The Dancing Divas

Good morning. Well, we got through the first month of a very busy school year so far with Mia. She's loving it way more than when she started. New friends, new things to learn about and a whole new routine are keeping her (and us) quite busy. During this month, I've successfully drawn her 22 different lunch note pictures every day. I hope to continue it as long as possible. It takes a great deal of time planning on what I'm going to do, but the end result is usually pretty positive.

Wednesday was Mia's first play date with a friend from kindergarten. She was super stoked to hang out with Noelle, who lives very close to our house. She lives so close that Mia rode her big wheels to her house. As soon as we got home from school, she could barely contain herself to hang out with her friend. She ate an after school snack quick and by 4:30, we were rolling to her friend's house. As soon as her friend saw us by their cul de sac, Noelle went RUNNING down yelling "MIA!!!" she showed us that she had written "Mia" several times on a sign and taped it to her door so Mia knew which house was hers. She was super sweet and her parents were just as nice. The girls played in the semi-cold weather and if they could, they would have played all night. 

Friday, I worked a very rare early shift. 6am-2pm. Trying to go to bed early Thursday night proved to be a difficult task. Between eating food and cleaning the kitchen, it was a struggle but the morning shift went super fast. I kept thinking about how I haven't seen Mia since Thursday morning when I took her to school and how stoked I was to get to pick her up later. When Jill got home, we had "breakfast for dinner" which consisted of pancakes, eggs and hash browns. Mia changed into a dress and we walked across the street to her school's dance party. I tell you, it was LOUD with about 120 kids singing to the DJ's Top 40 music. It was almost too much for Mia at first. We met her other awesome friend, Charlie and her parents. They too, were very nice and her friend is such a sweetheart. "I LOVE YOUR OUTFIT MIA!" Her and fellow classmate Ellarose kept trying to get Mia to dance and be silly, but she just wouldn't do it. Before I had to leave for Ian Bennett's launch party, Mia started to be more independent and hanging with her friends. I later learned that she eventually started dancing with the girls. "Dad, my heart kept beating loudly during the music!" She had such a fun time and it was nice to meet some more friends of hers. 

The IB26 launch party was a lot of fun. Very small bar but Ian hooked me up with some drinks. Very proud of him and his hard work. The banners I helped design turned out incredible and he's already got ideas for his next photos he'll need me for. It's fun doing different projects for Ian and I get to keep my design skills sharp, which is always a plus. Saturday morning, Jill had to work and Mia had dance class. I wasn't sure if the diva would want to go since she had hurt her head. She woke up. not feeling the best about going, but she put on her rights, I did about 3 or 4 tries at her dancer bun and she got to dance class. I went home, watched most of the first half of the Chelsea vs Hull City game before picking her up. She came out excited and immediately said "Daddy, I'm glad I went to class". They learned about counting steps with tap shoes and she absolutely loved it. We came home and watched Chelsea beat Hull City 2-0. Great to see the Blues getting all three points, even if it was against a sub par team. They have an international break and won't play next till Mia's Halloween Party.

Later, we picked up costumes for the Halloween party and went to the China lights exhibit at the Botanical Gardens. Absolutely worth it. Even in the crappy weather, the lights were spectacular. Mia was confused thinking "so do we just DRIVE through?" They had a really good turn out for their opening weekend and if you're in the area, I highly recommend checking them out.

Sunday, we did a little cleaning before they went to Jill's parent's house to celebrate Tommy's birthday.

This week, art, designing and more preparations for the party. That's all for now, Thanks for reading! 

Ripe For The Pickin'

Good morning everyone. Hope you all enjoyed your weekend and the pleasant weather (when it wasn't raining). School is going real well for Mia, she seems to be really enjoying learning new things and playing with her friends. One of her friends apparently lives nearby and wants to have a play date after school this week so we may make that happen come Wednesday. Early in the week, Chelsea played Leicester in the EFL Cup. They beat the EPL champs 4-2 which at the time, I had hoped would carry them into the weekend derby against Arsenal, but we'll get back to that later.

Wednesday, I spent the majority of the day finishing some design stuff for Ian Bennett's clothing like IB26. The website launched and you can order his new gear. Friday, Mia and Jill went to see the Storks. They've been showing the trailer for this goofy movie for what seems like months and months and I never had an interest in it. Jill said it was pretty silly, but Mia liked it. Jill told me when I got home from work that a boy apparently smacked Mia in the mouth at school. Apparently during lunch, Mia was being silly and he smacked her. Today, Mia told me that "I'll let him off with this warning but next time he does it, I'm telling the teacher". I doubt he did it maliciously and since Mia was being goofy,he was most likely playing accordingly. She's fine.

