Blue Mound State Park - Flint Rock Trail

Headed west of Madison and hiked the Flint Rock Trail in the Blue Mound State Park. It was beautiful, foresty, a bit muddy, and hilly (a nice change). Unfortunately the observation tower was closed, so we'll have to go back, but the scenic overlooks reminded me of western Ireland. Who knew these hills and views were in our backyard! Only 1.3 miles but probably closer to 1.5 with walking back to the car. And completely empty, which was a bit eerie! 

Elsie walked/ran the entire thing, I kind of felt bad for Spencer having to drag and carry the stroller through the mud, but I'm NOT carrying her. Elsie's favorite is to make one of us run with her and to have the other person try to catch up. We climbed some rocks, jumped in the mud, saw some crystals, and saw a great splash pool we will have to check out once things are more opened up (but hopefully as secluded, not-crowded). No trail markers to touch on this trip, maybe next time.

5/5 hike

5/5 parking

5/5 maps/directions

5/5 distance from home

would certainly go again, bring more bug spray.

May 2020

Live keeps on even with the continued coronavirus lockdown. Spencer and I more and more agree that we should have gone the Sweden route, open everything up with social distancing and protect our most vulnerable populations and nursing homes. The original lockdown was a good idea so that everyone got the message that we need to take this seriously, but we can't keep people out of work forever.

It was sad to say good-bye to Miss Debbie our Kindermusik teacher. I can't believe we made it the entire school year and Elsie and I didn't miss ONE class! Lots of favorites and memories made through this music class. Shiny Dinah. Baby Finger UP and Baby Finger Down. Pete and PJ in the tub with wishy washy wishy washy wishy washy wee! Running and dancing with our classmates (virtual was not the same unfortunately). Peep Squirrel. Miss Debbie signing the Jamaican Tingalayo Come Little Donkey Come. And I'll never forget how excited and eager of a helper Elsie was at every class, getting the musical instruments, singing and dancing, and her enthusiastic participation. Priceless!

She's become a big complicated with bathroom things. She NEEDS privacy whenever she goes. The other day I heard her yell to Spencer, "Dad! Just go awaaaaaaay!" for him to stop hovering. And she's been having more accidents lately. Spencer thinks its a rebellion thing because we are on lockdown and can't do anything she used to like to do (yet). Several underwear changes a day. But she's been eating and pooping great!

Loving her Disney movies before bed still (30 minutes each night to wind down). Lots of moana, frozen,  puppy pals and watched Up! for first time.

Bedtime is still torture. Our routine is to brush teeth, watch a show, go up and read a couple books, tell stories, and sing 3-15 songs. Every night is a struggle to leave the room. She cries and cajoles and begs, total melt down. "Mom, don't leave me, I'm scared!" So hard to leave her there crying when she says that!

Because we are still under coronavirus lockdown we take daily walks, go to olbrich park/ beach a bunch, and have been planning a weekly hike. Otherwise we hang out in the back yard and around the house ALL DAY.

She's still kind of a picky eater, but been eating a good amount of food so maybe another growth spurt? Elsie ate her first chicken nugget and liked it and ate another!  Caveat it was McDonald's...Still obsessed with mac and cheese, yogurt, sour cream, peanut butter sandwiches, vegetables as long as they are frozen (?!), sucking out the insides of tomatoes (sometimes eating them), noodles in any shape, doritos, tea, my peach sparkling waters, capri suns, and of course CHOCOLATE!

Spencer and I have been hanging in there pretty good, he was already at home so I think the cabin feever hit me way harder. Finishing teaching went as ok as possible. There was a tiger mom who tried to talk to me about her daughter's grade (16 yo), and I found that completely inappropriate as she has NO idea what the dynamics or the syllabus of the class was, just her daughter's word. Her daughter got a C in the class because she turned in her work at the very last second, didn't do amazing on the exams or finals, and forgot to turn in a bunch of labs. But she forced me into the middle of potential family drama that I don't want. Other than that most people in the course did really really well or dropped out. If you put the time in, got all your homework done, and did pretty good on the exams you got an A. Next semester I'll be teaching again at Madison College, different class (more Chemistry/Biology with some actual organic chemistry thrown in). So far MC has decided all lectures will be online format, still undecided about the labs and whether they will be much smaller groups but in person, or what.

Other than that I have been going to meetings with the Blackwell lab, which overall have been as good as possible. Mostly literature and news. I'm working on writing up my recent paper as no one is allowed back in the lab yet (likely late June, early July). And UW-Madison has closed all large lectures (online only), with smaller classes/labs/discussions still to be determined by July they say.

It's so frustrating living with all the unknowns, and with people only say to "wait longer and have patience". It's been 2 freaking months, give us a plan or tell us what the hell we are waiting around for?! We were on lock down to save the hospitals from being overwhelmed. Well we crossed that bridge and stabilized infection rate. Now what? Just because we locked down didn't make the number of infections per day go to zero, so people are still infecting each other and spreading this shit around. We are just delaying the inevitable rise in cases again at thsi point.

Spencer has been busy with several clients, even in this lock down phase. He took us to see a bigger house (def a no but it was fun), and he's got a contractor coming to look at the house today to see if a renovation would be an exorbitant price tag. We are still trying to get some income properties, everything is over priced right now since there is such low inventory. But he's getting a HELOC set up to tap into if we need it, and talking to mortgage brokers to get financing squared away. He even sent out a big mailing campaign to our Eastmorland neighborhood, to get the old people to sell their run down old houses to us so we can fix them up and rent them out. Steps in the right direction.

That's enough for now. Here's some pics!

Playing with Arthur outside tires both of them out and not me, yay!

