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It's Beginning to Look? a Lot like Christmas! The question mark by the Look is because there's no snow on the ground, so that Look isn't really so. But it is Christmas (as of Wednesday) and that means it's December 25th! That also means that in a week we will be into another year - 2020. It's also a leap year, so we have one more day to reckon with - February 29th!
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The "Breakfast Bunch", Bob Kratochwill, Terry Carroll and myself went to Spring Garden in Mount Horeb for Saturday morning breakfast with Dewey Christoph and Dave Stone joining us. I guess I can't trust Dave with reading my text messages correctly as when I texted him Spring Garden, he took it for Spring Green and went from Riley Road close to Mount Horeb to Spring Green and we weren't there. He checked his messages and realized it was Mount Horeb. The difference was instead of about a six mile trip it was 65 miles. Oh well, he likes to drive! We waited for about 15 minutes and then ordered, but he's a fast eater and caught up to us!
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Curt Kephart, former Iowa County Administrator, who has been located in Minnesota and his wife have relocated to just west of Madison. They are both basically retired but are working for a Middleton Church, St. Andrew. Curt said he will be frequenting the Dodgeville area to catch up with friends. I saw him twice on Friday.
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Saturday we (Pat's family) had its annual cookie making day in Waunakee at the home of his daughter Kelly and husband Brett along with kids Quentin, Jade and Taylor. His oldest son Darren with wife Michele and sons Liam and Gavin were there making cookies too. The rest of the families couldn't make it. I didn't frost a cookie, but ate a few. Everyone else frosted the ones Kelly and Michele baked - even Pat! When all was done we played a trivia board game called Balderdash. Somehow I won. I never win games like that or any other ones for that matter. I just had to boast about my winning!
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While in Waunakee we watched the Badgers Men's Basketball Team beat UW-Milwaukee. They struggled in the first half, but Milwaukee wasn't quite as hot shooting in the second half and the Badgers kept their play up. Also we watched the UW Women's Volleyball Team lose in the NCAA Championship match to Stanford. The Badgers played pretty well, but defending national champion Stanford was just that much better. Their back row passing was phenomenal as was pretty much the rest of their game. But finishing second in the nation isn't too bad!
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It's been a little bit of a challenge to put two papers (actually six counting two each for the Chronicle, Democrat and Pec Valley Leader) out this week just a few days apart. We pretty much finished Sunday afternoon with the sports that were held n Saturday and putting the finishing touches on thee rest of the papers. Next week we go through the same thing with deadline being Friday (January 3) at 10 a.m. I want to compliment the staff at each paper on doing a great job!
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As an ending to this column - MERRY CHRISTMAS to all and looking forward to a great 2020!