 Saturday morning, she had her dance class. Still really loves it but she said she has a hard time keeping her arms up for the moves because "it makes her arms tired".  Later, we tried to go to the Halloween store to see if we could find anything she may need or Jill may need for our costumes. Mia insisted she's a big girl and can handle walking around Halloween stores. Apparently, she IS in deed a big girl, but parts of the stores are still frightening. We didn't make it more than 20 seconds. Oh well. "DADDA! WHY WOULD THEY PUT CREEPY THINGS IN HALLOWEEN STORES WHEN THERE IS A CHILD WHO GETS SCARED OF THESE THINGS???!!?!"  Oh Child...

Later, I watched the majority disappointing Chelsea vs ARSEnal match. The Blues for some reason, didn't have their heads on straight. From Cahill's poorly executed back pass to the weak mid fields, it was a game I wish I never watched. They better get their heads of their arses for the next one or we may lose Conte by the holidays. After that nightmare of a match, we went to the apple orchard. Elegant Farmer to be exact. Gorgeous day for it. Mia climbed the trees getting all of the best apples she could reach. She road a pony and also wanted to do the corn maze but it was closing soon.

Sunday, we didn't do much. Cut the grass, retrieved some sale items from the JBF sale and Mia hung out with her grandparents and uncle the remainder of the evening.

This week, more lunch notes for Mia, some light graphic designing and for the first time in several several years, I'm working a weekday shift 6am-2pm so I can attend Ian Bennett's launch party Friday night.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

The Falcon Soars At Midnight

Good morning everyone. Hope you all enjoyed your weekend and the gorgeous weather (at least Wisconsin has been having).  My week was sort of short, because I took off Thursday for one of the best live shows I've ever been to, but we'll get back to that later. School's been going really well for Mia, she's been having a lot of fun making new friends, playing and learning new things. In fact, we decided to let her host a Halloween party at our house and let her invite her Kindergarten friends and her old pre-school pals. So far, we've got 5-7 friends coming and she's going to hand out the invites to her class today. This will most likely be the biggest party we've had for her. Her 4th birthday, we had 10 kids running around which seemed intense at the time so hopefully we survive this one.


Speaking of school, she got in to a little bit of trouble during the week. Apparently a little boy was playing with something that she wanted and didn't want to play with Mia, so she decided to knock whatever it was on the floor. Naturally because she's a Justman, she got in trouble. If at all, both should have had a stern talking to. He should have included her, and she shouldn't have reacted that way. She felt bad when she got home and had a good cry about it. The next day, she said she didn't get in trouble this time so I was glad she was able to get along with him. Apparently a boy named Easton keeps giving her kisses during class that she claims she doesn't like. In a way, I was glad she didn't get upset and cry that the wouldn't include her, but at the same time my kid was in the wrong for knocking crap to the floor.

Thursday was a beautiful day to have off. It's normally a busy day at work so having that day off was fantastic. I was able to finish some art that I made for the singer, do some cleaning and laundry and it was the perfect weather for a walk to school to pick up Mia. It truly makes me wish I had a 1st shift job so I could be home with her every night. Later that evening, my co-worker Jon and I met at our work and drove down to Madison to see super-ground The Falcon headline the Frequency, a quaint little venue that the owner of Red Scare Industries claims is one of his all-time favorite places for shows. The crowd was pretty tame during the 1st of 4 acts. Not the best group (since I can barely remember their name). During the 2nd one, I saw lead singer of the Falcon (and Lawrence Arms), Brendan Kelly walking around so I walked up, and handed him the Lego drawing I made. He was stoked about it and I found out later, hung it at the merch booth. Hopefully it wasn't picked up by anyone. We talked for a while by the merch area. He's definitely one of the nicest musicians I've met in the last 20 years. The 2nd band, Help Desk wasn't too bad. More hard-core meets Joe Cape style. All of them in shirts/ties singing about work-related stuff. Not bad stuff. Last opener was local band from Eau Claire, Arms Aloft. They were okay, and had quite a mosh pit going for the majority of their set. I was more than stoked to hear some Falcon. They took the stage and dominated a 16 song set list. They opened with Sailors Grave and performed at least 10 songs off the new album, Gather Up The Chaps. They closed out the night with "Lazyboy 500". At the end of the set, they had a conga line going around the venue to the infectious 80's tune "Call Me Al" by Paul Simon. I got on stage with my buddy and we conga'ed around the whole place with everyone. The band quickly went back stage. Some came back out to start packing up their gear. I saw Alk3's Dan packing so I went up to talk to him. I thanked him for coming to Madison and he gave me a set list off of Neil's drum monitor. Never got a set list before so I was pretty stoked about that. We drove home exhausted from an exciting show at a fun venue.

