Last Days

Greetings everyone. Plenty to get through and I've got an early morning ahead of me so I'll try to move quickly. Most of the week, I've been carefully and painstakingly recovering from my tattoo a week ago. First few days is always difficult but the tegerderm helps keep it clean. The catch is that no matter what, it hurts badly peeling it off. It was super nice hearing sweet compliments at KT from guests of Mia's awesome drawing abilities. She totally likes hearing about it too. Throughout the week, I worked on a table with the talented Micah and Gigi. Tuesday after Mia's school picture, we went over and began to make some progress on the pieces. They even let Mia help with the bench and table. The bench is almost done and the table has a few more sessions left on it. I think it'll be great complete and I'm stoked to help. Thursday, I wanted to pack the day with lots of fun for the diva. She's running out of Summer and has been getting a bit stir crazy in the house. We first met up with Cecilia and her sister at the park and the girls played and played. Later while walking Remi, we stopped by Noelle's house and Mia played with her, Ellahrose, Katelyn and their sisters. On the walk back home, Mia said "today was a REALLY fun day". Always happy to hear that.  Thursday night was the coaches meeting. Mia met up with Cecilia and played at the school while her Dad and I went to the meeting. We have 5 girls from one school and another 4 from OL which are all friends. Mia, Cecilia, Ryan and Eliah. Hopefully, everyone bonds and things go great. We'll be missing a few players for our first team practice, but we'll make the most of it. Mia's stoked the shirts are blue.

Friday, Mia met up with Vida at the Zoo and the pair hung out for an hour and a half checking out all the animals. The major highlight was that Dash, the mail red panda was out and about. Talk about good timing. You basically can never see the red pandas out in the Summer due to the warm temps. Mia could have watched the cute fella for hours but we obviously couldn't stay very long. I was fortunate to get some cute pictures of him. All in all, awesome time hanging with her buddy and her friendly family.

Saturday, I got up real early to watch Chelsea beat Norwich. Tammy got two fantastic goals which helped secure the win. Great job Blues. Later, we ventured to Madison with my in-laws to visit Tommy and check out the Zoo. Due to the severe lack of parking, we ended up going to the gardens first for a while. Mia enjoyed snapping plenty of pictures of all the beautiful flowers. Later, we tried the zoo again but with an hour left before closing, not a lot of animals were out including her red pandas. She did get to see a capybara and some other fun animals. Later, Mia went swimming in the chilly pool at Tommy's place. Brave kid. Tommy and her Dad looked pretty cold :P

We grabbed a bite for dinner at Monty's before calling it a day. We'll have to hit up the zoo again earlier in the day. Sunday, I cut grass, we did some housework and it wasn't long before I had to head to work.

This week, Jill's got some long long nights ahead of her. The poor woman's going to work herself exhausted every night but luckily, she has family for support. I've got to help complete the art projects, maybe squeeze in a lesson or two. Mia meets her teacher on Wednesday and she's stoked. We may have a visitor coming up Saturday so we'll see what adventure awaits. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Mia and Daddy Ink

Greetings! It was quite the busy week mainly art-wise. Started the week with an art lesson with my main girls Gigi and Micah. I came up with an idea for a multi-media sketch which combined pen, watercolor and color pencil ON tone paper. Phew. First of all, I've never watercolor painted on tone paper before so I was a bit curious how this would turn out. Luckily, it worked. The subject was a cool firefly flying out of a jar piece. Surprisingly, my youngest student Gigi did fantastic and her sister shockingly stumbled. Turns out, a severe lack of sleep the last few nights really was the main factor. She let the lesson get the best of her sadly. Two days later, we did a group lesson adding two more to our class. Before class, I was requested that we do a Snape sketch. Upon arriving, Micah did a 3rd attempt of her firefly picture and did beautifully. She realized later that her original piece was actually totally fine and maybe tossing it in the garbage was a bad idea?

