It's Coming Together

Greetings everyone. Plenty to discuss so let's get right to it. My work week was a quite one because I worked the weekend, so that was somewhat nice. Wednesday, we got some snow so I spent the majority of my day off working on art, looking at jobs and all in all, enjoying watching the weird snow in November. I also made a few concept football kits for EPL teams so that was a lot of fun. I'll design an Everton one this week as well. It was nice because anything I had to do, it could wait till Thursday because I was off then too :) Thursday, I drove to Play it Again Sports to sell my black Lamar Mission snowboard. I had picked it up off the Facebook marketplace and it just was way too heavy for any freestyle or park riding. Surprisingly, they gave me $60 for it so I was happy. When I got home, I met up with Mia for lunch. She was pretty surprised as I hung out with her and her crazy friends. It was difficult to eat because literally every one of them at our table had to ask me a million questions. I'm glad they're all intrigued about whatever is going on in my lame life but in the end, Mia was happy I was there. Of course I had to go to recess with them so we played our traditional street soccer. Some boys joined in and it was girls vs boys. Mia was proud that she nutmegged a couple boys and scored. After saying goodbyes, I went home.

I forgot the mention that about the middle of the week, I sent out information to Mia's team in search of kids that wanted to continue playing soccer. Immediately, I got a response from Alice's Mom that wanted to sign her up. Amazing. I put the info out in the community and had about 9 kids so far confirmed to play including Ice Breakers Mia, Cecilia, Elia and Alice. Bella from the Pink Panthers (and my 1st year team), a couple of girls from SC Wave, Vida the beast in defense and Adalyn from my team last year. We've got a few "maybe's" but still need 3 more kids to get a 12 kid squad. I'm stoked that so many kids want to play and really hope I can make this happen since they all want to play. I need to find a gym for practices still as well.

After pick up on Thursday, Mia immediately put her snowboard gear and wanted to go snowboarding. Since we don't nearly enough snow for that, Mia had to settle for a little PVC pipe rail setup to work on building muscle memory for grinds. I didn't think she'd be able to develop and progress that easily, but she certainly surprised me. She went from a basic 50/50 grind position to frontside lip slides, backside board slides, backside 50/50s and frontside board slides. Unreal. I know it's not the same as in motion, but for her to build the muscle memory from an ollie to twist herself was remarkable. Hopefully she can try them out soon with a regular amount of some good powder.

Friday, I got up nice and early to watch the Chelsea vs Palace match. Goal-less 1st half, but it didn't take long in the 2nd half for Tammy to net his 10th goal of the season. Pulisic picked up one as well to find the match. Earlier in the week, Chelsea played against Ajax and came from behind to draw the match. Azpi had the 5th goal that would have won it but VAR confirmed that there was a handball. Ugh. Good effort coming back though. The rest of the day, we did some cleaning, shopping and made a late dinner.

Today, Mia and I attempted to find some regular water-proof boots for playing in snow at recess, accept oops, the mall stores weren't open. Target had nothing so later while Jill and her former co-workers at tacos at our house, Mia and my in-laws and myself went out to lunch and Mia later found some boots when the mall opened. This week, I hope to complete the team, I need to reassemble my snowboard bindings and illustrate Mia's book. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

The Pain of Rain

Greetings everyone. Let's dive into the week, eh? Okay. The first three days were utter crap with a pile of rain and a tornado touched down briefly in Wales where I grew up. hearing about the tornado brought back crazy memories of the late 80's with the tornado ripping down our street. My Mom carrying my sister and I in each arm while pregnant with my little brother. What a crazy time that was. Luckily, the tornado didn't head our way and there were no fatalities. Phew. Mia had a fever on one of the days early this week at school. but luckily after a day of rest, was good to go again. Thursday, I joined Mia and her buddies for lunch. I swear, they get way more hyped when I show up than Mia :P They all asked "So, are you staying for recess?" Of course I am. They always love it, no matter what they plan on doing.

Recess turned into a full on game of street soccer with any and every girl that wanted to play with us. A handful of Mia's teammates including Ryan and Cecilia played so it was fun. Mia picked up a couple goals and Ryan had a great time attempting goalie again. I said my goodbyes and had to split. Unfortunately, we had to cancel practice due to the back fields being totally under water. I was having inner struggles that maybe we should have practiced. The temps had warmed up, but the fields were still terrible. I eventually made peace with it and that was that. Friday, it finally didn't rain and I thought that just maybe the game fields would possibly dry out. Sadly Friday night, I got the text from one of my assistant coach they cancelled the Minors, Juniors and Majors matches. Total bummer. Picture Day was still on so we still had to be there for photos at 7:45AM. Talk about a total bummer and tease for the kids. "Hey, get in your full uniform for photos, but no game". On top of that, they didn't allow cleats in the building. Ugh. Mia wasn't a fan of it at all. After photos she kicked the ball around with Alice and Ally while Ally's Mom talked to me about how the season has been going. She explained how proud she is of her daughter and overall how the team has bonded and played throughout the year. As a coach, I never really know how I'm doing but when I hear little random things like that from parents I have barely met, it's really humbling and always nice to hear. I also ran into old players Jana, Charley and Ainslee. Ainslee's Mom told me she'd really like to get an early request to have me coach her when she gets into 3rd grade next year. Talk about sweet eh? She was a sick goalie last year and I'd love to work with her like I have with Olivia. Olivia has been very patient playing mainly goalie, and with Ava out with an injury, I don't know if I can convince anyone else to play in net. I hope she can play in our final game on the 26th against the 2nd place team. If we win this upcoming match and the 2nd place team loses, we take the league title.

The rest of the day, we hung out with my in-laws for a belated birthday celebration with Tommy. Friday night, Mia made an impressive 8-layered cake for her Uncle. 8 layers of 8 different colors. Unreal. Sunday, I watched the Chelsea vs Southampton match. Blues got the big win 4-1 and are moving up the table right before the International Break. We later went to the zoo in pursuit of the baby red panda. Sadly, the red pandas weren't out either so Mia was pretty disappointed. She enjoyed the polar bear being cute laying in the sun as well as the river otters playing in the water.

This week, Mia's off tomorrow and hoping to find friends to hang out with. Hopefully, we can hold a practice Thursday before our 2nd to last league match. The Torrent have their final match of the year so possibly I will attempt to make it. They had a game over the weekend that I really wanted to go to, but I wasn't feeling that great Saturday for a while, and it was pouring out.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!