Shutterbugs and Muggles

Good evening everyone! We started the week with a day off for the diva. She had Monday off, which was nice. We didn't do much during the day. She got up her normal time (ish) had breakfast and painted her nails before going to her Grandma's house while I went to work. Chelsea took on the mighty Barca and ended the UCL match in a draw. Messi got lucky to finally get his first goal at the Bridge against the Blues. Hopefully, it won't happen again. Till the next Champions League match...

This week, I lent a helping hand with some school photography for Jill and her work. Wednesday, we went to Lannon Elementary to do some "candid" photos. We visited a good handful of classes and photographed the kids in groups of 3-4. They were a lot of fun and were fun to take pictures of.

Thursday, Jill needed my help again so I met up with her boss and his niece to help take more pictures, but this time at a much bigger school. SO many kids. So many grades. Once again, I had a great time taking pictures of the kids. I mostly love helping Jill and making her workalike a lot easier.

Friday, Jill and I worked on Mia's invites for her birthday party. Narrowing Mia's list wasn't easy, but somehow she did it. The theme is Harry Potter so we put together these incredible invites and printed them out. Friday evening, Jill and Mia used her awesome stamper and melted some wax to give the final touches to these Hogwarts invites. Saturday, Mia and I decided to hand-deliver the letters. We had a slight fear that the mail sorter would destroy the invites. We went house to house. Some where home, others weren't. Monday, she'll have to bring some to school, or we'll just have to mail them out and say "oh well".

While delivering the letters, Mia was complaining about her legs bothering her and aching. I didn't think much about it at the time, but as the day went on, she started to show signs of a fever. Crap. She off and on slept the rest of the Saturday. Ate very little and sadly didn't get to hang out and visit Noelle and Charlie at their Girl Scout cookie sale at the store. The duo asked me "WHERE'S MIA!!???" Mia was more bummed that we couldn't make it to StoneFire. A fever just doesn't go well with loud noises and heavy foods. Mia was a heartbroken diva. I worked on her drawing before calling it a night.

Sunday, Mia woke up in a much better state, smiling and eating again. Phew. There's a lot of sickness going around and luckily, her fever didn't last terribly long. I watched Chelsea take on Man U in what was a bit disappointing of a game. Willian picked up a sick goal right before Lukaku got the equalizer. I would have settled for the draw, but those Red Devil's got one more goal to sink the good guys into 5th place. Ugh. Mia hilariously said "you know Daddy, when the bad guys fall, they really overreact". Nailed it. Went to work later to close out the weekend.

This week, I may be photographing another school, work on some art, and most likely Torrent stuff. Not sure what we're doing this weekend so we'll play it by ear. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Neon Glow

Good evening everyone. Busy week and plenty to talk about. Here...we....GO. Early in the week, I went to lunch with Mia. Well, I completely surprised her for lunch. I couldn't stay for recess though, but we still had fun with her silly friends. They still ask her "SO WHAT DID YOUR DADDY DRAW YOU!?" Wednesday I got a hair cut and had the barber cut way more than usual. Mia at first wasn't a fan of it, but got used to it over time. After school, I couldn't convince Mia to go sledding in which appeared to be perfect ramp-building snow conditions so we built a "Snow Mia" instead and a few porgs and penguins. The snow as pretty wet but we made the most of it. Noelle and her sister came over too and played for a while as well. Later, we had heart-shaped pizzas and watched a movie before Mia went to bed. Not a bad Valentine's Day.

Friday, I was off to help volunteer the Valentine's Day/Friendship party. I ran a Pictionary station. The kids took turns drawing and guessing what their classmates were drawing. Great fun. Some of them were pretty competitive to win candy. Probably could have avoided a prize, but they had fun. After wards, I went home and watched Chelsea destroy Hull City 4-0. Great game! Picked up the diva and went home to get ready for the 2018 Neon Glow Daddy Daughter Dance.
Mia picked out a cute dress and sweater and I gave it my best to match her. This kid sure is stylish. Anyways, we arrived at New Berlin West and discovered that there were a LOT more people at this dance than the last one we did. I swear that one was in spring and not around Valentine's Day. ANYWAYS, Mia instantly wanted to located all of her buddies so we looked around and found Cecilia, Noelle, Charlie, Hayden and Izzy. The girls ran around, danced, chased each other, ate food, took pictures and from time to time, remembered it was a Daddy'Daughter dance and danced with their respected Fathers. Most of the time, they would spend time trying to find _insert friend here_ so we'd have to help them look. It was a lot of fun and the kids seemed to have a blast. I was pretty disappointed that they didn't have anyone playing the music. They had a computer set up with some lights. That was it. No one taking requests or anything. Mia wanted to request Portugal.The Man but no one was available to take the request. Bummer. We left a bit after 8, but not before BFF's Mia and Cecilia made plans to ice skate Saturday afternoon.

Saturday, we drove to the American Science Surplus store. (I think that's what it's called) We were on the hunt for tubes and bottles and files (oh my?) for Mia's Harry Potter-themed birthday party. Jill's got a bunch of fun ideas that require lots of science stuff for the kids. We've never been here and had heart it's pretty fun to explore. After wards, Jill dropped Mia and I off at the Petit to meet up with Cecilia and her Dad to skate. The kids skated for about an hour and a half. Cecilia had got new skates she was dying to use. She did great as well as Mia. Still hoping I can get Mia to skate solo without my hand hopefully in the near future. Later, we went back home to relax and start making a list of things we want to do and people to invite for the party in March. Later, we went to my brother Andy's hockey game. Close one, but they lost in the penalty shootout.