Anyways, my oldest students Micah and Vivian did a great job on their Snape sketches and didn't want me to start painting with their sisters. Sorry kids, but I gotta paint with the littles.  They did a unique platypus that I purposely picked because Gigi told me a few days prior, are her favorite animals. Because she nailed her first lesson earlier in the week, I thought she'd like to do this one with her buddy Lydia. They both did a great job in watercolor and overall, the art lessons for the week went great. Always humbled when everything works out and the kids show improvement. I also love that they are great listeners and take the advice and instructions seriously.

After art lessons, Mia and I went to HAWS to donate her $405.00 that she raised for the animal shelter. Everyone there was super nice with her and she even got a tour of the entire place. Before her tour started, she got a really sweet kitty to take a photo with. This beautiful black kitty with orange eyes named Salem. Mia said she was the softest kitten ever. The woman who took us on tour introduced Mia to everyone on staff proudly telling them about all the money she raised. Mia played with a rabbit, plenty of cats, some dogs and even a rat. Mia mainly enjoyed playing with the rat, Moose. They had a little pen for Mia to sit with the cute little creature and she could have totally spent another hour with the rat. She enjoyed all the hugs she got from the woman's bulldogs as well before we left for the day. Despite Mia remaining quiet throughout the day at HAWS, immediately after departing, she goes "BEST DAY EVER!!" Animals have such a special place in Mia's heart and I'm so glad we got to tour HAWS together.

Saturday, Mia and I went out to Ink Spot Tattoo to get her drawing of a red panda holding a pineapple with her signature tattooed on my left forearm. Mia did a great sketch and I was honored to have my tattoo artist permanently ink this one on me. He did my Hawaiian half sleeve which turned out great so it was a no brainer he'd do this one. He put on Netflix for Mia as she drew in her sketch book and glanced a bit every once in a while to see how the tattoo was going. I was thrilled to have her with me and loved watching her work with him picking out the colors and size for the piece. She did a great job on her cat and flower sketch she left for him. Who knows when my next tattoo will be, but I'm stoked she created this very special tattoo for me.

Today, I washed off the plasma before applying new Tegaderm which will stay on till for a few days. This is such a clean and safe way to recover and heal from tattoos. Especially where I work. Speaking of which, Mia got PLENTY of great compliments on her tattoo she drew and I couldn't wait to come home and tell her all about it. She was hella stoked. Watched a bit of the Chelsea vs Leicester match which ended in a 1-1 draw. Bummer. They need to continue to improve to climb up the table. Come on CHELS!! Fiorentina got a great win today and the Torrent drew on the road in NY. Awesome come back!

This week, tomorrow Mia finds out who her teacher is, which of course will lead to finding out which friends will be in her class. Tuesday is Picture Day followed by some painting with my students on their picnic table. Should be fun. Wednesday is another art lesson day. Thursday is the coaches meeting where we'll receive our rosters, equipment and jerseys for the season. Can't wait to start soccer. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Be a Sweetie For The Needy!

Good evening everyone! It was quite the busy week preparing for the big rummage sale and lemonade stand. Mia and Jill returned Tuesday evening so after I got out of work, I couldn't wait to get home and see the girls. Mia gave the biggest hug and it was nice to have them back. The rest of the week, the girls baked and baked and baked. From cookies to dog treats, they had plenty of great items for Mia's cause along with a lot of our stuff we wanted out of our garage. We could probably clean out the basement and find much more crap to sell. Anyways, Thursday night we set up the tables and got things ready to go.

Friday, Mia was ready to sell sell sell. It was a slow start. We had a few families come through and some didn't get the whole "donation" thing and wanted a price. Eventually, we started seeing more traffic our way and Mia finally got pour some sweet homemade lemonade. The kids that stopped by really liked it and one was cute and said "cookies go great with lemonade" as he chomped on one of the shortbread cookies. I later had to leave and go to work. Saturday, we set up early again and hopped for bigger sales. Some of my awesome co-workers stopped by to support Mia and we had a few families as well. Sold a lot of bigger stuff and will donate the rest. Overall, Mia made over $405.45 in two days. Way more than previous years and we'll probably get some extra sales from others. I just want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helped make this possible. My awesome in-laws and parents for helping set up and taking down the rummage sale and overall, supporting Mia. She sincerely appreciates it and it wouldn't be possible without everyone's support.