Friday, I was dead exhausted all day but had to work. I was bummed to be missing the Chelsea vs Liverpool game, but later found out at work that Chelsea lost. So pissed. Saturday, Mia had dance class again. She still REALLY loves it. Later, she hung out at the park with BFF Olivia and her brother. She watched him play soccer at his game WHILE playing soccer with Olivia. While I was at the park, Jill hit up the JBF sale and picked up some fall/winter clothes at a good price.  Sunday, we gave Remi a bath and that was about it. Jill and Mia did some trial runs on some treats for the party at Mia's Grandparent's house. Majority of the week, I've been working on Ian Bennett's clothing line ads getting him ready for his big event. I've also upped the quality of Mia's lunch notes. So far, my favorites that I've done are Clawhauser from Zootopia and a Rainbow Dash. Both really turned out nice and I hope they get better and better. Today I'm starting note #14. Tomorrow, Mia brings a snack to school for her class. String cheese! :)

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Put On Those Dancin' Shoes

Good morning everyone. Well, the school year is in full swing and things seem to be going well for Mia in kindergarten. She's befriended two or three new girls in her class and one in particular she talks about ALL the time, Charlie. In fact, she had me draw two Monster High pictures for her friend because Mia was stoked that she too, loves the show/movie series. This morning I finished the 2nd one and Mia brought them to school. I've also been drawing a picture in her lunch every single day as well. Some more complex than others. My nightly routine when I get home has turned into: eat food, draw Mia a picture, shower then bed.

Tuesday, Mia was supposed to have her very first ballet/tap class. I had a missed call and a vm while at work and it was my mother-in-law telling me that Mia didn't want to do dance that day after school. She was tired, hungry and didn't want to put on the outfit. As frustrated as I was, I was glad we were able to transfer her to a Saturday morning class. It was weird Wednesday. It was my first day off while Mia was at school so I had literally 7 hours to myself in the house. Did some cleaning, some art and drumming before getting Mia with my parents to show them exactly where and how to pick up the diva. The rain was obnoxious keeping me from hitting the pitch for the first time so I'll have to try again this week.

Saturday, Mia had her dance class. It was like night and day from Tuesday. She got up, got in her tights and outfit and was out the door for dance. She's in a class that consists of 3-5 year olds which is good for her since this was her first year taking a dance class. I forgot how old some of these kids were when I saw her next to some of these girls and saw how tiny they were. We dropped her off and had about 45 minutes to do whatever we needed (which is almost always a Trader Joe's run)
We picked her up after TJ's and she couldn't have been more excited to tell us about dance. She wanted to dance more! Great. Glad she was able to do Saturdays.

Later, Mia raced the neighbor boy (and her classmate) Max in the cul de sac before we had my parent's over for dinner. We started the preliminary planning for a friend's Halloween Party at our house. Mia wants to invite friends (old and new) to our house for a flashlight candy hunt and snacks. Hopefully, we can figure it out and get her friends to come. To close out the Saturday, I watched part of the Earthquakes game and missed the Sounders unfortunately tie the game.

Sunday morning I watched the Chelsea game.  Talk about an intense match. Chelsea got the early lead with a great goal from Costa. 2nd half, two mistakes led to Swansea getting the lead but once again, Costa picked up another goal and we secured a draw. Should have won but it was pretty physical. I'm missing the Friday match against Liverpool sadly.

This week, I'm busy busy busy in the creative department so hopefully I can get all of my projects complete. I'm off Thursday for The Falcon show in Madison. I only go to concerts once every few years usually for a band I either have never seen or rarely get to see. These guys are totally worth driving for. That's it for now. Thanks for reading!

First Day of School

Good morning everyone. Having a very slow Labor Day after a night of drinking and dancing with some old college friends of mine last night, but we'll get to that later. This week was the official last week of Summer before school started Thursday. My goal was to enjoy it as much as I could with the diva. Wednesday, we met up with some friends of hers at the park. Hannah and Gracie met us so the girls had a great time playing and running around. They won't get to see each other much during the school year so I figured it would be great the day before school to hang out, tell secrets and play one last time.

