Remember New Years Eve at Legoland?

One year ago today we were at Legoland in Carlsbad, Calif., celebrating New Years Eve!

Although I'd moved back to Lancaster just a couple of weeks before, I still had stuff at the storage shed in Encinitas, so we quick stopped there to pick up some totes. It was a long drive!
Then we went to Legoland, as we had year-round passes. The big problem was a heavy fog off the ocean, though, which really obstructed the fireworks.

The foreworks were held a bit early - shortly after 6 p.m. or so when it is dark during winter. We wore special glasses so that the fireworks looked like Lego bricks in the sky!

Here's a couple of pictures from our trip!

Always tell the truth, no matter what

I'm very proud of you, Kieran, because during the past year you told the truth, a very important principle that I'd always tried to instill in you before others decided to cruelly keep us apart. Thanks to you being honest, we likely will be able to again be with one another.

Unfortunately, you will find yourself surrounded by people who believe telling the truth is only important if it serves their selfish purposes. While lying may benefit them in the short term, over the long haul one's lies have a way of catching up with you. The result is that more harm comes to them because on balance more people than not believe in telling the truth.

Why is telling the truth so important? Because our reputation is our worth in society. Once we lie, our reputation suffers, sometimes to the point where we lose things important to us. The heartache of losing what we value always is worse than the trouble we might get into if we are truthful.

Being honest is important because lying is unfair to others. People make decisions based on the assumption that what we've told them is the truth. We should not be unfair to others because it violates the Golden Rule - "Do unto others as they would do unto you." We would not want others to be unfair to us, so we should not be unfair to them.

My email sent to you Dec. 29, 2012

Here is the email I sent Dec. 29, 2012, in case you don't receive it:

Dear Kieran,

How are you doing today? I miss and love you very much!

I hope you’re enjoying winter break from school. Sometimes winter breaks can get awful long as you don’t get to see and play with your friends every day, but having free time to play with your own toys is fun, too.

What did you receive for Christmas? Grandma and Grandpa, Uncle Chris and Aunt Suzy, and I had lots of fun picking our Christmas gifts for you. We still have a couple left to give, and I’ll be sure to bring those when we get together next Friday – which is in just six days!

I bet you’re having fun playing in the snow. Have you made a snowman yet? You always enjoyed going out into the snow in the mountains when we lived in California. We’d go sliding, make snowmen, and toss snowballs.

What do you plan to do for New Year’s Eve? A lot of people stay up until midnight so that they can say they were awake during the first minute of the new year. That’s staying up really late! Last year on New Year’s Eve, we went to the fireworks at Legoland. It was held at 6 p.m., and you fell asleep in the car on the way back home!

Have you read any good books lately? I have. It was “The Big Snow,” by Berta and Elmer Hader. It’s all about how geese, rabbits, deer, raccoons and chipmunks in a forest got ready for the first snowfall of winter. There are some very beautiful illustrations of animals in it. I bet your school library has the book; if not, your local city library probably does.

Well, that is all for now. I can’t wait to see you on Jan. 4, and in the meantime I look forward to receiving your email responding to mine.

Love,

Dad

My next teaching job

After working in New Mexico for two years, I came back to Wisconsin looking for a better paying job. I landed one in Merrill, Wisconsin, where I taught from fall 1994 to January 1999.

My first year was spent teaching English to eighth and ninth graders, The next year, our junior high became a middle school, and we changed to a "team teaching" concept. I taught English to eighth graders on the Delta Team, a five-teacher team, which I headed for four years.

During this time, I went to school during evenings at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and earned a Master's degree in English. I spent two years of night classes and summer school from fall 1996 to spring 1998 getting it done.

I also wrote a lot of short stories and even a couple of novels during this time! None of them are anything I'm particularly proud of, though each of them have their moments. It was more a lot of "practice" as I learned the craft of writing.

Photos from Christmas 2013

Here's a collection of photos of our time together for Christmas 2012. I want you to know that each day I pray we will be together on Christmas 2013, and that every day I work hard to rectifying this cruelty done to the two of us. There is not an hour in a day that passes in which I do not think of you. I love you very much!

Seeing the statues at Western University

A year ago today we stopped off to see some life-sized art with a visit to the bronze statues by internationally renowned sculptor Seward Johnson on display at the Western University of Health Sciences campus in Pomona, Calif.

We'd seen the statues before during the many times we'd visited the campus. Your mother was enrolled in an FNP program there while you were a preschooler. You always were fascinated by them, especially the one of two painters (see photo at above right).

I remember that we were on on our way to Disneyland that morning, and you asked if we could stop to see the statues! We were driving just a few miles away from them, so I said, sure.

Here's a whole bunch of photos of our visit to the bronze statues.

Some pensive thoughts about time...

Today, my son, I'm struck once again by how fast life moves and how we cannot waste a single minute of it. Looking back at photos of us and of myself with others, the memories seem as if they were just made yesterday, though they happened months if not years ago. All too often, we let time flow by thinking that there's always tomorrow. But now that tomorrow is here, we can't recapture those days...you'll never be a preschooler again, we don't live in California, we're no longer with a person we love.

I'm glad that when with you I tried to make every minute count. We did do a lot of fun things together, went on a lot of adventures, explored many new places. Those days will come again, and we'll find new ways to have fun, hatch new adventures, and explore new locales. For the moment, though, without you here to do that, all I have is my memories, and they will have to be sweet enough to counter emptiness' bitter taste.