Last Post of 2023

 

This morning it was snowing, but Travalon and I drove to Mass in the gym. We came home and waited for the snow to abate, but it wasn't slowing down at all. Jilly Moose did make the drive to our house, and then she and I took a walk in the neighborhood and saw my neighbor with the cute little dog Lucy, who loved Jill and her scarf. Then Travalon, Jilly Moose, and I went black light bowling. Isn't it beautiful?

Travalon used to bowl in a league, and he wiped the floor with us during the first game. In fact, we were so bad that he had the bowling alley guy put up the bumpers, which maybe was a mistake because then I won the other two games. Here is the scoreboard during the second game.

And here you can see our stats for all three games. 

I like how we used our blog names, except for Travalon, who decided to call himself Fat Bear. After that, we had some time before the Packer game, so we drove around looking at nearby Christmas lights.

Check out the Christmas Dragon!

And the Christmas Palm Trees!

This is the same house a little zoomed out so that you can see the small Christmas tree on the left.

This is the same house zoomed out.

Then we went to Bierock to watch the Packers play the Vikings in Minneapolis. I didn't have high hopes going into the game, but the defense actually showed up to play, and the offense was firing on all cylinders. The only weak point was special teams - they missed an extra point and muffed a punt return, so the Vikings recovered it five yards from the goal. Other than that touchdown, the defense only allowed a field goal, so I am feeling a little less hostile toward Joe Barry, the defensive coordinator. Special Teams is still a mess, but maybe that will never change. It matters not for this game, because the Packers won 33-10, so it's a very Happy New Year for us Packer Backers! 

Now we are home, and we just watched the ball drop in New York City so we have switched over to the Nashville New Year's Eve party. In about forty minutes it will be 2024 here. Happy New Year, everyone!

Famous Hat 

Madison Zoo Lights 2023

 

Yesterday I had to run an errand, then we went to see the holiday train display at Olbrich Gardens. I thought I'd made a video of both trains but somehow only made two videos of the same train. Here are some photos. First, the Hodag.

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.

Here is the train I did not make a video of. Travalon got photos of it.

And here is the train I did make a video of.

We also went into the conservatory.

There was a stunning sunset. Here is a photo I took.

And here are some photos Travalon took with his good camera.

And here are some Christmas decorations in our neighborhood.

In the evening we went to Zoo Lights at our own zoo. Here are some photos. First is a house we saw on the way there.

Here are some photos I took.

This is out of order, but we had dinner at Banzo, and they had a decoration up too - a garbanzo bean!

This is a house right by the zoo.

Those posted out of order. Now, back to Zoo Lights:

And here are photos Travalon took with his good camera.

This morning Travalon was so happy because Wolverhampton won. His little wolves Wolfie and Wendy celebrated joyfully.

Then we went to Cherokee Marsh to look at swans again.

We had lunch at the Nitty Gritty because one of the Night Prayer regulars had given me a $25 gift certificate for there, and then we went to Picnic Point. We didn't see any swans, but there were tons of geese, and we saw this gull party.

Then we went to Brittingham Bay to see if there were any coots, but again all we saw were gulls.

This is a video I made of the ice at Picnic Point making a cool sound that kind of sounded like crickets. Ignore my heavy breathing - I was trying to get active hours.

In the evening we went to R Van the Terrible's house with the fabulous porch, which she closes in the winter. We were celebrating the retirement of Cecil Markovitch, and Travalon gave him some Bosnian coffee and a glass that says "Old Lives Matter." We found one that was really funny that said: "F---king quitter! I mean, Happy Retirement!" but we thought that would be inappropriate. Cecil made chili, and people brought stuff to eat with chili, except for us because Travalon doesn't like chili, so we brought fried chicken and macaroni and cheese. R Van has a new, tiny kitten named Poirot, so we played with him and with her German shepherd Rudy. They were so much fun! It was like having two more people at the party, only fuzzy people who didn't really talk much but you knew what they were thinking. It was a very fun party.

Famous Hat