Shutterbugs and Muggles

Good evening everyone! We started the week with a day off for the diva. She had Monday off, which was nice. We didn't do much during the day. She got up her normal time (ish) had breakfast and painted her nails before going to her Grandma's house while I went to work. Chelsea took on the mighty Barca and ended the UCL match in a draw. Messi got lucky to finally get his first goal at the Bridge against the Blues. Hopefully, it won't happen again. Till the next Champions League match...

This week, I lent a helping hand with some school photography for Jill and her work. Wednesday, we went to Lannon Elementary to do some "candid" photos. We visited a good handful of classes and photographed the kids in groups of 3-4. They were a lot of fun and were fun to take pictures of.

Thursday, Jill needed my help again so I met up with her boss and his niece to help take more pictures, but this time at a much bigger school. SO many kids. So many grades. Once again, I had a great time taking pictures of the kids. I mostly love helping Jill and making her workalike a lot easier.

Friday, Jill and I worked on Mia's invites for her birthday party. Narrowing Mia's list wasn't easy, but somehow she did it. The theme is Harry Potter so we put together these incredible invites and printed them out. Friday evening, Jill and Mia used her awesome stamper and melted some wax to give the final touches to these Hogwarts invites. Saturday, Mia and I decided to hand-deliver the letters. We had a slight fear that the mail sorter would destroy the invites. We went house to house. Some where home, others weren't. Monday, she'll have to bring some to school, or we'll just have to mail them out and say "oh well".

While delivering the letters, Mia was complaining about her legs bothering her and aching. I didn't think much about it at the time, but as the day went on, she started to show signs of a fever. Crap. She off and on slept the rest of the Saturday. Ate very little and sadly didn't get to hang out and visit Noelle and Charlie at their Girl Scout cookie sale at the store. The duo asked me "WHERE'S MIA!!???" Mia was more bummed that we couldn't make it to StoneFire. A fever just doesn't go well with loud noises and heavy foods. Mia was a heartbroken diva. I worked on her drawing before calling it a night.

Sunday, Mia woke up in a much better state, smiling and eating again. Phew. There's a lot of sickness going around and luckily, her fever didn't last terribly long. I watched Chelsea take on Man U in what was a bit disappointing of a game. Willian picked up a sick goal right before Lukaku got the equalizer. I would have settled for the draw, but those Red Devil's got one more goal to sink the good guys into 5th place. Ugh. Mia hilariously said "you know Daddy, when the bad guys fall, they really overreact". Nailed it. Went to work later to close out the weekend.

This week, I may be photographing another school, work on some art, and most likely Torrent stuff. Not sure what we're doing this weekend so we'll play it by ear. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Neon Glow

Good evening everyone. Busy week and plenty to talk about. Here...we....GO. Early in the week, I went to lunch with Mia. Well, I completely surprised her for lunch. I couldn't stay for recess though, but we still had fun with her silly friends. They still ask her "SO WHAT DID YOUR DADDY DRAW YOU!?" Wednesday I got a hair cut and had the barber cut way more than usual. Mia at first wasn't a fan of it, but got used to it over time. After school, I couldn't convince Mia to go sledding in which appeared to be perfect ramp-building snow conditions so we built a "Snow Mia" instead and a few porgs and penguins. The snow as pretty wet but we made the most of it. Noelle and her sister came over too and played for a while as well. Later, we had heart-shaped pizzas and watched a movie before Mia went to bed. Not a bad Valentine's Day.

