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!

And the Son of the Year award goes to...

Good evening. Hope everyone enjoyed the week. This week, we had to have two massive trees cut down. They were infected with the emerald ash bore so it was was unfortunate that we had to have them cut down. Mia was the most upset since every one of her 1st and last day of school photos were taken in front of it. It took almost all day, but the trees came down one chunk at a time. The house would shake when the big chunks would fall down. In fact, so did our neighbors!

Wednesday, Jill wasn't feeling good so I was taking her to and from work. She didn't stay at work long and crashed on the couch the rest of the day till Mia got home from school. Luckily, she felt better towards the end of the evening.
 At the end of the week, Mia begged me to go to lunch with her. She'd say "I would look for you at the end of the hallway, and when I didn't see you, I almost cried" tactic. SERIOUSLY kid!?? So Friday, I packed a small lunch and joined the diva and her crazy friends for lunch. A boy Brayden told her "MEET ME IN OUR SECRET HIDING PLACE AT RECESS OKAY???" Sure enough, she did. She took off forgetting I was with her. Noelle and myself went on a search to find the kids and we did. Noelle showed me her magic before Mia and her friends started a game of street soccer. Didn't last too long like most games the girlies play. They all wanted to take a selfie with me so we had to do that as well. Mia said her goodbyes before I headed home. She's such a special part of my life so when she wants me to come to lunch because she misses me, I try to join.

Saturday Mia and I took the soccer equipment back to the NBAA office. What a great season we had. Look forward to another one next year. Later, we went over the studio and I helped Jill as she photographed our friend Cori's family with her new twins. Mia's still not a fan of babies so she quietly played in the office.

We did lunch at StoneFire Pizza and had a great time. We had a movie night before going to bed.
Sunday, we went to our friend Heather's baptism of her little girl Lily. Mia wasn't that excited during it, but I was glad she was able to behave. Later, I met up with my Dad and Jill's Dad Tom to drive to the Pop Con Milwaukee event. Pete Rose was making a Wisconsin appearance and my Dad has been a massive fan of his as long as I have been alive. I'm pretty sure I made Son of the Year bringing his star-struck butt down there. They had a TON of collectables, toys and special guests including Burt Ward and one of the Catwomen from the original TV show Batman as well as the General Lee with one of the Duke brothers. My Dad was far more interested in Pete Rose. He went up to him twice to say hi. 2nd time was way more interesting to watch. He reminisced about the old days of his playing career as I discreetly snapped a few photos of him talking with the old man. To see him talk like he's known him all his life was pretty fun. He purchased a few nice prints of him but refused to pay a lot to have them autographed. A few pictures of him talking to his long-time hero sufficed and he left happy. I hope he never forgets this day. Tom picked up a really nice Bella Lugosi print. All in all, we had a great time. I even met one of the ewoks from Return of the Jedi. She was super nice and insisted I took a photo of her and I to show Mia. I didn't get to watch much of the Chelsea vs Man U game, but I'm sure as hell glad they beat United 1-0!!!

Later afte I took him home, I joined Jill and the gang for dinner. Great to be off today. Spent way too long working on a picture for Mia tomorrow but I'm glad it's finally complete. This week, nothing major going on. We're finally booking places to stay for our big trip so I'm pretty excited. Mia may have a sleep over this weekend so we'll see if that happens at our house. That's all for now, thanks for reading!