Saturday night, Mia and I went to the Torrent vs Napa Valley 1839 match. First one for the Founder's Cup. Great turn out and even better result with the might Blues picking up a pair of goals. Filippi and Luca Lemos netted two beauties getting 3 points. Awesome game. Mia had a great time playing drums and cheering. She still hopes to get a ball tossed out, but will have to be more aggressive if she thinks she'll grab one. For some reason, one of her favorite things to do is help the flag man T-Man take down all the international flags as well as the banners. Such a sweetie.

On the ride home, I shockingly got pulled over for a bad headlight. Ugh. Today before the Chelsea vs Man U match. Chelsea looked strong in the 1st half but gave up a PK. Ugh. 2nd half, the Red Devils secured the win with a few more goals ending it with a very disappointing 4-0. Lampard has his work cut out for him with some big players out on injury and the obviously missed Eden Hazard. After I left work tonight, I unfortunately found out that my light is not working well still. Ugh.

So this week I've got a full week of art lessons. Tomorrow, I'll lesson plan before work. Not completely sure what I'm doing yet, but it'll be a fun week. Saturday is tattoo day and I'm stoked. Will Mia have a sleepover this weekend? Possibly.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Road to Ohio

Evening everyone! I've had a nice quiet evening post-work with a beer and reflecting on the week. not an overly exciting week, but a good one nonetheless. Been getting things ready for Mia's big lemonade sale which for the first time, will include art. I've got one piece complete and will try to make another one. Thursday wasn't the best day for us. Mia wasn't feeling confident in a lot of things including art, her bass and just her attitude. Not sure what the problem was but we're trying to promote a more positive environment so she can stay positive and have less self-doubt.  I know I'm not the best with handling things like that, which probably has taken a bit of a toll on her, but I need to work on it. I don't want her picking it up from me or anyone. I want her to stay confidence and strong like she always has. She's an incredible person with a heart of gold and I want to keep it like that as long as possible.

Friday, she reunited with BFF Cecilia for a few hours while I worked on some Torrent posters for an upcoming match next week. Hopefully they look solid like the ones I did the previous years. I asked Mia "what did you guys do for a few hours?" She responds with "eh, I dunno, hung out, played with dolls, played outside" Well, it was enough for me to get some work done so I was glad she was able to chill. The two girls are looking to set up a sleepover soon. I feel like August is going to fly with a lot of things getting booked quickly. We'll try to make the most of the time. Currently, they're in Ohio. Jill's got a work conference Monday, so my in-laws are hanging out with Mia and Aunt Gail. Because of the last minute plan for it, I couldn't take off to drive down and had to work. Luckily, I've been keeping busy working on art. Saturday, they made the drive down early, so after they left, I went back to sleep a bit. Later, I went to the Milwaukee Torrent vs Risers match. It was the 2nd leg for the Wischigan trophy with the Blues up 3-0 in aggregate. They certainly blew them out of the water. The game ended 8-0 (11-0 on aggregate) so for the 2nd time, the trophy stays in Tosa. This team is certainly a higher caliber then any Torrent fan has ever seen. They are hungry for victory and never let up for 90 minutes of the match. It's refreshing and exciting to see these guys whom many came from 11 different countries tear apart the opposing team. One picked up 4 great goals who looks to be an immediate threat this season. I expect more goals as the Founders Cup season starts. All in all, great night with The Flood chanting, cheering and singing our Blues to victory. The supporters group grows every match and has become more of a family which is really special. It used to be be and a few more fellas. That was it. I hope it gets bigger and more hang with us to cheer this fierce team this season.