Trying to touch her nose with her tongue like dad (not mom).

She told me to take a picture of her and dad.

Dinosaur painting and muddy puddles.

What do you have there? Your baby brother (12 weeks)!

"Show me a pic of your baby brother"

 How we announced the big news to the world:
Baby brother!

Loves Arthur and he honestly loves her, he was purring during this if you can believe it.

 Butt bombs and enjoying the 70-80 degree weather.

Wanted a chair pic since it's been a while.

Happy Birthday to Arthur! 12 years old on May 25, 2020. Made him a tuna cake and Elsie helped blow out the candle.

Lodi Marsh and ice age trail

Want to document the hikes we go on during this quarantine time,  it's pretty much the only thing we can do to get out of the house.

Wednesday may 20 we went northwest of Madison planning to hit up a spot right on the Ice Age Trail, but the couple of spots we were going to park were gated off!  Boo, so I found a little what I thought was a local park near Lodi, WI called Lodi Marsh State Area where we could walk around and this ended up leading us nicely to a part of the ice age trail.  Was a couple other groups we walked be but mostly had the place to ourselves. 

A little hilly which was a nice change.  Nice views of the farms and hills, and some of a creek bed. Considering we were going to give up and go home it was good to get out and walk a mile or so.

Elsie had a blast running around, up and down the hills, and running ahead to the next yellow marker. She wanted to touch each one, so dad got an extra workout. 

Near the end she was running ahead as usual and we saw her jump over something and keep going.  From far away it looked like a branch,  but when we got close we saw it was a giant snake!  Biggest one I've ever seen in the wild,  probably 5 feet long and thick!  I got a pic from a ways away 😀

On the way home we picked up McDonald's and although she was hesitantat first,  Elsie tried her first chicken nugget and liked it! Even ate another one!  Maybe turning a corner with meat? 

Our small parking lot connected to the Ice Age Trail, just waht we were aiming for!

Where we ended up parking. Note the lovely bullet holes....at least it was open for parking. And we all popped a squat after the hour long car ride.

The trail leading up to the Ice age trail was beautiful.

Loves picking allll dandelions and giving them to everyone, mom, dad, and always get some to save for grandma and grandpa.

Must touch each yellow trail sign post, and loves to run ahead to find the next one before everyone else.

 

Family pic in the valley.

The snake Elsie jumped over! 5-6 ft long, green and brown stripes.

April photo dump

Eating good but weird taste buds, likes spoonfuls of raw garlic, raw sour cream, butter on its own, buns on their own, frozen (only  frozen) veggies like peas, and Mac and cheese is def favorite food.

Likes playing poop cupcakes (she gives us a pretend cupcake,  we eat it,  then she's tells us there was poop or a spider on it), run! (Means just run around), Monster (dad or I monster that chase her around), and obstacle course in playroom basement.

Quarantine for Coronavirus aka wuhan virus is real rough not being able to go to playgrounds,  children's museums, swimming,  even go to stores,  or visit people.  Really the only thing Elsie gets to do right now is virtual music class with miss debbie. It's as good as it possibly could be,  but Elsie really misses seeing people,  playing with kids at the playground,  and the social things.  Weather is finally getting real nice so we can use new four wheeler,  kiddie pool and run around backyard and go for hikes now. 

Super into puppy pals and frozen, not sorry to watch less peppa pig! Really loving her babies jj and Emma, needs to sleep with then and both maos every night. Sleeping in general is real rough again. She wakes up multiple times a night and screams dad! Or mom! At the top of her lungs.  95%of time she wants us to sing one more song (which means 10 more) but it is so jarring on the monitor when I'm trying to sleep. And lately it's been like 3 times a night,  and it's real hard to just ignore her too let her put herself back to sleep....

living and loving through coronavirus

Elsa movie obsession! That's frozen and frozen ii. And then I bought her alego duplu frozen cake with Olaf Ella and and she is just so obsessed. Elsieism with the music too, listen to both Olaf songs on repeat. Knows the movie by heart and wants to watch just until the next part....

Baby pouches that dad makes

Playing lots of monster and hot lava monster inside and out. She loves to run and play tag like games.

Reading books every morning is a new fun thing, and we do a reading books of the month to get new books.

Huge Daddy's girl at bedtime, wants him to take her up every night, how the tables have turned.

No playgrounds is rough, no anything is rough, Elsie understands people are sick and we don't want to be around such people or get other people sick. And she knows the word coronavirus. Which is adorablly sad. 

Really try to cut back on any outings, grocery store once a week if that and that's it. And Spencer is the only one he'll allow out ha, didn't want either of us to risk it at all ♥️

Kind of a reversions back to acting like a baby, likes baby pouches, wants to put pull up on like diaper, wants to be rocked before going to bed, wants her wubbas again (no). I think she's growing cuz she's going through a sleep regression again, getting smarter every day!

Poop cupcakes, a game dad is especially good at making faces for.

Try to run around the back yard everyday, when temp good we walk to the beach at olbrich which has been perfect! All state parks have been closed to keep people at home. 

I'm glad the social distancing is working but after a month of this and the horrendous economic toll it has taken I am eager to get people back to work, in small waves. We have contained the main spread, now we know it's here and people need to be responsible for their own choices. People in Michigan were protesting the stay at home order, "give us our freedoms back" and I have to say I agree. We are at the peak supposedly this week in wi and we have less than 200 deaths total. Again great that we saved lives but we need to get people working again now. 

No word on when scientific research will resume, but it has come to a reluctant halt at UW Madison. Possibly June at the earliest? I'm still getting paid through my grant but I'm apply for an extension also when we have a better idea of what time we lost.