List of new 'Star Trek' Lego-like toys

Transporter (w/Scotty and Klingon)

I'm looking forward to seeing you today, Kieran. It is the highlight of my month when we can spend time together, if only for a couple of hours.

I will bring more of the "Star Trek" Legos for us to build and play with, including some characters. When we were together, we used to look online at all of the "Star Wars" toys that were coming out; so in advance of our visit, I thought I'd list all of the "Star Trek" Legos (They're actually not made by Lego but a competitor known as Kre-o) sets:
>>Transporter (w/Scotty and Klingon) HAVE
>>Dive Doors (w/Kahn, Captian Kirk) HAVE
>>USS Enterprise (big set)
>>Jellyfish ship w/stand
>>Klingon ship w/stand HAVE
>>USS Enterprise w/stand HAVE
>>USS Kelvin w/stand
>>Klingon Bird of Prey (w/characters)
>>Shuttlecraft (w/Sulu and Spock)

Which ones will I bring? You shall find out today at 2:45 p.m.!

Remember your X-wing fighter?

Another one of your favorite toys when a preschooler was the Star Wars X-wing fighter - it was the rebel ship that Luke Skywalker and his companions flew when trying to destory the Death Star. It came with an action figure pilot (not Luke, though) and an R2D2.

The ship often came in for a landing at the rebel base that we'd "make" on the living room endtable by using the Batcave as a command center and some other Star Wars action figure accessories like computers and communication tables. We always had action figures and robots performing maintenance on the ship!

Other times we'd take it and the Star Trek shuttlecraft on flights through space as they explored new planets. Inevitably, those planets included Pillow and Blanket monsters that tried to caputre our heroes and destory their spacecraft!

When we were at City Park in Lancaster, in the areas with steering wheels we'd sometimes pretend to instead be flying the X-wing fighter as we attacked the Death Star!

Our spring visit to Aquarium of the Pacific

Two years ago today, we visited the renowned Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, Calif.

The day did not start well for us, though! You got ill in the car and threw up! I had to stop at Target along the way to buy you new clothes.

You seemed to be OK while we were at the aquarium. One of the most exciting parts of the visit was when you got to feed the lorikeets. A few moments after the photo at above left was taken, the greedy little bird decided to use you forearm for a branch. When the bird jumped onto your arm, you screamed and spilled the nectar!

On the way back, you were feeling a little under the weather once more and threw up in the car again! Fortunately, I was able to get you cleaned up at a Burger King in Santa Clarita.

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

 

Touring a small aerospace museum

Examining an early protoype for a rocket.

Two years ago today we toured the Colonel Vernon P. Saxon Jr. Aerospace Museum in Boron, Calif. We were on our way to the Calico Ghost Town outside of Barstow and stopped for a little car break.

The museum was named for a local Air Force guy who worked on a lot of intersteing experimental projects at Edwards Air Force Base, which Boron is on the north side of. One of the projects was the same kind of aircraft that Steve Austin would later be shown flying (and crashing) in the opening sequence of "The Six Million Dollar Man" television show.

You had quite the imagination and wanted to play with all of the exhibits, pretending we were in the Air Force or on rocketships and that our stuff was broken and needed to be fixed or we'd crash!

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

Our mini-vacation at Disneyland

Trying to make the "C" a "G" at the
California Adventure entry.

Three years ago today, we began a four-day mini-vacation at Disneyland and California Adventure. We went to each park Thursday through Sunday and stayed in Pomona!

At this time in your life, you liked to meet the Disney characters. Donald Duck was your favorite, you said, and you got to meet him at California Adventure! I think you also met Goofy, Mickey, Minnie Mouse and the bears as well.

Here's a whole bunch of pictures from our California Adventure portion of the mini-vacation. If you were to go to the theme park today, you would find that it has changed - they tore down the letters in front of the park and changed the central area. I kind of like it the "old way" - the way it's shown in these pictures - but the new look is nice, too.

Our picture is in a bunch of bookstores!

This weekend your face is gracing book covers at a number of book stores across northwest Wisconsin!

My latest book, "Headin' to the Cabin" has been getting a lot of attention, and a number of businesses have asked to sell the book. Whenever they do, I try to talk them into also carrying my other hiking guidebooks - "Hikes with Tykes" and "Hikes with Tykes: Games and Activities" (And they usually take them!).

The two "Hikes with Tykes" books both feature a picture of you on their covers. One has a picture of you on the Manzanita Trail in the Angeles National Forest and the other shows you at Vasquez Rocks (Or what you call the Kirk Rocks!).

The books with you photo on the cover are on sale at Wisconsin book stores or outfitters in Hudson, Eau Claire, Cumberland, Spooner and Cable! I also have books on sale in Stillwater and Menomonie, but they don't carry the "Hikes with Tykes" books. :(

My email to you for May 18, 2013

Here is my email to you for May 18, 2013, in case you do not receive it:

Dear Kieran,

How are you doing? I’m doing fine, although I miss you very much and wish we could spend every day together. The good news is that we get to see once another again in just six days, on the afternoon of Friday, May 24! I can’t wait to see you again!

I put together the Star Trek transporter Lego kit for us to play with when we get together. It’s really cool. One side is the transporter room. You can put your Lego guy on the transporter pad; when you press a button, a blue light flashes, and the pad spins around to the back side, which is a scene from the planet he just beamed down to! There are some more Star Trek Lego characters I can pick up at the toy store, so I will make sure that we have some of them to put together and play with on the transporter kit!

We used to have lots of great Lego kits to play with when we lived in California. A few were from Harry Potter, a couple form Pirates of the Caribbean, and most were from Star Wars. Not only were they fun to put together but to later incorporate into our playtime with all of the neat Lego figures we had. I still have most of the Lego figures and will make sure to get them out for you once we’re back together again.

How is school going? You’re almost done with kindergarten and will soon be a first grader! What interesting books have you read? What are you learning about in math (I was so impressed that you could add 52 and 5 to get 57 when we were last together! I couldn’t do that in kindergarten!). Are you still studying oceans or have you moved on to a different topic in science?

I don’t remember too much about was taught when I was in kindergarten, but I do remember playing a lot. We also got to do a lot of arts and crafts stuff (like painting) that I didn’t have the materials for at home, so that was a lot of fun. I recall that for “aprons” to keep the thick paints from getting on our clothes, we wore our dad’s used shirt backwards so that the button side was on our back. It worked! Most of my friends and I had paint all over our dads’ shirts – but not on our good school clothes!

Have you read any good books lately? I have. It was called “Who Was King Tut?” by Roberta Edwards. The book is the nonfiction (or about real people and events) story of the famous Egyptian pharaoh King Tut. He also is known as the “boy king” because he ruled all of Egypt even though he was a boy. The book told about the mummy’s curse – it was said that bad things would anyone to who disturbed King Tut’s tomb (where he was buried). So did bad things happen to the scientists who found King Tut’s tomb? You will have to read the book and find out! You probably can find the book at your city library or a bookstore – be sure to look for it when your grandmother or mom take you there!

Well, that is all for this letter. I shall see you in just six days – on May 24. I love and miss you very much!

Love,

Dad