Friday, I was off to help volunteer the Valentine's Day/Friendship party. I ran a Pictionary station. The kids took turns drawing and guessing what their classmates were drawing. Great fun. Some of them were pretty competitive to win candy. Probably could have avoided a prize, but they had fun. After wards, I went home and watched Chelsea destroy Hull City 4-0. Great game! Picked up the diva and went home to get ready for the 2018 Neon Glow Daddy Daughter Dance.
Mia picked out a cute dress and sweater and I gave it my best to match her. This kid sure is stylish. Anyways, we arrived at New Berlin West and discovered that there were a LOT more people at this dance than the last one we did. I swear that one was in spring and not around Valentine's Day. ANYWAYS, Mia instantly wanted to located all of her buddies so we looked around and found Cecilia, Noelle, Charlie, Hayden and Izzy. The girls ran around, danced, chased each other, ate food, took pictures and from time to time, remembered it was a Daddy'Daughter dance and danced with their respected Fathers. Most of the time, they would spend time trying to find _insert friend here_ so we'd have to help them look. It was a lot of fun and the kids seemed to have a blast. I was pretty disappointed that they didn't have anyone playing the music. They had a computer set up with some lights. That was it. No one taking requests or anything. Mia wanted to request Portugal.The Man but no one was available to take the request. Bummer. We left a bit after 8, but not before BFF's Mia and Cecilia made plans to ice skate Saturday afternoon.

Saturday, we drove to the American Science Surplus store. (I think that's what it's called) We were on the hunt for tubes and bottles and files (oh my?) for Mia's Harry Potter-themed birthday party. Jill's got a bunch of fun ideas that require lots of science stuff for the kids. We've never been here and had heart it's pretty fun to explore. After wards, Jill dropped Mia and I off at the Petit to meet up with Cecilia and her Dad to skate. The kids skated for about an hour and a half. Cecilia had got new skates she was dying to use. She did great as well as Mia. Still hoping I can get Mia to skate solo without my hand hopefully in the near future. Later, we went back home to relax and start making a list of things we want to do and people to invite for the party in March. Later, we went to my brother Andy's hockey game. Close one, but they lost in the penalty shootout.

Sunday I worked and didn't get much accomplished. Came home tonight to Mia bouncing off the walls till she got tired and went to bed. Tomorrow, she's off from school. President's Day. She asked me "does that mean we get a new president?" Sadly, no. Chelsea plays the dreaded Barcelona game in the UCL this week. HUGE match they really have to win. Come on Chels!

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Two Divas Skating

Good evening everyone. I want to try to get through this rather quickly. Body is pretty exhausted after work today.  We had plenty of snow this week so after school on Wednesday, Mia and I went on an adventure to try and find some new sledding hills. We couldn't find the one with lights at Valley View. I found out later in the week that it's on a different side of the park. We ended up at a place called Calhoun Park. The hill had potential to be really great except it was way too powdery and no fresh sledding tracks. Mia didn't get the speed she needed to even make it all the way down. She got frustrated so I dragged her butt in her sled all the way back to the car and we went home. We worked on her Valentines for her class when we got home before dinner.  Earlier in the day, I had a meeting with some parents about two big events at the school I'm helping with.

Friday, the lucky little diva had a snow day. After another dumping of snow in Southeastern Wisconsin, everybody had off including her school. She woke up around 8:30 and was SO excited to learn she didn't have school. She hung out at home, we went out to Panera for lunch before I had to dig my car out to go to work.

Saturday, I got a text from one of Mia's best friends Cecilia's Mom about ice skating at Petit. Funny that Mia mentioned during the week the girls were planning on skating over the weekend and well there it was, a text about seeing if Mia could skate. I said absolutely we could go skating.  Jill wasn't feeling that great so Mia and I met up with Cecilia and her family. All of them went skating. They had to hold up her little sister but she was a good sport about it and made it a few laps. Cecilia had only been skating ONE other time and after a few early jitters, she was skating solo BY herself. Every once in a while, she'd bail and want to hold a hand but she always had a smile on her face. Even falling on her butt, she'd get up laughing. Great attitude. Mia is still getting used to single-bladed skates so she'd hold my hand or Cecilia's while holding my hand. It was an absolute blast. The girls are so fun to listen to when they're together and always have a great time in each other's presence. It truly brings a smile to my face when I hear different stories about them. Like when Cecilia forgets to bring snow pants to school, Mia will purposely not wear hers at recess so she'd stay on the blacktop to hang with Cecilia. Those little things are just so sweet. I mention that to Mia, and she thinks nothing of it because that's what you do for your best friends. Clearly, she could wear her pants so she would stay warm at recess, but that's not what Cecilia did, so Mia opts to just not wear them and hang with her. When Cecilia feels sad, Mia told me she tries to have her friends help Cecilia feel better.

