Bring it on 2014!

Greetings. With New Years Eve coming tomorrow, I thought I'd do my traditional year end review of how everything went. Before that,  let's get Christmas out of the way first. Christmas Eve, I worked a very busy early shift till 2pm, then we headed over to my brother's house with the rest of the family. Mia got some great new stuff including an awesome doll house. She's in Illinois right now with Jill so I imagine she'll be exciting
to play with it again when they come home tomorrow. My parents got me an AMAZING Chelsea FC away jersey ( I had customized with Oscar on the back). My amazing wife got me a nice, warm and awesome Chelsea FC winter jacket. I think that I'll be truly thankful for it today when I go to work since It's -11 degrees out. BRR! I picked out a bunch of clothes for Jill for Christmas, so she was happy. I hope :) Christmas morning, Mia slept in till 11ish. She wanted to "wait" for Santa Christmas Eve, and eventually fell asleep. She woke up, opening some gifts and loved everything. Her pink PowerWheels Mustang was waiting for her in the driveway. Too much snow to thoroughly enjoy. Come Spring time, she'll get to cruise.



Back to the year end review. Last year, I had made a small list of goals to accomplish. Let's take a look.
First Goal- Play in an adult indoor or outdoor soccer league-in 2012, I started to regain my love for soccer, and really wanted to play more soccer in 2013. Well, I didn't get to play in a "league", I did play some adult pick up. Played a few outdoor games in the summer and some futsal a month or so ago as a sub. Man, playing soccer is so incredibly fun. The most amazing work out and exercise. Was hoping to play last night, but there was no need for any subs.
Second Goal- Possibly find a 2nd job. ALMOST HAPPENED! In fact, a graphic design job almost happened. Over the summer, a good friend of mine from college had told me that a woman she works out with at her gym worked at a company that designs neon beer signs for companies. So to get in with this job, I had to create a website for my art work. Which is perfect because that was one of my other goals from LAST year :) So I designed a clean site that's easy to navigate. In the end, the job fell through, but for a few weeks, I had a creative spark to design some new things and challenge myself.

Third Goal-Play pond hockey before the end of Winter with my brothers Didn't happen. Maybe this year we will.  Last two-Try to complete a killer water colour picture and Maybe do a series of some really nice photographs. Water colour didn't happen, but one rainy day, I was able to shoot some awesome photographs of Mia in the rain with an umbrella.

2014 GOALS
1-Another series of great photographs 
2-If the weather cooperates, make a Snow-Minion 
3-Draw a portrait of a Chelsea player  
4-Work on my endurance/Get in better shape 

Not a lot of goals, but how I look at it, everything on here could happen and I need to make them happen.

Real quick, the highlights of my year: 
Mia turned two, which lead to all of the wonderful new things she can say and sing with me.
We lost our Guinea pigs. Both passed away :( 
Started taking Mia to play groups and we both made new friends. 
Chelsea became the Europa Champs :) 
Turned 30 in July :/  
We took a family trip to Indiana and I got to see Chelsea vs Inter in Indianapolis 
Completed more art then last year (including that picture of Remi above next to the one of Haily Jill did for her aunt) 
Saw Alkaline Trio with my brother. First show in a few years and it was fantastic. 

Okay, that's it everyone. Thanks for sticking with me over the year. See you in 2014!! 

You're a mean one....Mr. Grinch

Greetings. For quite a while, I've been able to successfully be able to post here once a week. Getting a little harder these days, so forgive me for my tardiness. Mia and Jill are still sound asleep. I woke up because I was really hungry. Took a glance outside and noticed all of the snow we got. Great. So I put eating two delicious belgian waffles on the hold, and took Remi out for his walk...THEN took on the snow blowing. While snow blowing, I was thinking about how last year, I was able to build two awesome snow-penguins with Mia. This year, I told her I'd build her  bigger ones. Like, 5-6 feet tall. THEN I thought, wouldn't it be cool to build SNOW MINIONS?!?! Of course the answer is yes! So while snow blowing, I kept thinking of how I'd do it, would I use colours, etc etc. Well, that got me through this crap. I've got to work later today, so I'm hoping this crap slows down. Luckily, Mia and Jill can chill at home all day.