Mia had high hopes her BFF Olivia would join as well since she had a Best Friends necklace she wanted to share with her. She didn't make it. I guess the past few days she wasn't feeling great. Mia was missing her greatly, and well after FaceTiming with her and her Dad, it appeared she was feeling better so we went BACK out to the park (different one) and they hung out for one last time. She gave Olivia the necklace and they played. I love seeing Mia care for her friends like this. To have these special friends that she loves so much, it makes me very happy. Wednesday evening we got the very excited girl to sleep a little after 9:00pm. I packed her lunch for her and drew her a small picture for her to see at lunch time.

Thursday we got up early, got the sleepy diva awake, dressed, fed and out the door. It was a very emotional walk to school. To think how fast the last 5 years have gone, and where we're at right now, is surreal. This little child will be at this school for the next 6 years, making new friends and experiencing new things. Mia was determined as ever as we walked in with the other misty-eyed parents. We waited in the gym for the teachers to meet with the kids. They told them to say their goodbyes, and that was it. I wouldn't see Mia till the very next morning. 7 hours of school. It seems like a lot to take on but that's what kindergarten is these days. Jill and I walked home, both sad and somber about our little girl growing up. We were relieved when we learned the neighbor boy was going to be in her class with her so at least she knew ONE kid. Jill went to work and I went home, but luckily had a freelance photography job to go to at 10:00am to keep me busy. I can't talk much about it till things are published, but it was a lot of fun and you should see something in the near future.

Mia and Jill stopped in by me at work and I couldn't have been more stoked to hear how school went. Mia didn't say much because I was hella busy, but it sounded like she liked it. She said the girls liked her pink/blue hair piece she had in and they thought it was dyed. She simply told them "no, but the blonde hair is natural!" Adorable.

The next day, we walked across the street again and dropped her off but this time at her class. When I saw her Friday night after work, it sounded like she had made some new friends. Saturday she did her homework while I helped my sister move some chairs with my brother to her new apartment. We cleaned and spent some time outside with Jill's pal that drove up to visit. Jill and Leanne conspired a plan Saturday to get early Sunday and drive down to Indiana to visit a friend for her birthday. Sort of a surprise, and thats exactly what they did. They left at 5:00am yesterday and should be home today. After I got out of work last night, I drove over to Bullwinkle's to meet up with some old college friends to celebrate my friend Shawn's wedding. We drank, danced and had an awesome time. It's pretty rare I get to drink with friends these days so this was a pretty fun night. We always have an awesome time, and I expected nothing less than pure drunken debauchery from Shawn and his new wife.

This week, back to school tomorrow for the kiddo,  she starts ballet and tap tomorrow after school, I'll probably squeeze in some drumming and I don't know what else is going on. Thanks for reading!

Double Feature

Hello everyone! hope everyone enjoyed the weekend and the gorgeous weather. This week, Mia got to hang out at the park with a couple of her crazy friends, Irianna and Nate at the always busy; Malone Park. I swear, it is super easy to lose a kid at this place. There had to be at least 50+ kids running around. They chased each other around, climbed the monkey bars and swung from a large saucer swing. All three of them needed my assistance getting them off upside down from the monkey for most of the time we were there. I'm sincerely glad she's got such great friends and hope they can all hang out during the school year (when possible). It's going to be tricky with all of the kids doing different activities during the school year, but we'll just have to try.

Wednesday was Tattoo Day, but first a quick photo session for the Torrent at Jill's studio. Her boss took a few photos of me in jersey/scarf and as well as some with my mask/drum for their social media sites. Basically, it was to announce I'll be continuing to work for them in 2017. Later, it was tattooing time. It was my very last session of my gorgeous Hawaiian half-sleeve that I've been working on all Summer, and I couldn't have been more excited to finish it. My amazing tattoo artist, Marcus put about 4 hours into coloring the shark, finishing the blue around the bicep and above the turtle and tightening any lines that needed it. The painful areas were defiantly "the ditch" or the hinge of the forearm and upper arm, but that wasn't nearly as rough as the last 15-20 minutes of coloring up my arm. He was going to stop where the shark tail ended but I insisted he kept going and finish it. "Are you sure? I figured I would do you a favor and stop." No, let's do this right and finish it. So, he did. It was real rough and sorta reminded me of my 1st tattoo (2nd session) when my artist was pulling from the inner arm. I'm proud of myself for sticking it out and couldn't have been more happier with the final results. This tattoo captures my sincere love of Hawaii, the marine animals and my beautiful family. I've had a slew of people asking me about his work and where to find him and I've happily given them all his info. He gave me a product called tegrederm that he's never used before in any session. It's mainly used for burn victims, but tattoo artists are starting to take advantage of this wrap that apparently helps with the healing process. You can leave it on up to 5 days at a time. Friday, I took off the first wrap and boy did it hurt. I put a new wrap on it and tomorrow, will be removing it. I'm excited to clean this arm, get all the adhesive off and let it heal.