After two hours of skating, Mia was exhausted. Cecilia didn't seem like she was, but they both didn't mind getting their skates off their little feet. Mia wanted to go over to her house, but knowing Jill was waiting for Mia to come, we had to decline the play date offer and head home to see how she was feeling.

Later, we had some dinner and watched the Olympic skating and snowboarding events. Both were great. I don't know how much of the other events I'll get to see, but it was nice for us to watch them together.

Sunday, we got yet another dumping of snow. After Jill got home from church with her parents, we went out to lunch with them and cleared the driveway so I could go to work later and Jill's parents could return later to visit. All in all, great weekend. This week is a busy one. Have a lot of design work ahead of me, Mia's got her Valentines Day party + the Daddy/Daughter dance Friday night. Saturday, no plans that i know of.  Mia's off that following Monday so hopefully we can meet up with friends to enjoy the time. Maybe sled or something. Chelsea plays West Brom tomorrow and if they want to secure keeping Conte around, they need to start winning again. We dropped to 5th place and need to dig ourselves out of the rut BIG TIME. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Plenty of Pets

Good evening everyone. This should be a pretty quick post. Not a lot happened for the week, honestly. Wednesday was the first day off in two weeks Mia and I didn't go sledding. I spent the majority of the day working on the Torrent schedules for both the men's and the women's team Chelsea got destroyed by a very determined Bournemouth so needless to say, it was far from a good day soccer-wise. I fear Conte is well aware he's leaving at the end of the season, that is, if he makes it to then. No one should lose to them. Not a top flight team. They need to get our newest addition from the Gunners Giroud into tomorrow's match. Hopefully he's got a solid finish and can get some wins back at West London.

Saturday, our friend Leanne made the trek up to Wisconsin on a snowy Saturday. We met up with Jill's Dad and brother and made a trip to the Pet Expo. Mia loved all the cats, dogs and turtles. Leanne held a tarantula which Mia wanted nothing to do with. She did pet a turtle which was pretty cute. She especially enjoyed a beagle puppy named Mia as well as this adorable husky named Little Man. I have such a soft spot for huskies. Such awesome dogs. After Mia had enough playing with the huskies, we went home to make dinner. We all got tired pretty early into the evening, even myself who had a lot of work to get accomplished but I really needed the sleep so we crashed.

Sunday, I did some snow blowing while Jill and Leanne looked into flights and plans for our trip. Mia joined me outside later to do a bit of ditch sledding on her saucer before I left for work. Not the most exciting night. In fact, most people could care less who was winning the Super Bowl.

This week, more soccer stuff to get accomplished plus a possible meeting Wednesday about High Interest Day with some fellow parents. That's all for now thanks for reading!

Sledding, Sleepover, Soccer

Good evening everyone! My! What an incredibly busy week. Plenty to discuss on this well-enjoyed day off. Here we go. My replacement glasses came in earlier in the week. Great! I was excited after work to try them out and see how they work. Bummer. The right lens was very loose in the frame. There's no way that'll work so I took them back and after several hours, they called me and told me they'd send them back and have them replaced. Can't fix them there because the frames don't have a screw to adjust. Fantastic....

We got a good amount of snow this week. You'd never guess it now because by the end of the week, it all melted but we did get snow which is perfect for the kids to play in at recess. Wednesday, I watched a bit of the Chelsea vs ARSEnal game before picking up the diva after school. The Blues lost in a lousy game that Arsenal was very lucky to win. We once again, went sledding and were joined by Noelle and sister Cora. A few other kids in the area made the trek up Pickle Pond's hill. The temp was nice so the kids had a good time sledding. Mia's been wanting to sled with a friend for quite a while so she was stoked her good friend Noelle joined her. The kids had a great time before we went home to relax and do homework. I spent the rest of the weekdays balancing graphic design work, drawing for the diva and regular Kwik Trip work. Never easy.

