GOLAZO!

Good evening everyone. Busy week (and weekend) over here, and I'm dead exhausted, but for some reason, feel like writing before hitting the showers/bed. Cold temps this week, which sucked, but after school on Wednesday, I took Mia over to the temporary ice rink at Malone Park and we skated. We had the whole place to ourselves, so it was nice to skate, just the two of us. She would get frustrated because the surface isn't all that smooth and was difficult at times to skate solo. It's not as easy to get going as the Petit but we still had fun. She's really into "ice dancing" and we'd have to dance together. It was cute. Later that night, I played a very rare session of pick up indoor soccer at Brookfield Indoor. Rusty at times, but I had a lot of fun. Only snagged one assist and no goals, but it was a good time. The guys were pretty cool. I gotta work on ball control a bit. My finishing was rough at times. I would get in a weird angle with a player against me, and I'd lose my bearings. It was crappy at times. I got a few good shots, but not enough for me to be happy with. I hope to play again some time.

Friday, I got Mia registered for Kindergarten for the 2016/2017 school year. YES, you actually have to have them registered already. It's insane, really. We could never get the school district site to work, so we walked across the street, sat down and did it on their stupid laptop. Took a while, and thankfully Mia was very patient but she's registered. She has an "assessment test" scheduled for March so we'll find out where she is for the class. It'll be a totally new environment for the diva, new friends, teachers and schedule. She'll have to get used to going to bed even earlier then she is now, and a full days worth of school and fun. She's excited, but sorta sad she won't have her best friends in class anymore. Luckily, we keep in contact outside of school so she'll have opportunities to be with them.

Saturday, I had a Flood meeting later in the afternoon. We discussed merch, the league and schedule that should be released soon, the songbook and other things at the Nomad, the jersey sponsor for the Torrent. I picked up the Flood scarf after we did a photo-op with the Fonz to help promote the supporters group. I'm really happy with how my design for the supporters scarf turned out. The detail looks real cool and I'm quite proud of my work. When the schedule comes out, I"ll be able to get some solid work on it. Should be soon. Myself and the intern are also taking on a project to get a kids club put together so that will be fun.

Later Saturday evening, we went tubing with Mia's BFF Olivia, her bro Gavin and Dad at The Rock Sports Complex. TOTALLY fun for a couple hours. The kids totally could have gone longer. Jill watched and will probably do it next time. I would go down with Mia, then her BFF, THEN her Bro..it was fun. They have this "magic carpet" that takes you back up the hill. The kids had a blast.

Today, I watched Chelsea defeat those no-good rivals Arsenal 1-0. Costa got a great goal in, thus digging into the rivals more, which was perfect. The 2nd half,  the Blues shoulda done a bit better since the team was down to 10 guys after the red card early in the 1st half, but a win is a win.
Mia and Jill went to my nephew's birthday. From what I was told, they had fun and Mia was social with every single one of the guests. This week, I've got some serious Torrent stuff to do, and most likely cleaning. That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

The Gourd Gutting Festival

Good Afternoon. It's been quite a week, and this coming week promises to be even busier! Tuesday, Mia and I met up with my friend Nicole and her boy Benny at Kids in Motion. They had a blast running around and playing. Wednesday, my little brother, his boy Easton plus Mia and myself went to the trampoline park. It was my bro's first time there, so they were stoked. Well, they changed a few things. You have to purchase their jumping socks now for a few bucks to participate. I assume someone got hurt and filed a complaint or something. The kids had such a good time. Mia always enjoys Helium Trampoline Park more with a friend to play with. It's always fun hanging with my brother, and we hope to make it a weekly thing that we meet up somewhere and do something with the kids (since he now works 3-11 during the week at a new job)

Wednesday night, I was fortunate to play some pick up indoor soccer at Brookfield Indoor. I had this feeling that after trampolining for an hour and a half, I'd be dead exhausted playing soccer. At the same time, I also knew that I wouldn't be able to play virtually ANY soccer (indoor or futsal) throughout the Fall and Winter season. This was my very last chance. Thanks a lot work!! :( Anyways, it was a lot of fun. The opening 3 minutes, I was able to secure two fantastic assists (like Chelsea's Cesc Fabregas). I megged one fellow through his legs to a teammate who made a simple goal. My 2nd assist was off a great cross to the right side. After these, I felt super confident. Wasn't able to get any goals sadly, but blew a few chances. While playing on the left side I had received a very fast cross and my attempt to one-touch shoot it. Couldn't get my body behind it and it went wide. I passed it to a teammate and he missed too. Sad efforts, but I was able to get a few shots off. One of my prouder moments was being able to spin out of a challenge from a teammate. The craziest part of the night was when one of the opposing guys had accidentally stuck his boot out with the cleats up into one of my teammates ankle. He went down in pain, got up and almost punched the kid right in the face. They had to hold him back. It was quite brutal. I don't know what is is about some of these guys, but they take the game WAY too seriously. A kid earlier was throwing a fit too. All in all, fun time. Sad it's my last.

Friday, Mia went to school. Her teacher told me she can attend their Halloween party Wednesday. We also have parent/teacher conferences! Really? 3k? Well, okay then! Sadly Jill can't attend because of a Wild Tree event, but I'll be going. Hope to hear good things. When I was signing up for the day we can attend, Mia was giving her classmates hugs goodbye. Well apparently a boy had got up and snuck in a kiss to her cheek. I didn't see it, but Mia sure told me about it. "Dad! HE WAS A SNEAKA AND KISSED ME! EWWW GROSS!!" So that story was shared throughout the weekend. Saturday, I watched the Chelsea vs Crystal Palace game. Quite intense. Oscar got a goal off a free kick near the box. Azpilicueta got a red card for a bad challenge but soon after that, one of their players picked up his 2nd yellow card, which meant he was red carded out. 10 vs 10. Fabregas got our 2nd goal off some beautiful passing. I missed the 2nd half because the NBCSports.com feed completely went down. We ended up winning 2-1. Great game for the Blues and we're still top of the table. Tuesday we've got a Champions League game. The rest of Saturday we did yard work and carved pumpkins with my parents. I free-handed a Minion, Jill and Mia worked on two Sophia The First ones, and my parents did some creative pumpkins.

