Sick Week

Good morning everyone. Wasn't exactly the best week over in our house. Actually, overall it was lousy. Tuesday night, I come home from work, and the entire house was quiet. Jill and Mia were asleep.. ok. I learned Wednesday morning they had fevers and were sick. Both fevers were gone Wednesday, but they left behind a nasty cold so I spent my Wednesday taking care of Mia. I hate it when kids are sick. I'd rather be sick then them. They're so miserable and hard to deal with. We made the most of the day together and worked on a nice homemade Valentines Day card for Jill (which she absolutely loved) and watched the Chelsea game together. Great win! It was also the home debut of our latest signing Juan Cuadrado. Not the best form for the former Fiorentina player. Hopefully he improves. Eden Hazard also recently signed a new 5 1/2 year deal keeping him in a Blue shirt till 2020. Probably the best news we can get. He's been real solid and hopefully will continue to aid in getting the team some hardware this year. This week, Champions League first league against PSG. Could be a really good match. I'll be able to watch a little bit of it Tuesday before work.

Thursday, Mia was supposed to go to her school's Valentine's Day party. She was still not feeling the best so we had to skip it. I texted her friend Hannah's mom explaining she was still sick. Mia wanted to give her friend a Valentine still, so we made one up anyways. It read "Dear Hannah, I love you so much. What is your favorite food? Mine is grilled cheese. Happy Valentine's Day. Sorry I'm sick. Love Mia".

Poor kid. She didn't make it to school Friday either. She's been doing better, just stuffed a bit but mostly good. Saturday, we spent the day together as a family. Made heart-shaped pizza and watched a movie. No dinner plans or anything for Jill and I Just family time. Her and Mia got me inside-out carrot cake cookies. Super tasty.

Sunday, nothing too exciting. They made dog treats for Remi after I left for work. We watched the Pens/Hawks game for a while before I left. Damn Hawks won and squeaked by with a shootout victory.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

I'm Olaf and I Like Warm Hugs

Good morning everyone. It was quite the busy week over here, so lets get to it. Friday, Mia had a great day at school. They learned about Valentines Day and about love as well as did some art to show who they love. She painted a beautiful piece for Jill with a nice boarder of different buttons and such. Her teacher said she sat there and worked on it for 30 minutes. This kid definitely has the patience for art like her parents do. When I went to pick her up, her teacher told me that she talked Mia into wanting to go to a Valentines Day Party at her school on Thursday. Some of her classmates and her long lost BFF Hannah would be attending but what sold the event to Mia was that "so, can I dress up Miss Angela? Dress and shoes?" Any excuse to dress up, she'll do it.

Saturday, I got up and watched Chelsea take on Aston Villa. I sadly was only able to watch the 1st half, but in the end, we won 2-1. Hazard had a great first goal to get us on the board.  Jill was on the computer booking tickets for Florida during the 2nd half, and normally I would turn on my phone and stream the game, but I was dealing with a very crabby Mia so that didn't happen. We take on Everton on Wednesday. Wonder if our newest signing Juan Cuadrado will make another appearance.

Like I said, we're all booked for our vacation in June. Disney World for ONE day, then the rest of the week with Jill's Grandpa. It's a little overwhelming, thinking about navigating Magic Kingdom for a day and making the most of the experience, but it should be a good time.

Later Saturday, we built a big Olaf in our front yard. To capture some of the detail, Jill used food coloring to paint the eyes, mouth and nose. We think it turned out nice and some cars where slowing down by our house to take photos. Mia would wave to them. Mia took some of the paint and painted her own little snow boulder. It's very Jackson Pollack. Later, we went out for dinner. Mia had to go to the bathroom at one point, so I took her. After she was done, she loudly proclaims "LOOK HOW BIG MY POOP IS!" Hope no one got startled at the urinal. Sunday morning, we drove to this pet spa near my parents house with Remi. If you donate $20 to HAWS animal rescue, they would trim your dogs nails and give them a bath, plus they'd give you a gift certificate to the pet bakery next door. Remi didn't care for the washing and trimming but he smells a lot better now.

They dropped me off at work, and picked me up at 10pm. Mia was so stoked to see me, which ended the long night perfectly. I've been looking around with hopes of finding an indoor team to play on come Summer time but I have doubts I'll find anything. Every team is established so I may try contacting dudes I've played with in the past and see if they could use another attacking midfielder.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

Call Mr. Plow, that's the name..

Good Evening. Hope everyone had a great weekend. The last time I posted in the blog, we were lacking some power/Internet in the house, but alas, everything is back to normal, and we even have a no light fixture installed in the kitchen (to replace the one that shorted out). Friday, Mia had school. After I gave her a hug and kiss goodbye, I registered for 4K, so she'll be staying at Smarty Pants in the Fall, and going to Orchard Elementary for kindergarten in 2016 (which is across the street from us). It was a sort of conundrum for us at first. Smarty Pants can be pricy, but the class size is smaller and the teaching staff is really nice. Mia of course, loves it there anyways. She painted me a picture of myself in blue.

