, though, when we got a Imaginext Fire Rescue chopper - it was red with a circled letter R on it, so you said it was Robin's helicopter! We now had a chopper for both Batman and Robin (You typically assigned me the Bat Copter while you got "Robin's chopper") and took them together on lots of adventures!

My books dedicated to you

As you know, I write books (as well as edit them) for a living. Most of the books I've written are dedicated to you! Here's a list of those dedicated to you:
>>Hikes with Tykes (Your picture is on the cover and there are several pics of you in the book.)
>>Hikes with Tykes: Games and Activities (A picture of you at Vasquez Rocks is on the cover.)
>>7 Minutes a Day to Your Bestseller (For this volume and the next two on the list, you share the dedication with your two cousins, Bryan and Rebekah, as I released the three books at one time.)
>>7 Minutes a Day to a Self-Published Book
>>7 Minutes a Day to Promoting Your Book
>>7 Minutes a Day to Mastering the Craft of Writing
>>Headin' to the Cabin: Day Hiking Trails of Northwest Wisconsin
>>Hittin the Trail (So far, there are six books in the series, and each is dedicated to you.)

Three years ago today: SpaceShipTwo

Feb. 19, 2011, with WhiteKnightTwo and
SpaceShipTwo behind you.

Three years ago today you got to see the first non-government spaceship at the Mojave Air and Spaceport's monthly fly-in.

The spaceship was Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo! The WhiteKnight is the mothership that carries SpaceShipTwo high into the atmosphere where the gravity is lower. It then drops the SpaceShip, which fires its rockets and zooms into low Earth orbit!

The day was extremely cold, though - only in the mid 40s - so we stayed there just long enough to walk around the ship and take a few pictures. You told me it was a "pretty cool spaceship"!

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

Memories of your 'Scottish' castle

During the previous weekend with me (Feb. 8-9, 2014), you played a lot with your castle that I gave you for Christmas 2013. You made a couple of great memories - at least in my mind!

One memory revolved about me somehow telling you that at one time England conquered Wales, then Scotland and finally Ireland to form the United Kingdom. After that, the knights in your castle were Scotsmen defending the fort against the invading English!

During this battle, you also started shooting the discs from the cannons on the tip of the castle's turrets. Some of those discs hit me! You were apologetic and shifted the castle's position so that the fired discs would land on your bed, that way they would be easier to find!

Recall your Traffic Jam floor puzzle?

Do you remember your Traffic Jam floor puzzle? It was a huge 2-foot-high by 3-foot-wide puzzle made by the Melissa and Doug company, which specializes in sturdy, educational toys for kids.

The puzzle contained different kinds of transportation vehicles in a cityscape. We got it when you were a preschooler, so often I'd place on the floor where the pieces go, and you'd piece them together. Later, as you grew older, you would look for connecting pieces.

Afterward, I'd always ask you to point out the vehicles on the puzle, such as "Which one is the airplane?" or "Where is the fire truck?"

Your Lego Monster Truck Transporter kit

One of the great Lego toys we got this past weekend (Feb. 9, 2014) was the Lego Monster Truck Transporter kit.

I was so impressed that you put it together all by yourself! There were a lot of pieces in the kit, but you followed the instructions from the first to the last page while we listened to oldies and I built a house from the other Lego kit. Your ability to stick through the project from start to end with only a couple of short breaks to get up and stretch your legs was fantastic!

The kit made a semi truck and trailer with a Monser truck that fit on the trailer's back. There were three guys and other pieces as well.

I can't wait to put together more Lego kits with you!

Four years ago today: Saddleback Butte SP

Feb. 15, 2010

Four years ago today we hiked Saddleback Butte State Park in the Antelope Valley, California! The park was about 15 miles east of our house.

The butte has a large number of Joshua trees that sit on the desert floor beneath a large rocky hill. We hiked to the top of a smaller butte/rocky hill at the park's norhwest corner and then through the Joshue Tree forest below it.

The hike was quite brief in terms of mileage - only about 0.75 to 1 mile long, but you were at the point in your life in which you wanted to walk the trails rather than be taken in the child carrier, and that was about all the distance you could handle!

I also remember the day being fairly warm, in the high 60s.

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