Friday, I took Mia to play group. Only a few kids showed up with their parents. Roads weren't the best, so I'm not surprised. Mia's friends Gracie and Hannah weren't there (or last week either) but Weston and Omnia were. Both kids we haven't seen in a while. Mia played so well with them, which was great. Omnia's Grandma (who takes here to playgroup) told this other woman that she doesn't celebrate Christmas because she's Muslim, but her parents still give her a little tree to decorate. I thought to myself, kids are the best. Mia's playing with this little Muslim girl, and there's no judgement, no "you look different, I can't be around you", nothing. This is a great age. Kids are kids. Simple as that. She's such a sweet little girl too. usually compliments Mia on her outfits and hair accessories. They're close in age (apposed to Weston who is 18 months, but pretty tall for his age). I dunno, I was just real

SO Mia tried sledding this year. Last year was a bust, but this year, she LOVED it! I toed her around the yard Monday going fast, and she couldn't get enough of it. I suggested lets go sled down the ditch (hey, baby steps people) and she absolutely loved it. If I was off today, I'd love to take her sledding down a slightly bigger hill. Christmas is just about here. A few work days to go, before the big day. Stoked for Mia to open gifts this year. On Christmas, we're outta here to Illinois. I'll be back on Saturday though. May even get to play some futsal sunday :) Hopefully. While I'm home solo, I hope to get some art accomplished. Lots to do, with little time, so I hope to use some of the time wisely. I'm not the best with time management at times, but hey, I'm working on it. Wish I was able to catch the Chelsea vs Arsenal derby tomorrow. :(

I was going to discuss a rather controversial topic as of lately, but in the spirit of the holiday season, I'm going to be nice. That's all for now. Happy Holidays everyone. Safe travels, and as always, thanks for reading!

That's Using Your Noodle!

Greetings. Damn, is it cold today. The last few days have been rather unpleasant, temperature wise. Winter is closing in and Mia and I are already craving the Summer days. Over the weekend my in laws came up to visit. It was Jill's Dad's birthday. We woke up and saw they had arrived and were helping make room for a car for the Winter season. Totally couldn't have been better timing because on Sunday, we got all that crazy snow. We swam at their hotel and went out to dinner Saturday. All in all, it was a really nice day. Sunday I had the early shift. Later that morning, the snow came in. Honestly, I didn't think it was going to be as serious as the residents of this good ol' state made it seem. There were countless pile ups. 45 car pile up on one road. How? How is this possible that our entire state struggled with the first substantial snow fall of the season? My drive home on the freeway was a bit irritating, but I made it back safe. The subdivisions were bad. Oh well. . Saturday, Mia mastered something new: CHOPSTICKS! It was incredibly entertaining to watch her quickly pick up the ancient art of using chopsticks. She owned a bowl of rice noodles so well. Very proud of my little Mia.
Hahaha

Just have a few things to complete before Christmas arrives. It really is creeping in on us. Mia's stoked. Jill's stoked. We're gonna have a really nice Christmas morning. I can't wait for Mia to see what we have in store for her :)

I haven't been able to do a lot of art lately. Sort of sucks, but I'll get back at it. I hope. Been craving some futsal lately too. Soccer is so much fun, and since my lil bro found his indoor shoes recently, I think we'll be able to get in on a very rare game together. Since the snow is here, I sincerely hope that Miss Mia can attempt to do some sledding. Jill took her out on a sled and pulled her around. Apparently she enjoyed it, so that's rad :)

Mia and I enjoyed watching the Chelsea game (I surprisingly found online at my parent's house on a visit) I love that she enjoys watching with me. Afterwards, she grabbed a ball in my Dad's man-cave. "I play soccer Dadda, not football, that's boring" Earlier in the day we enjoyed a lovely tea party with special guests her giraffe and a yellow little Minion. Very fun. Her imagination keeps me feeling young and always guessing what she will come up with next.
Okay, eyes are getting heavy, off to bed. Thanks for reading!

The Turkey Day Tour

Greetings everyone. Yeah, I'm late on writing, it was an intense week. Work, work, and of course Thanksgiving. Thursday, I worked the early shift. We were steady and busy throughout the day, but once the clock struck 2pm, I was excited to get home and get ready for our first Thanksgiving at our house (that we hosted) We've had many Thanksgivings by your ourselves (Jill and I) but this was the first one we hosted with my entire immediate family. It was intense and stressful at times, but everything looked amazing. All of the credit goes to my amazing wife. Wednesday, we started getting things ready and doing some baking. My job was to keep Mia as busy as possible and not in the way. Lucky, it worked.

