One Fish Two Fish

Greetings and good morning to everyone. Going to try to make this one quick as I eat my breakfast. Over the weekend, we had plans on as a family, going to the Farmer's Market Saturday morning, but because Mia tends to enjoy sleeping in, I got to thankfully enjoy watching the Chelsea game. First one of the season I got to watch! So, Jill went out to our local market and I stayed home watching the game :) Lousy 1st half, but much better 2nd. Hazard starting to finally make some runs towards the end of the 1st and in the 2nd, he was making his shots. Diego Costa got the first goal and Hazard secured the win with the 2nd one. The man is a genius with the ball. Can get around anyone to cross it and has a great shooting power. This weekend Chelsea face with two ex players on the team. Both strikers so we'll see what those guys have in store for us.
Everton

Sunday, I worked the early shift and when I was done, we spent a few hours at Jill's studio so she could catch up on work since she's been super busy.  I took Mia to the Pirates and Fairies event Tuesday at Fort Cushing park. She was looking forward to it for weeks. Of course what happens when you look forward to things? It rains. Luckily, she got to play long enough before the rain started picking up. My friend Nicole brought her little pirate kiddo and the kids had fun. It's a cool park. Jill still needs to check it out some time. Wednesday, we went to the park with her friends. It was great for the girls to catch up and play since they haven't seen us since we returned from Indy. All three of them start school next week, so Mia won't be seeing Gracie, the oldest anymore, but she'll luckily get to hang out with Hannah on her days that she's not in school. Those two seem to play better together anyway. After the park, we visited Grandma at work, then on a whim hit up the beach in Pewaukee. We didn't bring a lot, but she had fun playing in the sand. After we were done, we wandered down the pier so she could watch some people fish. I explained the process and what you have to do, she seemed intrigued. One gentleman that she was watching asks "I've got a small pole in my trunk her size if she'd like to give it a try?" She got really excited and I hooked her worm and she got to try fishing. She got REALLY close to catching some small ones, but in the end, gave some hungry fish some lunch. Her goal was to catch "dinner for Mommy to cook because she's the best cook ever". She gave him a high five and a thank you before we called it a day. I'm thinking we're going to need to find her a pole to fish now.

My Milwaukee FC MLS kit is coming along nicely. Hopefully complete before the end of the week. This weekend Jill's parents are coming up. Hopefully I"ll get to watch the Chelsea vs Everton game Saturday morning. I work 2-10 Sunday and Monday. Hooray for time and a half on the holiday. Blah. Thanks for reading everyone :)

Horse Power

Greetings everyone. Hope all is well with all of my readers. So the weekend had its ups and downs, so let's dive right into it, okay? Saturday, I spent the morning cutting grass and doing some yard work. On a whim, we decided to take Mia, Remi and my Mom and her dog Chief for a hike in Lapham Peak in Delafield. Lots of different trails and of course the lookout tower, once used many years ago as tower to  search out fires. Now, people enjoy the long walk up to just relax, snap some panoramic photos and take in the scenery. So we hiked and hiked the different trails only temporarily getting turned around a few times. The hike was warm, but thoroughly enjoyable, for the most part. It made me miss hiking the beautiful rain Forrest in Oahu and the few miles up Makapuʻu. Mia got exhausted during the hike and I had her on my shoulders for quite a bit of the time. Then of course came the unfortunate accident.


 Remi and Chief had a great time hiking and exploring together, till our poor dog busted one of his nails, almost right off the paw. He lunged for something in the bushes that was moving and came right back out with his paw in the air, and bleeding. I was a bit behind Jill and my Mom so I didn't quite see what had happened. He may have slipped on a rock when he jumped in. All I know is he had a hard time putting pressure down and it made me really worried. After we got out of the park, we dropped off my Mom and Chief and headed down to the emergency animal clinic in Waukesha. They took off the nail, wrapped it up, put him on antibiotics and stuck a cone on his noggin so he couldn't lick the wound. It's been a rough few days keeping him from licking the bandage. He hates not being able to run with me and I hated seeing him in pain. Well after a lot of "stop licking that!" and having to rewrap it several times, today he's finally showing improvement. He's no longer limping and hasn't been licking the bandage. He's too smart for that stupid flimsy cone and could figure out how to stand on all 4's and lick the paw still. Both walks I took him on today he looked better and even wanted to jog. I don't wanna risk it yet, but I'm relieved he's doing better. Love my dog to death and we just want the lad to be happy.


Also over the weekend, I think it was Sunday Mia decided she was finally ready to drive her pink Ford Mustang Power Wheels. Santa had brought it last Christmas and she wanted nothing to do with it. She really got into it, and figured out how to shift between forward and reverse when she needed it. It looks like she's trying to drive a stick :P Today she drove her Mustang too. I was hoping a random police officer would drive through so I could talk him into parking behind her so I could photograph her getting a "ticket". Ah, another time. Yesterday was the open house at Smarty Pants Learning School, which is one of the preschools in the area we were interested in for Mia. I couldn't attend but Jill and my Mom were able to take Mia and get info. Mia's officially registered for a one-day-a-week 3k on Fridays. No more playgroup, but she's pretty stoked about school. I guess the teacher told her "go draw me something on my dry erase board" and she drew this piece of my Mom and Mia holding hands with a sun and grass and the teacher said "WOW you've got great detail!" Always nice to hear a compliment of my daughter's art abilities outside of the family.

