Day 48

It looks like my Day 1 prediction for a May 1 back to work is not going to be true...considering Wisconsin had a record number of positives (334) today....what's my guess now? Maybe August 1? You see, I'm always safe to put in a date, as long as I don't mention the year.

Here is a photo from a year ago. Can't wait for my next luau.

they can cook too!

Okay, 366 days and 4,000 miles later, here we are. The highlight of the day was the weather. We were able to hose down the front porch and deck. We even ate outside tonight.

school lunch tray and all

Working the day in reverse, the gnomes made their initial appearance of the year.

there's gnome place like home?

Our drives of the day were so unremarkable, I forgot to take pictures. Instead, I went to Zillow to map out where we went, and put little drink stamps on the map indicating which homes have pools....we also went to Brennan's to pick up groceries. Really awesome broccoli today.

to join pool club, mush have $0.75M home

Finally, the craft of the day is a secret.

it's probably LEGO

Day 47

I like this picture from Greenwell Farms, a coffee farm in Kealakekua. I hope they are doing well without tourists,...heck, they might even be doing better as people miss doing what they can't.

2nd place photo as a picture of the McDonald's taro pie (only in Hawaii)

Today's craft was a bit unusual. We have a book called "Tap, Tap, Bang, Bang." It is about tools. I think our son wanted to see some real tools, so we got out the toolbox and started hammering in a nail (shown below), screwing in nails with the drill, and playing with the pliers. There's something to be said about being able to use a hammer without hitting your fingers. I'm just getting him some early practice.

will teach him to use one hand later

The drive of the day was to Mt. Horeb. It was so exciting, our son did not fall asleep. Mt. Horeb has these trolls on the main drags of town. Here are the memorable ones...

next to the Military Ridge Bike Trail

at the city welcome center

at the insurance agency, I'm not sure it is a troll

Finally, a check to see how our tulips are doing. I put on more bunny repellent. Some tulips have been trampled by wildlife. I'd still like to see a few make it so we can have one picnic next to these tulips.

the weather has been cold, I'm hopeful we have tulips within a week

Day 46

A year ago was our first day at a real beach. The beach we went to was Magic Sands just south of Kona. There aren't too many good sandy beaches on the Big Island. I think the beach is magic because if they get rough surf, the beach could magically disappear!

2nd best picture of the day was the Spam and Eggs at McDonalds

Our craft of the day was to make some tags. I'm not sure what we'll do with them, but punching out patterns in paper was fun.

pretending the punch was a plane

the final product

Today was another day for a quick bike ride, our first one in probably two weeks. There is a small hill we need to climb to see the horses, so it is a good workout.

he has more fun than it looks like

Another thing that happened today is the Easter Bunny came back to hide the eggs and then help us re-find them. Thank you Easter Bunny, it was fun visiting with you.

cool shades Easter Bunny

Our drive of the day was the quick standard drive to Rocky Dell. Our son fell asleep after 5 minutes, so this is a quick loop for us. Thought I'd show the small lake between our neighborhood off in the distance and US 14.

our neighborhood off in the distance

Lastly, a trip to Costco happened today to get all the good things in life: toilet paper, paper towels, milks, pounds of blueberries....will need to go to a real grocery store in a few days. Looks like my Day 1 prediction of being out of quarantine on May 1 will not come true.

Day 45

My favorite memory of exactly a year ago was the Merrie Monarch Parade. However, I have no photos of it, as my wife took all the photos. Just a great day in Hilo. She has the photos if I ever needed them. The best photo I took was at rainy Rainbow Falls heading back home. What I remember most is our son was really liking the stairs. They were just the perfect size for an almost 2-year old. He ran up and down for a half hour. Getting him to be still for this photo was a challenge.

It was rainy back home today too. Perfect for the very first sip of some Kona coffee.

top of the morning to you

The challenge for our drive of the day was to find a duck. I knew exactly where to go, Shoveler's Sink, a big pond on the west side of town.

this was as close as I could get

Our craft of the day was quickly made up. We are keeping a lot of items we would normally throw out. Here are two paper towel tubes taped together. At the end is some ribbon for wrapping presents. Take your shirt off and you have a fire dancer!

you have to take your socks off too

I think we'll be doing more fire dancing tomorrow too, bet on it. 

Day 44

Here is one of my favorite pictures, not of last year, but of all time. It is at Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park (Place of Refuge). The thing you might not know about this picture, is that if look closely, our son's head is a little red. He had a fall while we were running about on the tennis court at 5AM at our condo. He hit his head, but he seems happy here.

it was warm too

The craft of the day is a little unusual, but fun for everyone. I needed a haircut, and the family was bound and determined to help out. I think they did an awesome job. I can't wait for the next one.

special attention being paid to the eyebrows

We had two drives for the day. The first one was around 1PM. We went up to Observatory Drive. It is a drive we had way early in this pandemic adventure. There were a lot of people out, just like it was any old day.

no ice today

Finally, the drive we were looking forward to, a nice mid-afternoon snack, storytime and observations at the waterfall at Epic.

Shaka shaka to you too

Day 43

Here is a picture from a year ago. I remember us just waking up super early to do things since the time change puts you a bit off. One of the important things that happened on April 25 was to get outside and collect these rocks.