Saturday was the big day. Before we get to the epic sleepover Mia and Cecilia have been planning for months, we took Mia to the JANBOREE free ice skating at Eble. we've gone in past years and it wasn't as busy. Due to the incredibly nice weather, Eble was incredibly busy. My Mom was going to skate with us, but due to the overloaded ice rink, she skipped it for this time. Mia and I weren't going to let a packed rink of ice skaters ruin the experience. We had a great time. Took Mia a few laps to get her balance at a comfortable pace, but she did fine. After about an hour of skating, we went to Trader Joe's to get supplies for the epic sleepover. Mia waited by the window just watching...and watching...and watching...I got a text from her Mom that they were on her way and Mia screeched with excitement...Just as Cecilia's parents pulled in, Mia screeched even louder.

The girls played a bit before making pizzas from scratch. Mia made her classic Alfredo/cheese pizza while Cecilia made a pepperoni pizza. The had a few slices before watching maybe 10 minutes of Descendents movie. They didn't stay long on the couch before heading back to Mia's room to play. It was pretty nice that Mia had a friend to play with through the evening. Jill watched Netflix while I worked on my Monday drawing for Mia. They'd come down every once in a while to talk or see what we're doing. At some point, they got ready for bed and eventually, we talked them into going to bed. The sleeping arrangement was pretty interesting. They decided to sleep in Mia's tiny room and both somehow fit inside Mia's bed. At first they were going to sleep opposite in the bed. While getting ready for sleep, we could hear them giggling loudly. Jill reminisced about her sleepovers with her friends giggling and talking into the evening. It was pretty cute. Eventually, the two cuddled up next to each other on the same side and passed out. It was a cute sight to see when we checked on them.

The next day, both of them woke up early and immediately started playing. Mia came in by us to wake us up. Jill made the girlies pancakes and bacon. While Jill was making breakfast, the girls made "signature books" for the players to sign after the match. Later, we went to the Milwaukee Wave vs St. Louis Ambush match. Great game and the kids had an awesome time. We didn't get our free shirts because parking was a massive struggle. Literally, could not find a place to park for the afternoon. Somehow we parked inside this garage with one spot barely available. The game was close and the good guys won. After the match, the girls and myself made our way to the pitch to meet the players. There was only so much time to meet them, so the kids got as many signatures as they could before jumping into what easily could be compared to as "Disney world Character" line to meet Ian Bennett. Thy had so much fun getting signatures and were super stoked to meet Ian. He loved Mia's IB26 gear (hat/shirt) and had fun meeting Cecilia. We went back up to meet up with Jill and made our way back to the car and went home. The girls fell asleep on the ride back and gave each other nice big hugs when we dropped off Cecilia. What a weekend. The girls were a blast to have together and Cecilia's already looking forward to Mia coming over to her house again. This week, I've got a lot of Torrent work to do. We're having a friend visit us this weekend as well as Uncle Tommy.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Sleddin' Diva

Evenin' everyone. Don't know why I typed it like that, but we're sticking with it. Mostly enjoyable week was had, and we even got to watch snow appear and disappear in a matter of 7 days. 5.7 inches in New Berlin after that snow dumping, which of course means sledding on my day off after school with Mia. Before that, I watched the Chelsea vs Norwich League Cup match. It was funny, while waiting for Mia, I thought "just maybe I'll talk her out of sledding today since it's pretty cold out" she came running out of the building for the 1st time ever fully dressed in snow pants/boots/gloves/hat. There was no way I was going to talk her out. It was 1-0 when I got the kiddo with only a few minutes left of the match. As intrigued as Mia was watching, we wanted to get to the hill with whatever light was left in the evening. As soon as we arrived to Pickle Pond, Norwich tied it. Crap.