When I got home, I made some food, finished up a drawing and hit the bed. Mia FaceTime'd me when I got home, and this morning. I think she misses me a little bit. One of the hardest things is when she goes on these little trips but I try to keep busy so it doesn't bother me. Earlier today, I sold some of Mia's old shoes this morning and hope to sell the rest on the ol' Facebook Marketplace.

This week, they return on Tuesday evening and will work on getting the food and treats ready for the big sale which takes place Friday and Saturday. Later Saturday evening, the Torrent take on Napa Valley so hopefully I can get Mia to the match since she was pretty bummed to miss last weekend. Chelsea take on Man U to start off the season this weekend as well. That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Cousins Weekend

Greetings. Dead exhausted as I type this, but I'll try to get through it before passing out. The week was a fun one. Spent a lot of time with Mia outside hanging and she did a little art while relaxing in her hammock. Wednesday, Mia proudly showed me some new bass things she's learned at lessons. She's slowly starting to show progression and a bit more confidence which is fantastic. Thursday, Mia picked up a pair of Nike Neymar Hypervenom boots off the Facebook Marketplace. After a few weeks of convincing her cleats were getting too small on her, she finally agreed and we got these for a steal. $10. Not bad for a used pair of pristine boots. Too bad they're Neymar signature but it's all good. Mia digs them and is looking forward to Fall soccer. We drove over to Guitar Center for fun and she played a pricy Fender bass, did some drumming on the E-kit. She somehow has double bass drum techniques down. I've never even explained it to her other than "both feet usually go pretty fast if you want to do blast beats" and she quickly got the hand of it. Later, we went to the studio for some lemonade photos as well as a few fashion pictures for the kid. We even got Remi in on the ad. Never easy getting him to cooperate, but eventually we got the shot. All in all, awesome day with the kid. A little lunch, new cleats, some great photos and later, we put together the ad and published it for the public to advertise Mia's big charity sale.

Friday was mine and my twin sister's birthday. I decided to not take off and work like any other day. Work was pretty busy but the day wasn't too bad. Mia made me a lunch before taking her over to her Grandma and Grandpa Ridenour's house. There, she made me a cute little square piece via sewing machine with a "C" on it for Chelsea. Soo sweet. When I got home from work, she also gave me a cool tropical t-shirt and a soccer ball cake. Awesome.

Saturday, we went to Dave and Busters for lunch. Never been there before but it was a great time. Food was alright, but the games were fantastic. The highlight was the incredibly fun Star Wars pod game. Raced on a speeder bike on Endor shooting at scout troops. Total blast. Cheryl really enjoyed it too. Mia did a fun but difficult plane game, a ring toss one and a few other different games. All in all, great time.

Later, the boys Easton and Camden came over for the weekend. Jill planned a lot of fun activities like  bingo, crafts, Nerf Gun battle, silly string, etc etc etc. The kids woke up today at 5:30am and I think I got about 2 hours of sleep. We went to the park for a few hours and rode around our driveway as well. Later, they were picked up by their Grandma and said their goodbyes. Tonight after work, I discovered my house completely dark with Jill and Mia fast asleep. Clearly, worn out from the weekend. On that note, I think I'm going to crash myself. This week, maybe some art lessons, I've got art to create for our upcoming sale and Mia is heading to Ohio Saturday. I'm going to go to the Torrent match Saturday.

In a few weeks, I'll be getting my tattoo done of a very cool drawing Mia made for me. Can't wait.

That's all for now, thanks for reading!

Forza Viola a Chicago!