Saturday, Jill had to work the Pet Expo in West Allis most of the day, so Mia and I watched the Chelsea vs Man City game. Man, was I hoping we could get a bigger gap and win that one. Rey's goal was great off a nice pass from Hazard. Mia went nuts when he scored, but quickly before the end of the first half, Silva snuck one in when Courtois was vulnerable. Ugh. We finished with a draw at 1-1. I had a feeling it would end like that. It was nice that some of the crowd at Stamford Bridge was nice to Lamps when he came on in the 77' minute. So, we're still ahead on the table. Hopefully can get 3 more points this weekend at Aston Villa. I saw today they made it official that Andres Schurrle is going back to the German league at Wolfsburg. He had some good moments in his career at Chelsea, so hopefully he can get back to form in a more familiar league. Mohammed Sallah is also departing for Fiorentina. Another guy who rarely got on the pitch. Good luck guys.

After the game, Mia and I went to the Pet Expo. Met all kinds of different dogs. She enjoyed watching the agility test for some of the dogs. They raced some fire fighters. One even beat one of the guys. Mia liked the K-9 police dog demo as well. We loved this super soft husky named Sven. Mia and I went to my bro's hockey game later. They won in a real close game. We saw him net the final goal when they pulled their goalie. Nice to see his team win every once in a while :P Last few games we went to, they weren't so lucky.

Sunday, I worked, and spent a lot of time snow blowing between last night and this morning. The drive home was insane. The freeway was fine, but the exit ramp was super sketchy. So lucky I made it home after dropping a coworker off at her house since her call literally, fell completely apart.

Other then that, that's about it. Need to get some art accomplished soon. We also have a lot of different things coming up. Our Florida trip is in June, so I need to look for some flights as well as book some things. We're only spending a day at Disney and need to make the most of it. That's all for now. Thanks for reading :)

Week From Hell

Good Afternoon. I'm pretty behind on my blogging. I'll explain why shortly, but more importantly, last week's week from hell. Monday at work, I got a call from Jill's dad. Weird. He said that Jill wasn't feeling real well, and I should probably come home Luckily, there was coverage at work, and I booked it home. Jill was experiencing chest pains that lead to her back and it was hard to move. We waited to see if it would subside, but after about an hour, we headed to the hospital. We waited and waited. A hand full of tests later, and they had some results. About 1:30am, they said that Jill had gallstones, and gave us a name of a surgeon if we decide to go that route to remove the stones. Jill would prefer to go the more holistic way. She adjusted her diet and will be eating differently. As of lately, she's been doing real well. Not the best way to start the week, but Jill was real glad Mia and I stayed till the early hours with her. We all went to sleep around 3am.

Later in the week, we discovered we had some leaking issues with our kitchen sink, so that's in the process of getting fixed. Wednesday, Mia and I hung out with Birthday Boy and nephew/cousin Easton at the trampoline park. They had a lot of fun. Friday, Mia went to school. Before we left, I stuck some laundry in the wash machine. When I got back from dropping her off, I saw the floor was all soaked. A rag had got in the bin and plugged up the drain which lead to water over flooding everywhere. Lucking, I was able to clean up. And just when things couldn't get more frustrating, our circuit breaker fried when Jill was changing a lightbulb. Part of our house is without power including internet/wifi, the den, our entire kitchen and part of the basement as well as the garage, Cooking and cleaning the kitchen in the dark has been oh so fun. So that explains why I haven't been able to blog. I picked up Mia from school and she was crying. The boys in a 4k class were screaming very loudly in the gym and she got real upset. :( Saturday, we went to Easton's birthday party and she had a blast!

Chelsea's out of the FA cup, but we've got bigger hardware to worry about. Hoping the week improves. Off to work I go. Thanks for reading.

Do The Penguin Slide!

Good morning everyone. Hope you all enjoyed your week, and that if you're a Packers fan, you're feeling better today :) We'll get back to that later. It was a busy week, but we had a lot of fun. Earlier in the week, I took Mia sledding. I made the attempt at this golf course real close to our house. The fresh powder was too deep and we couldn't get good tracks to get her down the hill. So, before we gave up on the day, we tried a different hill. Mia LOVED this park's sledding hill! It was big enough to get some really nice speeds down, and she only fell out once but didn't care. Wednesday (later) I took her to this man-made ice rink in New Berlin to do some skating. It was getting dark, so it was a tad cold for skating, but she did skate a little while and ended up being the only person there. She's getting more confident on skates and is starting to really impress me. Friday she had school and got to finish her snow flake she's been talking about. She told me her favorite part at school was when her friend gave her a hug goodbye when I picked her up. Awww..:)

Saturday, I got up and watched the Chelsea vs Swansea game. Wow. Opening 50 seconds and Oscar got a goal. Perfect way to start. He would finish the game with two goals, Diego Costa secured two as well as Andres Schurrle. We finished 5-0 and took the 3 points easily. What made it even better, was that Sunday morning, Man City fell to Arsenal 2-0 giving us a 5 point lead. After the game Saturday, we went sledding again, and Jill came along. They had a lot of fun. Mia discovered sledding on your belly on the sled was a LOT of fun. The temps were upper 30s so it was real nice. A little TOO warm to skate, but we tried anyway.