We trekked across the snowy field and discovered someone built a kicker. Awesome. While Mia made several attempts to hit the ramp, I was getting updates on the match and in the end, Chelsea won in PK's. Good. Mia and I had a blast going down the hill and a couple other kids joined us as well. Mia only hit the jump once on a longer sled which didn't give her the maximum distance she would have gotten on a smaller one. It was getting dark so we had to leave despite the fact she really wanted to get one good jump. She was getting pretty cold anyways, so when we got back, I made us dinner and we relaxed and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory till Jill got home from work/acupuncture.  All in all, good evening.

Throughout the week, the weather changed and started to warm up. So long snow. Saturday, I got up nice and early to watch the Chelsea vs Brighton match. Great 4-0 win. Jill and I drove down to Illinois to meet up with our travel companion and good friend Leanne to go over our big trip. They ended up booking a chocolate tour. Dates are good. AirBnB's are good. All we need to do is book flights. We figured out what we're doing in California as well. July isn't too far away, so we're getting pretty excited for the trip.

Drove back home, picked up a cheap couch from my co-worker and met up with our very helpful family to help rearrange the living room. We didn't exactly measure the space and sorta winged it, so the space is a bit different now, but it works. The previous couch was completely falling apart and is now in the basement. A much better place to sit comfortably when Mia's playing downstairs.

At first, Mia wasn't a fan of the new layout in the living room. Not a fan of change, but over the course of a day, got used to it and likes it now. Saturday night, I went to our Flood Supporters Group meeting to discuss plans for the 2018 season. The owner/coach joined us, so it was nice catching up on things and what he's got going on. Today, Jill and Mia went to Easton's birthday party while i went to work.

This week, Mia's got her very first sleepover at OUR house with Cecilia. Not sure what the girls have planned for our house, but Sunday I'm taking all of them to the Milwaukee Wave match. It'll be both Mia, Cecilia and Jill's first Wave game. Should be a great time. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Creativity Never Sleeps

Good evening. Snow has come back after some bizarre weather this week, but we'll get back to that later. Wednesday I watched the Chelsea vs Gooners Carabao Cup match. Not an exciting 0-0 draw, so all to play for back at the Emirates. Mia and I picked up Jill later at work before dinner and bed for the kiddo. Thursday, I met up with the Torrent coach to get my autographed Chelsea jersey he planned to give to me. Easily one of the coolest Chelsea FC item I've ever been given.  He gave me the 14/15 home jersey signed by about 12-14 players. I haven't been able to pinpoint everyone that signed it, but so far I've got two former players Nathan Ake and Ramires. Possibly Eden Hazard as well. I was looking Friday night at some signatures to compare to the signed jersey but it's still pretty tough. Love it though! The weather was pretty weird at a balmy 58 degrees. In JANUARY! The next day, it was 20. Brr.

Saturday morning Mia and I watched the Chelsea vs Leicester match. Pretty disappointing draw again. Especially because the Foxes went down a player with 20 minutes left of the match. They look exhausted and uninspired and I sincerely hope they can get their work together for the Norwich match. After taking Jill to an acupuncture appointment,  Mia later went to my parents for a sleepover. The kid really loves spending weekends at Grandparents/friends houses. It's kind of a nice little break for us as well. Jill and I had sushi later after getting a birthday gift. Watched a movie and some Netflix before hitting the bed. Before falling asleep, Jill and I looked at a few old videos of Mia as a baby. Some of those rough moments were well worth it when she'd keep us up all night.

Sunday we got up and picked up the diva. She had an awesome night watching Big Hero 6, playing checkers and having fun with her Grandparents. Nothing much happened after before I went off to work.

This week I need to work on the Torrent schedule, draw draw draw...etc etc. I imagine I'll have some late nights so sleep will be minimal at times. Saturday, we're heading down to Illinois to meet up with Leanne and I've got a Flood meeting. We're hoping to delegate duties to other members. Hope it goes well and we have a good turnout. That's all for now, thanks for reading!