Sunday I worked and didn't get much accomplished. Came home tonight to Mia bouncing off the walls till she got tired and went to bed. Tomorrow, she's off from school. President's Day. She asked me "does that mean we get a new president?" Sadly, no. Chelsea plays the dreaded Barcelona game in the UCL this week. HUGE match they really have to win. Come on Chels!

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Two Divas Skating

Good evening everyone. I want to try to get through this rather quickly. Body is pretty exhausted after work today.  We had plenty of snow this week so after school on Wednesday, Mia and I went on an adventure to try and find some new sledding hills. We couldn't find the one with lights at Valley View. I found out later in the week that it's on a different side of the park. We ended up at a place called Calhoun Park. The hill had potential to be really great except it was way too powdery and no fresh sledding tracks. Mia didn't get the speed she needed to even make it all the way down. She got frustrated so I dragged her butt in her sled all the way back to the car and we went home. We worked on her Valentines for her class when we got home before dinner.  Earlier in the day, I had a meeting with some parents about two big events at the school I'm helping with.

Friday, the lucky little diva had a snow day. After another dumping of snow in Southeastern Wisconsin, everybody had off including her school. She woke up around 8:30 and was SO excited to learn she didn't have school. She hung out at home, we went out to Panera for lunch before I had to dig my car out to go to work.

Saturday, I got a text from one of Mia's best friends Cecilia's Mom about ice skating at Petit. Funny that Mia mentioned during the week the girls were planning on skating over the weekend and well there it was, a text about seeing if Mia could skate. I said absolutely we could go skating.  Jill wasn't feeling that great so Mia and I met up with Cecilia and her family. All of them went skating. They had to hold up her little sister but she was a good sport about it and made it a few laps. Cecilia had only been skating ONE other time and after a few early jitters, she was skating solo BY herself. Every once in a while, she'd bail and want to hold a hand but she always had a smile on her face. Even falling on her butt, she'd get up laughing. Great attitude. Mia is still getting used to single-bladed skates so she'd hold my hand or Cecilia's while holding my hand. It was an absolute blast. The girls are so fun to listen to when they're together and always have a great time in each other's presence. It truly brings a smile to my face when I hear different stories about them. Like when Cecilia forgets to bring snow pants to school, Mia will purposely not wear hers at recess so she'd stay on the blacktop to hang with Cecilia. Those little things are just so sweet. I mention that to Mia, and she thinks nothing of it because that's what you do for your best friends. Clearly, she could wear her pants so she would stay warm at recess, but that's not what Cecilia did, so Mia opts to just not wear them and hang with her. When Cecilia feels sad, Mia told me she tries to have her friends help Cecilia feel better.

After two hours of skating, Mia was exhausted. Cecilia didn't seem like she was, but they both didn't mind getting their skates off their little feet. Mia wanted to go over to her house, but knowing Jill was waiting for Mia to come, we had to decline the play date offer and head home to see how she was feeling.

Later, we had some dinner and watched the Olympic skating and snowboarding events. Both were great. I don't know how much of the other events I'll get to see, but it was nice for us to watch them together.

Sunday, we got yet another dumping of snow. After Jill got home from church with her parents, we went out to lunch with them and cleared the driveway so I could go to work later and Jill's parents could return later to visit. All in all, great weekend. This week is a busy one. Have a lot of design work ahead of me, Mia's got her Valentines Day party + the Daddy/Daughter dance Friday night. Saturday, no plans that i know of.  Mia's off that following Monday so hopefully we can meet up with friends to enjoy the time. Maybe sled or something. Chelsea plays West Brom tomorrow and if they want to secure keeping Conte around, they need to start winning again. We dropped to 5th place and need to dig ourselves out of the rut BIG TIME. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Plenty of Pets

Good evening everyone. This should be a pretty quick post. Not a lot happened for the week, honestly. Wednesday was the first day off in two weeks Mia and I didn't go sledding. I spent the majority of the day working on the Torrent schedules for both the men's and the women's team Chelsea got destroyed by a very determined Bournemouth so needless to say, it was far from a good day soccer-wise. I fear Conte is well aware he's leaving at the end of the season, that is, if he makes it to then. No one should lose to them. Not a top flight team. They need to get our newest addition from the Gunners Giroud into tomorrow's match. Hopefully he's got a solid finish and can get some wins back at West London.

Saturday, our friend Leanne made the trek up to Wisconsin on a snowy Saturday. We met up with Jill's Dad and brother and made a trip to the Pet Expo. Mia loved all the cats, dogs and turtles. Leanne held a tarantula which Mia wanted nothing to do with. She did pet a turtle which was pretty cute. She especially enjoyed a beagle puppy named Mia as well as this adorable husky named Little Man. I have such a soft spot for huskies. Such awesome dogs. After Mia had enough playing with the huskies, we went home to make dinner. We all got tired pretty early into the evening, even myself who had a lot of work to get accomplished but I really needed the sleep so we crashed.

Sunday, I did some snow blowing while Jill and Leanne looked into flights and plans for our trip. Mia joined me outside later to do a bit of ditch sledding on her saucer before I left for work. Not the most exciting night. In fact, most people could care less who was winning the Super Bowl.

This week, more soccer stuff to get accomplished plus a possible meeting Wednesday about High Interest Day with some fellow parents. That's all for now thanks for reading!