We should have left it at that, but we tried skating (Me and Mia did at least) The ice was horrific. If I would have remembered, we could have gotten in for free at Eble Ice Arena near our house. They had free skating Saturday. UGHHHH!!!! Saturday night, we all were working on different projects. The girls were working on custom jewelry and I was hand-painting a Tegan and Sara shirt for Mia. I'm going to have to go over the yellow in "Sara" again. I should have done all of the lettering in White. The hot-pint blank shirt was too heavy of a color to paint on. The colors I used were bright neon ones, but they look quite muted on the shirt. Oh well. Mia loves it still.

Sunday I worked. I am so glad I'm not a Packers fan,  because if I was, and had any chance of watching it post-work, every single customer came in talking about it. From the moment they were winning, to the gut-wrenching loss. The moment I found out they lost, was when this guy came in with tears running down his face, in disbelief. HOW does a team blow a 16-point lead? Did they get cocky? Overly excited for what they thought was a sure-thing? Whatever the case is, everyone is going to be hurting today, except everyone in my house. :) That's one of the many things Jill and I came together on on our "date" the first time we hung out together. She didn't like the Packers or American Football, and I clearly don't either. She even made cupcakes and delivered them to my store before the game was over "to soak up the tears and to celebrate LAST DAY OF PACKERS PLAYING" as she was broadcasting.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

Ice and Snow

Good morning everyone. Hope you all survived that snow& wind crap we got walloped with last week. Driving home from work,  I had saw so many cars in the ditch. Couldn't believe it. Never have I seen so many in the woods, backwards on the freeway or into the barrier wall. It was so sketchy. Friday, Mia had school. It was her first day back since her holiday break. It was slightly difficult to get her motivated out the door because she's been so used to getting up whenever and taking her time. She had a good day though. They added some new things for the kids, and we also got the signup for 4k. We have to make the decision to either keep her there, or go elsewhere for 4k.

Saturday, I got up and watched the Chelsea vs Newcastle game. Awful first half, till Oscar netted a goal. Newcastle were playing real strong for a while keeping the ball off us. 2nd half, we came back in and dominated as much as we could. Diego Costa picked up the 2nd goal. Glad to get the 3 points, and even more happier that Man City drew giving us the lead for the table for now. Jill's parents came into visit as well. We drove around Muskego, a neighboring town, looking at houses they like on Shorwest as well as some in our area. Sunday, I worked and that's about it.

Over the weekend, we finally got our new mac set up. This thing is awesome! nice and bright, fast, sleek and updated. My project whenever I get the chance, is to clean up the desk with all of my art supplies on it in the 2nd bedroom, and make space for our old computer for Mia to use for games and such. I'm also looking forward to building Mia's playlist of her fav songs on my iPod.

This week, I hope to get some more work done on the dog portrait, and possibly get Mia on the ice as well. Our town temporarily built a small rink by a large park and they just opened it Friday afternoon, so I hope to take Mia this week.  Other then that, that's about it. Thanks for reading!!

Feelin' it in Your Bones

Good morning everyone. Hope everyone had a great New Years. Wednesday, Jill and Mia finally came home. We had made plans to do a dinner & a movie and have my Mom watch Mia but since she was coming home late on Weds, we decided to reschedule it for another day. Bummed, but we still had a good night. We watched Tinker Bell-Secret of the Wings for the 20th time with Mia and she threw confetti everywhere at 12am. The rest of Jill's time off, we relaxed and enjoyed as much as we could. New Years Day, I turned on the Chelsea vs Spurs game. Ughhh...It ended 5-3 with the Spurs beating us badly. I don't know what happened, but it was awful. We could blame it on the refs making or missing calls, or just overall a bad performance. It just wasn't a fun game to watch at all. Saturday, we went to visit my great Aunt and give her a belated Christmas gift. Mia chased her old dog around and it was a good time. At this point, the snow was flying ,but we still had fun. All day Saturday, Mia talked about wanting to ice skate. We tried to find this place in Waukesha, an outdoor rink by a huge sledding hill, but it wasn't there. So we drove to the Petit, woke up the Sleeping Beauty from her nap and skated. She had a blast and could keep her self going on her own. It was pretty impressive. She mostly held my hand, but every once in a while, she'd let go "Daddy, I can do this by myself". I love the confidence in her. She insisted she wanted to figure skate, so I would spin her once or twice and she loved it. Saturday night, I sliced my thumb pretty good on Jill's new Ninja fruit/veggie thingy. It's amazing how much you use your thumbs and since I'm lefty at 88% of everything, it's making daily tasks a lot harder.

Sunday, I attempted to find the FA Cup Chelsea vs Watford game (but it wasn't online/TV anywhere). We got even MORE snow, so Mia ran out and played in it. She made the attempt to ride her bike and discovered it just wasn't possible. She goes "why did I wish for snow....??" It was a cold walk this morning, but the moon was bright and beautiful. Nothing too exciting planned for the week. If it wasn't so cold, I'd love to take her sledding. That's all for now. Thanks for reading.