Thursday, everything looked amazing. The house smelled fantastic, and in the end, the food was delicious. It was an awesome night. Jill's mini apple-shaped pies were a big hit. She's so awesome and creative. Friday, we packed up the car, and headed down to Illinois for the weekend. We had our 2nd and last Thanksgiving Friday evening with Jill's family and her Grandma. Mia, like Thursday night, didn't care for eating much, BUT did try everything that was on her plate. "I'm gonna try this, I might like it...oo...don't like it" I was quite proud of her for TRYING things. Kids are freakin' picky as hell about eating, and this was a rare moment for her to actually try everything on that little plate. Saturday, we hung out and relaxed with her family, Jill's friend Leanne came over later to catch up and have dinner while Mia was passed out on the couch. All in all, good solid weekend. Today, we drove home with a very cranky kid.

Her folks are coming up this weekend for her Dad's birthday. Not sure quite yet what we're doing, but I've got the early shift Sunday.

Last week, Mia and I went out looking for some things Jill wants for Christmas. She went ahead and TOLD Jill one of them, with a goofy smile on her face. I can NOT tell that kid ANYTHING without her telling! Same thing happened with my Dad. She told one of his birthday gifts too. Sigh. Jill said she's glad Mia doesn't know what she got for ME for Christmas..haha. Last but not least, well done CHELSEA on winning :)

Okay, that's all for now. Thanks for reading :P

The Kris Kringel Photo Failure

Greetings! First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! You've always been amazing in every way to me and I'm incredibly lucky to have you as a Mom. Over the weekend, Jill went to a glass blowing class. She made an AMAZING ornament with her ex-coworker and her friends. Sunday, I worked the early shift while some of my family went to my cousin's baby shower, so after I was done working, went over to my parent's house to hang and catch up.

This week I've been thinking about my eclectic musical "career" and all of the different bands I've played in. I was going to go into it today and share some of them for you, but I don't have the time, so NEXT time I'll write about it. Anyways, I was thinking about how much I miss playing live. Being in front of crowds big and small was something I truly enjoyed. I loved it when people would come up and tell me "hey I really like your stuff, you guys sounded really good". That's typical of musicians. Some do it for the money, others want to hear the feedback. My buddy/former bandmate Nick is the same way. We loved hearing feedback, reviews and such.

Wednesday was pretty busy. I had a list of things I needed to accomplish, Mia and I went to Steffans Soccer Store to get ONE last thing for my Dad for his birthday, then went and visited Grandma at work, THEN I needed to give Mia some lunch before her santa pictures at Jill's studio. She ate a grilled cheese sandwich, and then we were off to the studio. Jill and I had very low hopes that this was going to be a successful photo shoot. She already had her sunglasses on (which meant that she didn't want ANYONE to see her) We tried putting her into the sleigh. Didn't happen, and when Santa came in, she freaked out. We got some good funny pictures, so you'll have to see when they're complete. Her VERY first santa photo was adorable. Smiling at 8 or 9 months old. Last year's photo: TEARS. This year, you'll see :P

This weekend, birthday dinner for my parents. I work 2-10 Sunday so nothing exciting going on then.
I finally found my new box of color pencils I misplaced last Spring. I think I had hid them from Mia. Anyways, soon I'm going to start a unique sting ray tattoo design for Jill's friend Leanne. Should be pretty cool. Another project on my pile. :P That's all for now, thanks for reading.

See The Light

Morning everyone. Didn't write last night. Dozed off and woke up and realized it was 1:30am, so I just went back to sleep. Usually like to get all of my thoughts together Wednesday evening to write, but sometimes I end up writing Thursday morning. Anyways, over the weekend, Jill's family came to town. We did a TON of yard work. I immediately got all of the gutters cleaned, while Jill raked, and her dad cut some grass. Her mom kept Mia busy, which usually meant playing in the leaves and sandbox. It was good to get a lot of yard work done. The weather wasn't bad (except the insane wind)

Sunday, I was off too! Yay! I took a vacation day because Jill and I had reserved two spots to go paint at the Arte Wine and Paint studio in Tosa', so her parents watched Mia. It was paint your pet day! We had a lot of fun. Because I typically don't work well with acrylic, I found myself getting very frustrated at times. I usually use oil or water colour. In the end, I was mostly satisfied with my attempt. Jill's looked great and we'll probably do something like this again some day. I strongly recommend anyone who wants to have some fun and walk away with a great painting (and it's only 2 1/2 hours, which goes by REALLY fast) They instruct you how to build up the painting from the darkest darks to the lightest colors, so even the most artistically challenged person can complete a nice picture.