6AM Hawaii Time

Today's adventure in 2020 was three fold. First off, the unusual. We have said for a while we would do this, so we did it today. We went for a few loops down the sidewalks and trails in the high chair.

go Speed Racer

Later on (adventure #2), there is a shopping center in Sun Prairie which is similar to our Greenway Station. Other than this fountain with the koi, I think we have the better shopping center.

no feeding the fish or throwing coins!

Our afternoon adventure (#3) I was told to find a place we have never seen before. I have never seen this place northwest of Cross Plains. I don't believe anyone lives here, but there were no trespassing signs.

land (0.5 acres) is worth $50k, the home worth $13k

The craft of the day were these little caterpillars made with clothespins, pompoms, eyeballs and a glue gun.

Day 42

A year ago today we were flying to Hawaii....that's been on my mind all day. I always like looking on my camera at the "One Year Ago" feature...nothing but a few pictures of us on the plane, getting off the plane, and pictures of our rental car. Here is my favorites from April 24, 2019.

Kona Airport, one of our favorites (and saddest when you leave)

Back to 2020. Today's daily drive is one that I actually forgot to take a photo of. It was to the location of our Kindermusik class. Even though we watch and participate on Zoom, the teacher, Ms. Debbie still shows up in the actual classroom. Alas, no one was there at 1:30PM.

The craft of the day was to make a shirt/dress out of wrapping paper.

sorry, I prefer a Hawaii photo

In the evening, we got to play soccer at Greenway Station. I think we might try tennis there this weekend.

sorry, I prefer a Hawaii photo

I think our weather is looking a little better for this weekend. Over the next week or so I'll post a photo from Hawaii from 2019 from exactly a year ago. It could be a little mundane, but those are fun to remember as well.

Day 41

To finish up the story about Hyvee....I'll fast forward to noon. Hyvee said they would send us our groceries via DoorDash

on Dasher?

Anyway, we are happy we got food, but out of our order of 29 things, we did not get a few items and had 14 substitutions. Regardless, it is food (and toilet paper), so we'll make it work.

Back to the beginning of the day. I just realized that we had been in our house for 10 years. We closed on May 14, 2010....so this is us cleaning up some 10 year old dust.

highly trained professionals

Our craft of the day was to make a drum. This was an assignment from our Kindermusik teacher for Monday. We got it done. A drum made out of a peanut can. It has some banana wrapping paper and some paint from an activity earlier this week. It also has some super glued on pompom balls.

action photo

Finally, our drive of the day goes back to the farm theme. This is a new development on the north side of Lake Mendota. I bet this tractor never could have guessed this is what its retirement would look like.

living the life

Day 40

Today was a nice day in the 60s. It looks like the nicest of the next week or so.

The drive of the day took us to the Diocese of Madison on the west side of town. Back in the day, the Wisconsin Badgers used to practice football here in the summer. They have a bunch of dorm rooms here and athletic fields. Still is a nice spot.

the Bishop O'Connor Center

The craft of the day was an origami butterfly. Let's say we didn't really finish the yellow one...

yeah, not so much

Here are some finished ones...

me and you origami, it's been a while

Finally, the most interesting part of the day was my planned grocery pick up at 5PM tonight at Hyvee. I got a phone call that went to voicemail today at 4:30 saying they were a few hours behind, and that to call them back if I am coming in. Otherwise, DoorDash would deliver. I tried to call them back at least a half dozen times..., no one answered. Not sure if DoorDash or Hyvee know where we live. I went to Hyvee at 9PM to pick up groceries. No one was in the pick up area, other than the nice gentleman who wanted to know if I had a lighter. Maybe we'll get our food delivered tonight yet? To be continued on Day 41.

Day 39

Quick hitters for Day 39. Kind of like a baseball hitting streak, you only need one hit to keep it alive.

The basics...the drive of the day to Tenney Park on the east side. I was not along for the ride.

kite surfing

the big pier...I took a walk here the morning of my wedding day

The craft of the day, potato stamping. Using an Xacto knife to create the stamp was much easier than I thought.

fish and heart

Now to the actual stamping. We used a paint brush to apply the paint, then we stamped it down!

yellow hearts

Finally, sunset at Greenway Station to end the day. We liked the sunset, but I like it better that our son took the picture, and included a little bit of his finger in the photo at the bottom.

finger or sunset? what do you see first?

Day 38

A little weaving to start the day. This is us happy to have a left over carton where our pears once existed. Not sure if this will get destroyed in the next day or two, but it was our craft of the day.

weaving in and out

ta-da!

For our drive of the day, we were following up on the tractor theme from the previous day. This time though, we wanted to see the tractors in action out in the field. We found a few. Growing up, we always had John Deere tractors, but I could not get a good photo of a John Deere today, so we'll settle for this Case International Harvester. Just for reference, the neighbor kids when we were growing up, they did not know the color "green," the color was simply "John Deere."

ahhhhh, a red tractor

Finally, a few wonders of nature to wrap up the day. The first tulip in our yard.

the first of many

And then, why not make it a double. This happened around 6:45PM. It lasted only a few minutes.

you can barely see the 2nd rainbow...wonder if there is such a thing as a triple rainbow?