40

A bit of a change up today. It was looking like it would be kind of like yesterday (hot and sticky), but it actually rained in the morning and they didn't go to the Verona splash pad. With the bussing situation, it wouldn't be good to have it rain and be stuck in a shelter for 5 hours.

The good thing about their location in Middleton is they have a lot of walkable places to go. Hillside Park (a city park) is just above them on top of the hill. I learned the secret today, Little Red has an agreement with neighbors to walk on private property to get here.

When we got home, we did our usual things, then headed outside for about a half hour. When we took out the bikes, I thought we were going for a long bike ride, but then when I saw him go to the basketball courts, I knew he wanted to do the thing with the hockey puck. He had fun again. Probably more fun if Ardro was home though.

Afterwards, we biked to the dead end. He was excited to see the bunny, so me made me take a picture. We have a lot of bunny pictures on my phone.

41

It was a hot day today. Instead of the bowling they went to Cross Plains. The center in Cross Plains is in the basement of St. Martin's Lutheran Church. It is normally a nicer and cooler location than the Green Room, which is an upper floor.

On Sunday, I got a call from my cousin Jed from Stacy, MN (it is just outside the Twin Cities). His son is attending UW-Madison this Fall. He said that him and his wife Vicki would be in Madison on Wednesday night. The orientation for students started this morning and went until 9:30PM. The orientation for adults ended at 6:30PM. The orientation was at Union South, but that student center basically shuts down in the evening. I picked them up and we went to the Memorial Union. They were quite amazed by Madison and everything that is happening on a random Wednesday night in the summer.

Regardless, I got a few pictures of Kai. Kai likes showing other people around.

looking for ducks

While looking for ducks, there were some younger women that were feeding the ducks green grapes. Grapes are healthier for ducks than bread (I read that somewhere). They let Kai throw out some grapes to the ducks.

Here Kai is sitting in the big sunburst chair. 

this is a classic Kai move

I guess you never know when someone will swoop back into your life. The last time I had seen my cousin was at his wedding. I think it was 2010 or 2011, something like that. Vicki (the wife) said the date was January 2, and the high temp that day was -20.

42

We're about halfway done with our summer vacation 2025. I would say it has been a good summer so far. I really liked taking vacation at the very beginning and Kai has been enjoying Little Red Preschool. The days are getting warmer, but I think everyone has been a good sport about it.

Today's pictures are from the Trash Lab. I'll use the words from their website "The Trash Lab is a mobile exhibit designed to educate and motivate us to create less trash and rethink our relationship with waste."

Kai said it was fun. The Trash Lab comes by every year.

The original plan for tomorrow as to go bowling and then walk back to Little Red, but the plans have now changed (due to hot weather) that they will go to Cross Plains for the day.

43

A Monday and the start of another week.

After a quick appointment this afternoon, we spent some time at the library.

He likes this dump truck game...

... and Fruit Ninja.

I remember when we had one computer at our library. You went there and hoped no one else was on the computer. When you got there, you only got one hour to play either Oregon Trail or some game called Trucker. It was all command driven, not fancy like this. 

On the way out of the library, I realized that they have a free phone to use. I haven't seen one of these in a few years, but now I know where to find one.

44

Not a whole lot today. 

The most notable place to get a picture was going to the pool. We were there around 5:30, and there weren't a lot of people there.

We brought our pool diving toys, so we were able to fetch those off the bottom.

There was a little girl and her dad there. The little girl was being thrown into the air by her dad. Kai wanted me to throw him in the air, and after another year of growth, I can still do it.

When we left around 7PM, it was nice to see that apparently the colorful lights above the pool are working. We'll have to come here later on this summer to see them.

 

45

Saturday, lots of stuff going on.

After breakfast, it was nice that Kai did his math homework for the day. We did all right doing some academic work when Heidi was out.

Since Kai slept on the floor last night, he may not have gotten the best night sleep, so he fell asleep after math.

On the way to swimming, we play this game where we can't touch cracks.

All three kids were at swimming this morning.

In the meantime, Heidi left New Orleans en route to Detroit.

In the early afternoon, we did a lot of playing again.

Kai made this drawing for Heidi when we were waiting for her to arrive.

I was really excited to see that the plane was landing going north, meaning we would see the flight land from the cell phone lot.

This is the shot Heidi got from the plane coming into the airport. It is a nice one.

Here she is when we picked her up.

After dinner, we wanted to go the free Madison Opera in the Park. This is normally the 3rd Saturday of every July.

I liked the chairs these people had.

Every year, we get more light up decor for Kai. This is about 3 or 4 years worth of lights.

46

Today is Friday. Kai will be happy when Heidi comes back.

At Little Red, they seemed to have fewer kids in class today when I dropped him off. They stayed mostly at the school, except for the short walk to the library. 

I told Kai to let me know if he wanted to do anything interesting tonight, like eat under the bridge, or go anywhere else. His choice was to eat on the floor.

Before our bath, we played "Be Him" for about 40 minutes or so. King Hiss lost his arm to Math Teacher and disappeared when he went to look for it. The leader of the enemy force is now the 100 dollar bill (a fake bill). We have quite the imagination.

One last look at New Orleans for us.