You might remember I posted a week ago that during futsal I had got one of my toes smashed by an opposing player. The toe's improving nicely. I can jog some now. The two other toes on my left foot are still purple and blue but they don't hurt at all. Was FINALLY able to do a little drawing yesterday (during Mia's nap) Haven't been able to do anything on her portrait in FOREVER. Didn't get a lot done, but did something so, that's always good. Probably another 2-3 hours on it and it should be complete. This weekend, Jill's got a glass blowing class with one of her co-workers and I'm working Sunday 6am-2pm. That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

Great Lakes/Great Escapes

Greetings. Quickly am going to get through this before crashing for the evening. Over the weekend, we went up to Madison. Jill photographed her former roomie from college's engagement photos while Mia and I hung out with my bro and his familia. I swear, Alex is the only boy that Mia can handle hanging with. Probably because they're cousins and play very well together. Later, her roomie took us out to dinner at Monty's (which NEVER disappoints) Her fiance's little 6 year old was chasing Mia around outside, which was pretty damn adorable.

Sunday, I worked 9-5pm, THEN played some futsal later :) The shift was long and boring, and all I could think about was playing futsal again. Hoped this time I'd get a goal or two (since the last time I played, I had to quit at first half because Mia was crying) Anyways, Mia and Jill didn't make it to the game, allowing me to be able to play the whole time with no problems. So I found out they typically play 3-4 games per night. Cool. First game, I didn't do as well. Wasn't getting a lot of passes to myself and didn't get a lot of chances for shots. My shift as keeper (everyone switches off every 5-6 minutes) I had let in two goals. Blah.

Second game, I did WAY better. Got a few shots off. One ALMOST goal. It went perfectly between the keeper's legs and just as it was crossing the line, the defender got it. I almost fell over in frustration. NOOO!!! Well, I ended up getting a goal off a slick volley from a teammate. FINALLY. I got the goal I've been wanting to get. 3 or 4 shots that night before getting this goal. This goal meant a lot to me. I hope that if I sub again some day, I'll get more goals. The rest of this game, I would secure about 3 assists as well. When my shift came for keeper, I let ZERO goals in and made an awesome pass to a teammate from 15 feet away. Even had everyone on the court saying "WOAHH" I don't even think the teammate was expecting it. I was loving this shift. It would get scary when a teammate would get the ball because just about EVERYONE is on the offense leaving me, the lonely keeper one-on-one with the striker. Luckily, I had some good saves.

Last game, a few shots but no goals, and I once again didn't let any goals in as keeper. Keeper because sort of a position I enjoyed towards the end because it gave me a time to chill for a moment...you know before someone starts pounding the ball at me. Before we called it quits, I had to switch colors and go to the other side, and play keeper. Let two goals in. Eh. After game time, hung around a bit for a delicious well-deserved Newcastle Ale with some of the guys. A goal never tasted so good. I was so excited to tell my Dad/Mia/Jill/Mom after the game. I called my Dad on my way home with the exciting news of my goal. He seemed uninterested and unimpressed. My Mom was happy. Jill was half asleep on the couch but thankfully Mia was excited. My number one fan. So for the last few days, I've been slowly recovering from an intense first game. Calves are store, toes are beaten (mostly from a dude stepping on them)

Wednesday, nothing too special happened. Chelsea was playing, but not on any of the channels my Dad gets. Stoked they won 3-0. :) We tried dance class again. Mia had her nap, but when we got to the class, she wouldn't participate, and eventually would cry. We're done. This is very much proof that you can't always predict what your child will do in a social setting. Because she's not in day care and has an adult figure telling her what to do (that's not her parents) she doesn't know how to respond. I'm not sure if it was the adults running it + loud music times 8 girls running around, but it was horrible. Started a brand new logo for Thrill Factory. Haven't been able to do ANY art lately, which has been driving me insane. Just too busy with other things. I swear this one's getting done. :) This weekend, I'm OFF!!!!!! Yard work day Saturday, hopefully a hair cut and we've got a "date afternoon" activity planned. Painting dog portraits at this place in Tosa'. Should be a lot of fun. Thanks for reading!