Buona sera a tutti. It's been quite a week with some awesome memories, so let's get right to it. My work week was a bit weird because of my Tuesday off leaving me with working Mon, Wed, Fri. Tuesday, Mia met up at the park with buddy Vida and the girls played for about an hour or so. Weather a bit warm, but they had a great time swinging, playing tic-tac-toe and running around Malone Park. Later, My Dad arrived at my house for our big and exciting trip to Bridgeview for the AFC Fiorentina vs Chivas Guadalajara match. I thought we'd be able to beat any traffic heading into and around the city but man, we certainly got stuck in it. Ugh. Luckily because we left with plenty of time, we arrived with an hour to spare. Phew. We knew immediately upon arriving Fiorentina fans would be outnumbered 10-1 against the Chivas fans. Luckily, the environment was positive and a hell of a lot of fun. 

 I bought tickets specifically in the Fiorentina supporters designated section so I could give my Dad a great experience, but I didn't expect to find so many Chivas fans sitting with us. Then again, the ticket price was super cheap and we were literally on the ground level pitch behind the net. We walked around a bit, checked out some of the overpriced merchandise and made our way to our seats. We got to watch the team warm up right in front of us smashing balls at the keeper. I knew that this was probably the closest I'll get him to a professional football match between to international teams. Anyways, they walked out, we all cheered stuffed on the bleachers with a variety of supporters right in the front row and the match started.

Chivas got a goal off a deflection and the crowd went insane. Drums, horns and cheers filled the crowd as 10,000 of us watched on. Quickly, Simeone from Fiorentina equalized and the Viola fans went crazy. Amazing!! Halftime, and it was 1-1. Some of the fans that were stuffed onto our bench split and surprisingly, some didn't come back. Great. 2nd half started and we had an obnoxious steward standing directly in front of us. Are you kidding me? Luckily after 10 or so minutes, he was gone and moved down. Awesome. The Chivas drums started up again and the match continued. Viola started to pick up possession and it wasn't long before Riccardo Sottil picked up an incredible goal and the Fiorentina fans went crazy. I was even texted by my older brother that he saw me on TV get up and cheer. My Mom mentioned as well that she saw my DSLR camera flash go off a few times. The game ended 2-1 to Fiorentina and we were quite happy. My Dad had a fantastic time. I'm really glad I could take him to what probably will be the only time he'll see Fiorentina again. Not to sound so grim or anything, but Viola doesn't come to the states that often, or even this close to Wisconsin. On the long long drive back, he kept thanking me for taking him and wants to make a drive to Madison to see their USLOne team in action. I was dead exhausted, but made it back home and crashed into my pillow about 1:30am. I went to sleep with this feeling of accomplishment that I was able to take my Dad to something special he's always wanted to do and it was an incredible time.

Wednesday, Mia went to her friend Noelle's house to swim with her and her sister. Mia had a great time and looks forward to coming over again.  Thursday, I had art lessons with Micah and Gigi. We did some fruit water coloring and the kids had a great time. Gianna's really great at getting her shadows in when it comes to painting or drawing and Micah really nailed her apple sketch. I talked her into taking a bite of it to give the piece really fun texture and dimension. Awesome. I always look forward to working with these talented girls. Later, we had sushi and bobba tea from Fusion Cafe. Totally fun trying new places for sushi and we were excited to find a bobba tea place near us. 

Over the weekend, we had some gnarly storms roll in along with a rough heatwave which sadly cancelled the Torrent vs Risers match that Mia was looking forward to going to. We hung out, got her school supplies and made waffles for dinner. Mia played bass and we hit the bed soon after. 

Today, we just hung out and relaxed before I went to work. This week, nothing major planned till my birthday weekend. Maybe art lessons? Who knows, guess we'll find out :) That's all for now, thanks for reading! 

Soccer Week

Greetings! Man, what a busy week. Mostly for Mia. This week started Mia's very first soccer camp with the Milwaukee Torrent Community Foundation. The owner/coach of the Torrent, Andy Davi hosts an incredible week-long soccer camp that brings in youth coaches from Germany (more specifically, the Bayer Leverkusen club) to teach and instruct kids about the Beautiful Game. Mia had been looking forward to this moment for MONTHS. She was so insanely excited for her first day, she was in her gear hours before we left. Talk about excitement.

