One of Toren’s favorite activities when jumping on the trampoline is for me to launch him really high.  We used to call this “skyrocketing” someone when I was growing up.  The video isn’t great because I was filming it; I’ll try to get better footage in the future:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IkFn_BatG8

I think every kid eventually learns a song like this and parents wonder how and why.  Anyway, I overheard Toren saying this in the back of the car and had to capture it on film.  He explains where he heard it and illustrates that he obviously has no idea what he’s saying:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61NUcjdDqGw

Toren and I did a little hiking a few Sundays back at a new park.  The layout was odd and the maps they had didn’t align with the actually trails as far as I could tell, but we did get to hike around a lake (Toren made it most of the way) and actually saw an alligator drop into the lake and swim across.  Pretty cool!

Here are a couple of clips of Toren hiking.  In the first, he mentions rhinoceroses.  It was actually pretty funny what happened.  We were walking along a 1/4 mile nature trail with informational signs.  After reading one to him, Toren turned to me and said, “I be the next sign says ‘beware of rhinoceroses.’”  So, that’s what I was asking him about in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhf112oDIm4

Here he is hiking by the lake with the alligator in it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lt1U1MYKfQ

He hiked the longest he has yet, about a mile, then I put him in the backpack and hiked him back to the car.  Here’s our route:

View Colt Creek State Park 4/14/2013 10:47am in a larger map

In addition to our occasional hikes, I decided to start visiting some of the strange roadside attractions in the Tampa area.  Here are a few of the first places we visited.

A local RV dealer decided to use a few old Airstream trailers to create a work of art next to I-4 called Airstream Ranch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncmScV1H1YE

We also happen to have the world’s largest confederate flag in the area, right next to I-75.  It was set up by a semi-white supremacist organization, Sons of Confederate Veterans.  I didn’t go to support it, just to see it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuGop8h4QVg

We drove through Zephyrhills to see this Muffler Man, one of a batch of large statues created in the 1960s and 1970s that has something of a cult following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygmw67po-0c

At the same auto shop was another statue made out of a muffler:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF4g283NFIY

After our hike we stopped by this weird roadside marker announcing Polk County as the Citrus Capital of the US.  It’s largely derelict now, but still there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV5zXHonGKE

The last roadside oddity we visited was this weird house with strange yard art and sculptures:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASAl_YbGVIU

There are still another couple dozen oddities in the area, so I’ll probably post more as we continue our adventures.

Yeah, Toren doesn’t have a real puppy; never will.  But he decided his robot puppy needed some water:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwRmo-HMC2w

Toren loves McDonalds ice cream cones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha9rrx24_WE

Toren has talked about a sibling a lot lately.  Whenever he brings it up, we immediately emphasize the fact that he wouldn’t get as much of our attention and would have to share all of his toys and possibly even his room with a sibling.  So far, he hasn’t been dissuaded by those facts.  The only thing he really disliked was when I suggested he would have to change the baby’s diapers, which he smartly denied would be the case.

Realizing he wasn’t getting very far with us, he tried a new tactic yesterday with Debi.  He said to her, “I’m going to have my friend monster make me a baby.”  (His friend monster is an imaginary friend with ever-changing qualities.)

Debi, intrigued, asked him how his friend monster would go about doing that.

Toren replied, “First, he’s going to put in the brain and then cover it with skin.  Then he’ll make the rest of the body.”

Debi listened carefully to how Toren envisioned his friend monster would make the baby.  When Toren was done, Debi asked him what he would name it.  Toren thought for a minute, then said, “Founder.”

(We’d like to think his name comes from Deep Space Nine, but he hasn’t seen that far, so we’re not sure where he got it.)

We found some new nets for Toren to climb at Busch Gardens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cabp9XsCk0w

The Easter Bunny visited our house in early April and left Toren a ton of candy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJK4y7DPIWM

We went to a birthday party with a bouncy house.  Toren was one of the younger kids there but he wasn’t afraid in the bouncy house.  Here he is pulling off one of his favorite tricks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vykD72yvFFY