Remember going to Bugstock?

At Bugstock, March 25, 2012

One year ago today, we drove all the way to the fairgrounds in Orange County to see Bugstock! This was an event to celebrate all things "Beatles".

There were a bunch of fun blow-up playground jumpers and slides that you played on, a VW bug car show, and of course, a Beatles tribute band performing. We listened to a few of the Beatles' early songs. As watching the performance, you asked me "Which one is which?" That got a few chuckles from some of the people surrounding us, who were a little older and probably were teenagers when the Beatles had their first hits - no doubt they heard the same question from their own parents!

After that day, we went about 10 days without seeing one another, as I flew out to Wisconsin a couple of days later to bring Jane cross country to our condo in Palmdale. Boy, were you ever excited to see me and Jane that Wednesday night when I picked you up! We were so excited to finally seeyou again, too!

Here's a whole bunch of photos from our adventure at Bugstock.

My email to you for March 16, 2013

Here is my email to you for March 16, 2013, just in case you don’t receive it:

Hi Kieran,

How are you today? I hope you’re doing well. I’d doing fine, though I miss you very much.

How is school going? I did not receive your email to me last week, so I did not get to hear from you how you are doing in kindergarten. Please have your mother resend the email to me so I can catch up on your schooling.

Tomorrow (Sunday, March 17), you will have to make sure you wear green. Why? Because it’s St. Patrick’s Day! It is a very important day for people who are Irish. Though we’re not Irish, we still celebrate the holiday out of respect to those who are and because it’s a lot of fun!

Do you get spring break at your school? The school where your cousins Rebekah and Bryan go has spring break in just another week. During spring break, they get the whole week off from school! Schools often have spring break so that parents can take their children on vacation, and then the kids don’t have to miss any school.

If you could go on vacation, where would you go? Some people travel to lots of fun places like Disneyworld in Florida (We used to go to Disneyland in California.). Other families travel to scenic or historical places where they can enjoy nature or learn about our past. Places like that include a national park, such as the Grand Canyon in Arizona, or Washington, D.C., our nation’s capital. Other families don’t travel at all but spend their vacation in their own house, enjoying their time together playing games and watching movies and maybe going to fun places that are nearby, like a mall.

After St. Patrick’s Day and spring break comes Easter on March 31. Do you have big plans for Easter, like going to an egg hunt or maybe out to eat for Easter dinner? I am going to Grandma and Grandpa Bignell’s for Easter. Your Uncle Chris, Aunt Suzie, cousins Bryan and Rebekah, Aunt Sandy and Uncle Mark all will be there. We are having ham and prime rib for dinner. All of us wish you could be there with us for Easter sinenr.

There sure is a lot of snow on the ground – much more than we had in California! Do you like playing in the snow? Have you made a snowman or snow angels yet? Have you gone sledding? When I was a little boy your age, I always liked to go sledding down snow-covered hills and then have hot chocolate afterward. You might remember that we went up into the mountains near our house in Lancaster and went sledding and had hot chocolate afterward – it was the first time you ever had hot chocolate, and you loved it! You had so much fun going up and down and down the hills and drank so much hot chocolate that you slept the whole drive back to our house.

Once the snow starts to melt in a couple of weeks, the wind will start to pick up as spring arrives. That makes for great kite-flying weather. Would you like to fly a kite?

Well, that is all for now. I love and miss you very much and can’t wait to see you again on March 29!

Love,

Dad

Your favorite Disneyland play areas

Redwood Creek Challenge Trail: Sept. 3, 2011

Besides rides and shows, we spent a lot of our time when at Disneyland in two really cool play areas: Tom Sawyer's Island in Disneyland and the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail in California Adventure.

To reach Tom Sawyer's Island, we had to a raft across a river. The island had a cool tree house, some neat dock challenges (like pumping water to get to the treasure chest, and a wrecked pirate ship that had been trapped in the sand.

You loved the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail (which you called "the bear place") and often pretended to be a Jedi knight trying to find lost clone troopers. There was a fallen hollow sequoia tree that we would play this game in over and over; I'd be an injured clone trooper that you rescued. A picture of it is at above right.

What memories do you have of your favorite Disneyland play areas?

Your favorite Disneyland shows

Kieran vs. Darth Vader on Aug. 27, 2011

Yesterday I wrote about your favorite Disneyland rides. Interestingly, we didn't go on all that many rides whenever we visited Disneyland - maybe four or five at most. That's because we spent a lot of time doing other stuff there, like going to shows, shopping in stores, and playing together whenever we found fun interactive activities.

By far, your favorite two shows to attend were the Muppet Show 3D in California Adventure and the Jedi Academy in Disneyland's Tomorrowland. We went to the Muppet Show so many times that you actually started memorizing some of the lines/jokes (especially Fozzie the Bear's "waka waka!")!

You almost always were selected for the Jedi Academy. A couple of times, you even wore your Luke Skywalker costume when participating. After a while, you started memorizing all of the light saber moves they taught at the academy. The picture above is of you battling Darth Vader at one of the shows.

What memories do you have of these two shows?

Your favorite Disneyland rides

Francis Ladybug ride, Sept. 10, 2010

Saw an advertisement on a website for Disneyland and started thinking of all of the times we went there and what your favorite rides were.

By far, your favorite ride when you were 2-3 years old was the Mad Tea Party (or the "tea cups" as you called it) and then as a 3-4 year old, you loved the Francis Ladybug Boogie (or "the ladybug ride" as you called it) over in California Adventure. You'd ask to go on both rides over and over, and we'd get back in line and do them all again and again!

Other favorite rides that you always liked to go on - but were happy to do just once a visit - were: the Haunted House (but only when it was decorated for "The Nightmare Before Christmas"); It's a Small World; Monsters Inc. (at California Adventure); and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

What rides do you remember going on?

Up, up and away...my beautiful balloon

Hot air balloon over our house
in Lancaster, Calif.

Do you remember the hot air balloons that used to fly over the green house in Lancaster, Calif.? Usually on Sunday mornings, beginning around this time of year, a whole bunch of them would take off in the desert west of where we lived and fly over the house.

Though the balloons were some 1000 to 3000 feet above us in the sky, they were 75 feet tall so could easily be seen. Their brilliant rainbow colors looked very pretty against the clear blue sky as floating quietly upon the gentle wind.

I always wanted to take you to a balloon launching, as watching the them be filled with helium and then rise off the ground is an impressive sight. Wouldn't it be fun to go up in a hot air balloon?

Standing in front of a pteranodon

Here's a great photo of us I found in my files; I don't remember the name of the place, but it was on the coast in southern Oregon where you walk through the forest, which has a bunch of fake dinosaurs arranged in dioramas. Kind of kitschy, I know, but it was pretty drive and lots of fun! I'm a sucker for kitschy dinosaur displays, btw.

The trail through the displays started with concrete, so we took you in your stroller. Then the trail turned to dirt and got rough, so we had to carry you and bring the stroller back to the beginning!

Here we are in front of a pteranodon. We did this trip in September 2007, so you are only 6 months old! On the way back, we stopped for a nice meal at a restaurant in Brookings, Ore. We were living in Crescent City, Calif., at the time.