How far would you go to get tattooed?

Christmas of 2015, my incredible wife surprised me with an amazing gift, which was an appointment to get tattooed by an artist I respect and admire, Peter Lagergren. She chose Peter for me because she noticed that every time I am looking on my Instagram feed, it is always his artwork that I make a comment about how amazing it is, so the connection was born and from there it seemed like it was meant to be, even if he did tattoo and live in Sweden, which is pretty far from Florida.  I was honestly shocked and amazed by this surprise and excited to figure out what I was going to get tattooed on me, as well as being excited to meet him and hopefully pick his brain a little along the way.  At this point I had no idea what to expect, I just knew I had a few appointments lined up and that we were in for another amazing adventure along the way.  

The adventure began in September of 2016, when my wife Heidi Mae and I took our first trip to Europe together where we met Peter Lagergren for the first time along with his amazing wife and their children.  Not only did we begin the tattoo, but also created many pretty amazing memories that I will always have a souvenir of as well. 

In March of 2017 I went back to Sweden to finish the tattoo with Peter, only this time it was a trip with myself and my oldest son Jett (11 yrs old). I don't think that this is what either my wife or myself imagined when she surprised me with this tattoo gift, but what an amazing adventure it became along the way as well.  My son and I decided to make this trip during is Spring Break from school and visit 4 different countries during the week.  So we set off to the UK and visited London along with the rainy weather and classic site seeing, then to Copenhagen Denmark and saw canals, ate great food and a unique way of living before taking the train over the bridge into Malmo Sweden.  This is home to Peter Lagergren whom I was getting tattooed by, which became a really amazing day beginning around 9am and getting tattooed for about 10 hours straight while Jett hung out with me and we all talked and had a great day. Jett even got to meet Peter's family as well, which was super cool to see our children playing video games together and communicating with each other, even though neither of them could understand the others language, just pure joy and good energy all around.  After Sweden and the tattoo were complete, Jett and I traveled over to Paris for a few days before making our way back to  the warm Florida weather that we were definitely missing by the end. hahah..    

A few people have asked me how much money this tattoo ended up costing me, my honest answer to that would be that this tattoo is absolutely priceless to me.  The experience and adventures along the way combined with the knowledge and inspiration gained from this... I can't wait to do it again.