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Hi Monday, here we go! This is what your tongue looks like after blue shaved ice.

After my work meeting, I had some time to quickly get out before the early afternoon rains. Today is the last day off before school starts for many. The yellow playground was packed, so we went to the orange playground and the fancy teeter totter.

We also found time for a quick walk right before noon. I take this picture just because you need to find time to realize life for what it is. Just got a little too wet, so we needed to walk home quickly to get changed.

Here is our craft project. We printed out a bunch of dabbing art projects. This one got a bit yellow.

In the evening, to encourage him to eat, I will read to him at the table. One bite of food = one comic strip. Sometimes when I am not reading fast enough, he says this...

Later on, we went to the University Display Gardens. He wanted to start by looking at the tractors. Here I am explaining the difference between sweet corn and the field corn that animals eat.

We then threw it in the corn chopper.

Here we are examining the filling of a silage bag. Modern farming at its best.

After looking at the machines, we went to the garden to check things out. Lots of fall vegetables growing.

Full moon coming on Wednesday night....but pretty full tonight too.

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I feel like there should be more pictures for today. We did quite a few things, but the number of pictures won't do it justice.

To start on a lighter note, here is a surprise from the green ghost.

Our first stop of the day was the Pope Farm Elementary playground. We got there at about 9AM. We had the place to ourselves for about 10 minutes until a herd of kids showed up. This is the only picture I was able to snap. 

They have a bunch of natural-looking playground equipment. We'll make sure next weekend we get some quality time here.

In looking for a backup playground....the purple playground was really busy, so we went to a different school that is about 10 years old. Their playground is the "rainbow-colored playground." It was really nice to spend about a half hour here. Lots of slides.

After some golfing this morning at home, we went for a picnic at Goth Park. This is a nearby, small park. It is often overlooked, meaning it was perfect for us.

And yes, we intentionally set out to find us a good ragweed specimen.

After that, he was really tired. We did spend some time later in the evening at our playground. Not sure if he had too much energy or too little. I think in the end though, he had a Sunday fun day.

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 Before I get to today, I forgot to post the photo of us shelling edamame on day 168. This is something he did last year too.

Our day started with Kindermusik. This is the last class of the current unit. Here he is flying around. When the teacher asked how we wanted to move, he said "fly like Old Befana." Of course, no one really knows about Old Befana, but everyone understood the "flying" part.

After Kindermusik, we were hoping to sneak away to the Pope Farms Elementary School playground. However at 10:30AM, there were a lot of people already there. Instead, we looked around the school and peeked in windows. That was a lot of fun too.

Our craft was to use the sun print papers. It was a fun craft where you created a pattern that blocked the sunlight on the paper. You expose it to sunlight for a few minutes, then wash off the paper, and then you see your pattern emerge.

Sunset is now 7:39PM where we live. The only real place we could go for sunset next to the water was where we were last week, which was Marshall Park next to Lake Mendota.

We wanted to make sure he got a little more exercise, so we went for an evening scooter ride. The way the wheels light up is really neat.

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I have been driving for many years, but have never needed to change a car tire. When I got the call this morning that they could fix the flat tire at the car dealership, I thought it would be no problem to drive there with a low tire. However, when I went to the garage, the tire was completely flat. This meant only one thing, call AAA and wait, or just do it myself. I have changed a tire before, so doing it myself was my plan. It all worked out well and I had the spare on in 10 minutes.

I got the car to the dealership for my 9AM appointment. I was able to work on my laptop while using the free wifi network while I sat outside. Best part, since we bought the tires there, they fixed it for free. I was home by 10:30.

After that, I was able to go to our local playground for a little bit of time on the swing. When he sees other kids on the big swings, he decides he should also use those swings too.

In the evening, we wrapped up with scratch card art. We aren't sure if that is the official name, but you use a wooden pencil to remove the black to create a pattern.

I made fire dancers. It was a fun craft. I think he was making fireworks.

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 This is a house that we pass often on our way to the orange playground. My wife seems to like what the garage looks like, with its impressive doors, more than she likes the rest of the house.

Since there was yellow tape around the orange playground and City of Middleton parks people there, it looked there was some aspect of the playground that was broken. With that, we went to the purple playground. We were the only ones there.

After that, we scouted out the new playground for the Pope Farms Elementary School. The playground looks like a lot of fun. We should go there this weekend.

Our drive of the day was a bit of a bummer. As I was about a quarter mile driving away from home, the tire pressure warning went on. I initially thought with the very warm temps, that the warning was for an over-inflated tire. Unfortunately, it was for this in the rear passenger tire. I bet it is a slow leak. I called the dealership that put the tire on, but did not hear back today. It is something they should fix. I just hope I can get it there by driving, rather than having a tow truck haul the vehicle there.

In the afternoon, we visited the new preschool teachers we'll be having at some point in time this year.

Then we did a little dabbing art.

It is now raining this evening, for what seems like the first time in almost 3 weeks.

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Today started off with a footwear fashion show. 

Here is the 2020 snow footwear collection.....

Here is the rain footwear collection for this fall...

After my work meetings, it was about 86 degrees. We kind of needed to do something outside. With enough water and sunscreen, getting out to the yellow playground was a doable thing.

He likes it when the kids from the nearby gym are training outside next to the playground. We go on the swing and he continues to yell "go faster, go faster!" to encourage them on. I'm not sure they hear him though.

After that, we spent more time driving to fires in the fire truck.

Then he had enough courage to go down the slide by himself. That really tired him out for his afternoon nap and now tonight. I am off for a bit tomorrow. Maybe we can go back there.

That's it for photos today. More to come tomorrow.

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 Always fun to see a much younger person in adult clothing.

They did a neat craft today, which was to get a puzzle template, color it, then put it together. It was fun.

On the drive of the day, we saw this two truck. It was kind of fun because I got to explain to him how it worked as we followed him around.

We also got to see this fancy irrigation set up. In thinking about it, it's like a giant sprinkler with a huge hose that moves it from one end of the field to the other.

We lost Unicow for a few days...simply could not find him. Looked all around the house twice for him. He showed up today here with his legs dangling.

Since it has been so hot out, we could not go outside to exercise, so we simply had a dance party inside.

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 This will likely be a quick post. Just a busy day overall, and tough to get outside. I'm guessing at 93 degrees this has been the hottest day of the year.

Here is a collage made in the morning.

Since we couldn't get outside, we did some Cosmic Yoga. Here we are pretending to be frogs.

We built a nice fireplace out of the LEGOs.

I watched a work presentation today and finished a bowl of popcorn. It was quite a show.