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This Saturday will be the final day that Santa's Gift shop will be open for "Kid's Only" at the Dodgeville Methodist Church. This is great for the youngsters as they are taken one by one around by Santa's helpers - both school age and adults - to pick out presents for their younger and older relatives or friends. The presents can be wrapped on the spot by even more of Santa's Little Helpers and the youngsters - while waiting their turn to shop - are treated to movies. Their parents or guardians must stay upstairs in the church while the youngsters are doing their shopping. While upstairs there are both a bake sale and craft area to occupy the "oldsters" time! The youngsters have a great time shopping and getting helpful ideas from Santa's Little Helpers - as can be seen above!
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This Sunday - from 1-3 p.m. I will be at the Dodgeville Senior Citizen Center taking "Photos With Santa" again this week. This will be the final day I will be taking photos. We had several families last Sunday and these pictures can be picked up at the Chronicle office anytime or at the Senior Center on Sunday. I found out that most 2-year olds don't want to sit on Santa's lap! Any proceeds from the event will be given to the Iowa County Food Pantry, so stop by and have your youngster's photo taken and have some punch and cookies on the seniors!
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How about that UW Badgers football game last Saturday night? They really know how to make a person's heart almost stop in making the game so close! It was great to see them come out with the win in the first ever Big 10 Championship Football Game and get a trip to the "Grandaddy of All Bowls" - the Rose Bowl. They sure have a couple of special players in Montee Ball and Russell Wilson, plus the supporting cast is pretty good too!
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Son Michael made the trip from Waterloo, Iowa Saturday to see as many of the family members as he could in just a few short hours. Great-niece Danielle had a basketball tournament at Iowa-Grant and great-nephew Reilly had skating in the morning. We got together (brother Patrick included) for an early dinner at around 4:00 p.m. That was timed so everyone could go to the Miracle On Iowa Street Parade, but it was cancelled due to the rain and pending bad weather that was supposed to hit around parade time - 6:00 p.m. There were 13 of us chowing down at Country Kitchen!
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Michael's wife - Jolisa - was supposed to come with him, but she is low patrol person on the totem pole at her "cop" job in neighboring Hudson, so she had to take the on call shift until 6:00 that evening. As it turned out, Michael got to stay overnight and get a good night's sleep. If she had also made the trip, they would've had to go back Saturday night since she had the 8:00 policing shift on Sunday morning!
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I'm not supposed to tell anybody that I got a little birthday "kiss" from my late buddy's wife - so forget I said anything!