This Saturday, we're going to a Halloween party. First one in probably 4-5 years. Should be a great time, plus Jill's friend Leanne is coming in. Sunday is trick or treating in our neighborhood. I just found out the weather will be a nice 73 degrees. Perfect for her Anna dress. I'm very bummed out that I'm missing it because I'm stuck working 2-10. First Halloween I won't be going trick or treating with my little love :( Hopefully she has fun.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading :)

A Praise Chorus

Hey dudes. Been super busy with art, mainly trying to knock out this birthday gift for my pop. I doubt he'll enjoy it as much as I'd like but we'll see what happens. I've restarted this sucker so many times. It's not at the level I'd like it to be as far as what I know that I can do, but overall, it's good enough, I suppose. I've got a few things to discuss so let's get right into it. Worked the early shift last Sunday because I had planned on playing some indoor soccer at 9pm that night. I was nervous and excited because my parents, my sister and of course Jill and Mia were making it out to watch me play. So we drove out in the rain and I casually looked around for any guys playing in the 9pm game. There were 3 girls league games going on so I figured it wouldn't be too difficult. Saw a guy chilling on his phone and asked "hey you playing in the next game?" He responded with "Actually I'm looking to sub". Perfect, I said I was too so we both headed downstairs to see if any teams arrived yet. We found one bunch of guys and asked them if they needed any subs. The goalie responded with "no thanks. Wonderful. We turned around and saw a large team they'd be facing shortly. Looked like kids straight out of High School or something. We didn't feel like they would want us to play so we didn't bother asking them.

We head back upstairs pretty bummed out. So we sat behind where the teams were taking the pitch to warm up. This guy next to us "who I SWEAR looked & sounded exactly like Washing Capital's Alex Ovechkin, yelled out "HEY where's the rest of your team?" to the goalie. He responded with "you wanna play, man?" Me and the dude I met were like "this guy had to see us there, what in the HELL man??" So we hoped they would lose for that BS. And sure enough, 10 seconds into the game the guys were scored on immediately. Me and my anxious family left after the kids scored 3 goals. I couldn't have been more bummed out. I just picked up some new soccer cleats (or boots) fore a pretty good price. Didn't even get to use them. Mia was looking forward to watching some soccer as well as my Dad. The other sub ended up sticking around to play at 10pm with other teams. I just wanted to head out, there was no way Mia would last till 11pm. I really hope I get to play December 2nd when Pork plays the team that rejected me and the other sub.

In other news, today I ordered a new phone. the Galaxy sii went on sale this week for super cheap for US Cellulars Thanksgiving sale. Yes, it's outdated compared to the siii but that phone is WAY too much for me. So the new phone will be here in a few days.


The picture above I took while colouring with Mia. The lighting in our kitchen was perfect and she was being super cute. A lot of photographers know that most successful photos is skill AND luck. With kids, it's a LOT of luck if you can pull off a really amazing shot. Her smile lights up my heart in ways only a fellow parent could really understand. That's all for now, it's getting late. Adios!

All Hollows

Hey peeps. Short blog post today. Gotta be up early Friday morning. Just had some cool things to share. The warm weather has been great (even though it's gone now) Today, Mia and I took advantage of the seasonable October weather and raked up some leaves. I'd rake the ones out of the drive way, and she'd pick them up and put them back. Eventually she would realize it was more FUN to just throw them up in the air and put them in her hair. Strange kid. Anyways, so my Wednesday off was quite busy. The first and important stop, was to Brookfield Indoor Soccer complex. I recently discovered that they host Men's Open soccer on Sunday nights. Games beginning at 7, 9 and 10pm. So we ran down and checked out the place and got more info. When Mia and I walked in, it was pretty dark in the complex since they had no games going on, but Mia could tell what wasn't lit up: 5 beautiful soccer fields/pitch and she quickly said "DADDA SOCCER!!!" We talked to a woman who gave me the run down that you basically show up on game days for the first few weeks to see if anyone needs an extra player. Since THIS Sunday is trick or treating, I didn't think I'd be able to play at night..BUT she did inform me that the Waukesha Men's 35+ group meets and plays Sunday mornings. Even though I'm 29, she said I was "close enough" so she gave me some contact info. Today I got a response from the guy who must run it on game days. No permanent spots open for anyone, however he did say I could come down and see if they needs a field player. As stoked as I am to go down and play, I will not get too excited because who knows if they truly need a player. He said it's no guarantee but most likely I'll be able to play. So Friday morning, Mia and I need to hit up Steffans and get some shin guards, long socks and a pair of shorts.

When we left, Mia was pretty bummed she didn't get to watch any live soccer. She loves watching live hockey so I know that if daddy gets to play Sunday, she'll have an absolute ball. The complex is pretty cool. Very big with great seating everywhere.

Like I mentioned, Trick or treating is Sunday, so we're pretty stoked to take her out. It's gonna be 45-48 degrees so hopefully it won't be as windy as it is now, or we won't get that far for a 2nd year in a row :(

Anything else to discuss? I dunno. She pooed in the toilet a few days ago which is rad because it's one step towards her getting potty trained! Yay. Alright, that's all for now. Thanks for reading!