Upon arriving, there were certainly a lot of kids from different soccer clubs. Sadly, that sort of made Mia feel like an outsider. Most of the kids signed up for the camp with friends so Mia would have to attempt to make a friend, which didn't work out. She told me throughout the week that "this camp isn't about making friends, it's about me getting really good at football" (yes, she calls soccer football instead) She took this serious. Despite being pretty shy, she really liked the coaches and worked hard to complete the different challenges and Bundasliga tests that Coach Davi had set up. She really liked Coach Anne, the one woman on staff. She was super friendly with the kids, so Mia took an immediate shine to her. I really enjoyed watching for the short while that I could before work because it gave me some really good ideas for drills when Fall soccer starts. Mia enjoyed having me watch as well. 

Wednesday, Mia had soccer camp AND she went to her BFF Cecilia's birthday party. Talk about a busy day following soccer and bass lessons on Tuesday. Thursday I was off, so I attempted to fly my drone to get some sick aerial shots of the camp. It wouldn't fly due to a firmware update. Ugh. Friday was Mia's last day. World Cup day. She was so excited to play a full day of matches. She said she almost got a goal in one of the games. The kids also got to play with Torrent players from the Men's and Women's team. Cool! She even has two new favorite players. Sadly, one is leaving for a Spain team, and the other guy, I don't know who he is yet. She liked his skills and said he was pretty friendly. I finally got my drone up in the air that morning before we went to camp. Even let Mia fly it and she did really well. At the camp, the camera was a bit blown out and on top of that, was having satellite interference issues. Ugh. Such a disappointment. 

My parents picked her up and watched the little end-of-camp ceremony. Mia got her German diploma for completing the tests, a Leverkusen pennant, pin and sticker as well as another Torrent season ticket and a camp ball. We'll be using this to bring in friends and family this season to the Men's matches. Mia had the best time at the camp and I recommend it to any kid wanting to grow their skills. The coaching staff totally enjoy their time with the kids and I know Mia will remember this one for a long time. She kept bringing up this week that she is totally excited she has a t-shirt and soccer ball with logos on it that I created. "THAT MEANS YOU'RE A FASHION DESIGNER DADDY!!" Friday night after I got home from work, Mia was dribbling around the ball showing me some of the useful skills she learned. She even told me that during scrimmages, she'd use her weight and arms to get in front of the opposing players to get the advantage and when she'd dribble, turn her body so they couldn't get it from her. Awesome!! Thanks again everyone involved for making this camp happen and giving Mia the confidence to grow on the field. 

Saturday, Jill worked on some macarons most of the day while I worked on some logo revisions. Later, we had Noodles and went to the NB West production of Mary Poppins. Our friend's son was one of the characters and one of my student's worked backstage. It's always awesome seeing performances like this. The cast and crew work very hard to make these things happen. Jill and I liked it. Mia said it was alright. 3 hours is a long time for a kid to sit through a play. She liked parts of it, and kept getting sleepy through parts of it. When she got home, she polished her soccer ball till looked brand new and once again, dribbling all over the house. When I say my kid loves soccer, she really does. The Torrent Men's team had their first pre-season friendly and won 14-1. Holy crap. Hoping for more of the same this season. 

Today,  Jill worked on more macarons and later we made a quick little trip to the zoo specially to see the river otters. So cute. This week, nothing major planned. Oh, accept my Dad and I are DRIVING TO CHICAGO TO SEE FIORENTINA!! Viola take on Chivas at Seatgeek Field and we've got the closest seats possible and will be sitting with the Fiorentina supporters. Can't. WAIT. This may be my Dad's only opportunity to see two international teams. Maybe art lessons this week? We'll see. Chelsea's on a pre-season tour and after two friendlies in Ireland, they're off to Japan. 

That's all for now thanks for reading!