Thursday, Jill and I had a biometrics test. My results were great and we'll have a better cheaper insurance for another year. Saturday, I finally got to watch Chelsea play a match in the 16/17 season. They beat Burnley 3-0 comfortably. Hazard got the first goal, Willian put away the 2nd and Victor Moses completed the day with the final goal. It's great to see them playing well again and on top of the league. There's an international break so no games for a little while. Later, we went to Mod Pizza and went to the movies. Jill's parent's met us and took Mia to see the highly anticipated animated movie called Kubo and the 2 Strings. Mia said it was really good, dark with some scary parts. We went and saw Florence Foster Jenkins. It's a true story about a woman who is awful at singing, with Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant. I It's pretty rare that we get to enjoy some time like this, just the two of us and the movie was actually pretty good. It was fun that Mia got to see a movie while we saw one for us. When we got out, she was waiting eating Gelato.

Today, we went to the zoo briefly to enjoy the gorgeous weather before I had to work. This week is a busy one. Mia's got her orientation day on Tuesday, which she'll bring in her supplies, meet her teacher again and see the classroom. I'm trying to get some of her friends together to hang before they all go off to Kindergarten. Thursday will be her first full day of Kindergarten. Jill's taking part of the day off and I have to work so I won't hear how it went till the next day :/.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Fish Are Friends Not Food

Morning everyone! Hope you all enjoyed the weekend. Monday started with the FIRST EPL game of the year for Chelsea taking on West Ham. I missed the game sadly, but Mia asked my Dad throughout the afternoon who was winning. The Blues picked up the win and started the season out well :) Tuesday, Mia went fishing with her Grandpa Chicago. She went to a place in New Berlin and caught 7 bullheads. She had a blast and I wish I could have been there to see her bagging fish left and right.
Wednesday, she met up with Olivia and her bro at the park. What would normally be a typical day at the park was anything but that. The girls started with playing Pokemon Go! on Olivia's Dad's phone and soon moved to the playground. We were hanging out in the shade while the kids played. Every once in a while, I'd hear "LEAVE US ALONE OKAY??" coming from Olivia. Wasn't sure what was going on. Turns out some boys were being sassy with the girls, and they were yelling at them. We kept a close eye on the situation. Eventually Gavin came over and was telling us his sister was being sassy to the boys. This kid has no problem sticking up for herself. Both girls came over soon after exclaiming that they were being mean, that one boy laughed at Mia when she "almost fell" and that they weren't playing nice. THEN Mia says "IM GONNA GO TELL THOSE BOYS TO KNOCK IT OFF!" Apparently Mia gained some sort of a backbone to obnoxious boys. In this moment, we realized that the girls were just as much in the wrong as whatever the boys were doing. They weren't letting the boys off without getting an ear full. Sigh. They soon left to their picnic and the kids went back to playing.

Saturday morning, we packed up the car and left for Illinois to visit some friends. They live very close to Iowa so we spent some time there as well. The kids had a lot of fun, and Mia LOVES their little dog that would fetch the ball every time.  Mia really wanted to swim, but the weather was pretty iffy. Both kids ended up playing in the undies in this lake. They had a total blast. We went to the Children's Museum yesterday and it was pretty close to the big one in Milwaukee. A little smaller but just as nice. All of the buildings were connected and had telephone lines so you could call the kids vet, grocery store, etc etc. Mia really liked the Think Station where everyone in the room had to wear safety glasses, they get their own REAL work bench and got to hammer, glue, saw, etc whatever they wanted. It was fun watching Mia become "Tinker bell" and build something straight from her head. She made something to carry her rock collection and a piece of wood to hang items from. Turned out pretty cool. We had lunch and soon got on the road and headed home. It was about 3 1/2 hours back to Wisco. Mia fell asleep in the first 10-15 minutes. Tired little girl. Spent the rest of the night hanging out and figuring out the rest of the week.

I missed the Chelsea/Watford match Saturday but I heard they won and watched the highlights last night. Another solid win. This week, Mia's hanging out with her favorite crazy person Irianna at Malone park tomorrow morning. Later tomorrow, she's got picture day followed by a kindergarten play date meeting new friends and parents. Jill's taking her to that so hopefully it goes well. She's pretty excited. Wednesday I'm finishing my 1/2 sleeve and this weekend, Jill's working.

Have a great week everyone and thanks for reading!