Today, I took Mia to Cushing Park in Delafield. Technically, we went to Fort Cushing, a very elaborate and impressive castle playground. Mia and I both dropped our jaw when we saw it in person. Tuesday of next week some parenting magazine is hosting a fairies and pirates play date for kids there where the kids can dress up as either characters and play. I saw an add for this on Facebook. Mia's genuinely interested as well as my friend Nicole and her kiddo Benny. I almost was going to take Mia to the pool today, but had some errons to run.

This weekend, not sure what events we've got planned outside of myself watching the Chelsea game. First game I"ll be able to watch of the season. I missed the first game against Burnsley but watched the impressive highlights. It's gonna be a great season. Making progress on my Milwaukee MLS kit. Hopefully it'll turn out. That's all for now. Thanks for reading!!

Roadtrip

Didn't realize it's been several weeks since I've written. One week we were out of state, but I'll get to that later plus all kinds of other things. Hey, how's everyone doing? So the last time I wrote, we were taking Mia to the Wisconsin State Fair. It was very very busy, but she had a lot of fun. She ended up spending a lot of time on the rides. That's right. RIDES. If we would have had more money, she would have ridden them all. She ended up going on roughy 5 or more rides including my fav one, a small Harley that popped a wheelie. I sat in the side car and it was hilarious watching her pop a wheelie yelling "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH" in pure excitement. She also rode a ferris wheel too. Probably the biggest ride she's ever been on. It was a great time, and we all had fun.

So last week Wednesday, we packed up the car and headed down to Indiana (first stopping in Illinois to  drop off Remi). I was slightly concerned leaving Illinois later then hoped since it's a 5 hour drive, but Mia was able to squeeze in a much-needed nap in that time frame allowing us some quiet driving. When she woke up, she was hungry and had to go potty, which was perfect because we could stop at some McDonalds in the middle of nowhere in Indiana. Showed Mia what a corn field looks like (exciting right??) and explained that's where corn comes from. Corn is probably her all-time favourite veggie. Anyways, after dinner we headed back on the road to Greenwood. She was good the rest of the way, and had to make yet another potty stop, except we didn't see any places to stop. We got off the freeway and got her out to pee in a field. Bladder shy, and didn't even have to go. Crap. Oh well. Got back on and made it to Jill's friend's house (Jacqui, Rick and their kiddo Caleb) Jill's got 3 really close friends and this week was about them getting to spend the time together. Leanne came in too from Illinois, and her friend Nicole also lived in Indiana. One of the days, they went out and shopped and I watched the kids. Gave me a reality check on what it would be like having twins. Yikes. One wants to watch shows about firefighters, one wants to watch Tinkerbell. Sounds fun right? We went to the park and they had fun running around.

The next day we took the kids to the Indiana Children's Museum. Mia was crabby part of the trip, but she had fun in the China exhibit. Specifically the Chinese restaurant. The kids could make pretend food in woks and bring it out to the parents sitting at the tables. She bad a blast doing this. She got her name written in Chinese too but a calligraphy writer. We rode the Great Wall of China slide before heading home for the day. One of the last things we did was go to the Indiana State Fair. Jill's aunt drove in from Ohio and was here for that day adventure. Mia went on a few rides, but just didn't seem as excited as she was for the Wisco fair. She really enjoyed watching this small marching band group playing songs. They all dressed silly and one of them let her play on the buttons of his sax. Easily her new fav instrument. She had a wonderful time swimming in the pool at Aunt Gail's hotel. The day of our departure, she was being all cute and fun with Caleb, then surprisingly kissed him. When I show her the photo of her kissing him, she goes " I DONT KNOW WHY I KISSED THAT BOY! BOYS ARE GROSS" The ride home was long, but we made it. Mia had a great time. Sadly, I brought back a congestion and cold and have been stuck with it since Monday :( Now Mia's stuffed up. Poor girl.

After work Monday I received the devastating news about Robin Williams's suicide. A tragic loss for his family and the film industry. His depression got the best of him and it's heartbreaking. I remember getting up on Saturday mornings as a kid, my dad would have Good Morning Vietnam on. Classic movie. I laughed my ass off watching the Birdcage a few years ago with my and I saw Jumanji in theatres. I've always admired Williams. His comedy was spot on, he really got into every role he did, but I never realized what inner-demons he was dealing with. I knew he had substance abuse problems but didn't know he had depression. A friend of mine worked with him once and said how nice of a guy he truly was.
inlaws

What's frustrating is the "he chose suicide, so it's hard to feel bad for him" comments. When you're depressed it's not like being simply sad. You're stuck in this "I can't think of a good reason to live" thought in your head every single moment. Everything hurts, moving is a pain, going out is bad. So when you're depressed, you need help, and a lot of times people go through depression without looking for help and eventually it can catch up to you and end your life. It's really awful. I hope more people can seek help instead of taking their own life.

Took Mia to the park with my brother and his kids. It was a long nice walk. The kids had fun for a short while before we headed back. Tonight, I'm off! Took the day off for Zoo Ala Carte with Jill, Mia, Grandma and my sister. Should be fun. This pounding headache needs to go away though. 4 DAYS TILL THE PREMIER LEAGUE SEASON STARTS! LETS GO CHELSEA!! Thanks for reading!