Today I had a quiet morning while Travalon was at the Badger basketball game. (They beat Marquette, who were third in the country!) I went for a walk at Jackson's Landing, thinking I'd see some swans from there, but there weren't any around. When Travalon got home, we went to Tenney Park because he thought he'd seen some there while coming home from the game, but there weren't any there either. I said I'd seen them at Picnic Point, so we drove there and immediately saw some, hanging out with Canada geese, mallards, and buffleheads.
We walked along the lakeshore path and explored the sculpture of the twelve clans of the Ho-Chunk.
Suddenly all the swans flew off to the east! We have no idea where they went.
We saw some buffleheads along the Lakeshore Path. Here is a female with some mallards.
Here are a male mallard, a male bufflehead, and a female bufflehead. It's not the most in-focus photo, but you get the idea.
As we were driving home, night was falling, so we drove into Governor Nelson State Park and went to the boat launch to see if we could see the lit-up tree that we can see from way over on our side of the lake. And guess what? You can get a perfect view of it from there!
Travalon's Wolverhampton jersey came in the mail today. Here he is modeling it with his Wolverhampton hat and the two little mascots, Wendy and Wolfie.
Then we went to the East Side Club Christmas party. Here is their tree.
I thought we'd sit by ourselves and be the last table to get food, since that often happens. But tonight neither happened, because an old coworker, her mother, and her aunt sat with us, and we happily conversed. And then suddenly someone told our table we could go up to eat when it seemed like there were so many ahead of us! I guess they went out of order. They had drawings for random prizes, so I got a copper cup for making, say, a Moscow mule, and later they let everyone go up, so Travalon got a bourbon barrel keychain. The Wauna Strummers were there again this year to sing and play their ukuleles, but this year they didn't invite me to play with them. We sang along, but I realize that I don't know all the words to a lot of secular Christmas songs. When they did "Silent Night," I had a much easier time.
My former coworker told us about yet another one of those fancy Christmas houses with coordinated lights and its own radio station, so we checked it out since it wasn't that far from the East Side Club. I made a couple of videos, but they aren't that good. On the way home, we saw this house near us.
Then we saw this one even closer to us. They put giant ornaments on the tree in their yard!
Travalon and I really liked this tree. It's not actually lit up, but it's so simple and pretty. I just love all the Christmas lights up everywhere, and I feel so moved to think they are in honor of the Infinite God coming down and becoming one of us, but unfortunately that may not be how a lot of people view them. Like, there was a Christmas tree on top of an apartment complex, and do you think the owner of the complex was honoring the Incarnation, or do you suppose they just thought that's the socially acceptable thing to do this time of year? I have no idea, so I like to imagine the decorations mean people believe.
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