Quick One

I'm trying to get this post done before Lucas gets home so it's going to be a quick one. Mostly pictures, but if I have time for text, well then...hip hip hooray.

One thing to speak of before the pictures. Lucas got his first pet this past weekend. We bought him a blue betta fish along with a fish bowl and all the necessary items. We asked him what he wanted to name it and got the wonderfully creative "Fish," so I guess that is what we are going with for now. I'll try and get a picture of the two of them together if Fish doesn't die anytime soon.

This picture was taken the same day we went to Winterlude. Lucas got it in his head that he was going to school so he put a backpack on his back, my backpack on one arm, Marilu's purse on the other arm, and topped it all off with an Atlanta Falcons hat. Quite the look.


This was taken in our driveway on February 28. Can you tell we had a mild winter?


We learned that if you give a 2 year old some action figures, a roll of tape, and a pair of kids scissors, they will stay occupied for a LONG time. In this case, about an hour and a half. Who needs videogames?


This picture was from right before the US-Canada Olympic hockey game. I was trying to get Lucas to root for the US since it he was uncannily accurate in his predictions. Unfortunately, when we asked him who would win between US and Canada, he would only answer "Germany!"


Not sure what made him so happy during the hockey game, but it's cute nonetheless.

Winterlude 2010, Part 2

It's been two and a half weeks coming, but here are the rest of our pictures from our trip to Winterlude back in February.

In the first one, Lucas poses with Marilu on yet another ice throne.


Standing in front of the massive sheet of ice with the festival's logo.


Ice skating on the canal with Marilu. In his case, though, it was more ice standing or ice shuffling, but we all gotta start somewhere, right?


Eventually, he just lay face-down in the sled and let Marilu pull him. Not the most regal pose.


A final picture of our future Gretzky.

Musings and Regrets

I don't think I mentioned it, but my mom and Kevin came up to visit this past Wednesday and stayed with us until this morning. While it's always a little sad to see family leave, this morning it hit harder than normal. When Lucas was younger, he liked it when new people were around, but he didn't really make the distinction that they were visiting and that they would eventually be leaving. However, now that he is nearly three, he's beginning to understand it more clearly.

In the days leading up to their visit, Lucas would ask every morning whether Grammy and Grampy were here yet. When we brought my mom along to pick him up from daycare on Wednesday, he had an ear-to-ear smile plastered on his face as he ran over for a huge hug. And then this morning, when we told him they were leaving, he kept repeating that "the planes are all gone!" I guess that was his way of telling them to stay.

As I thought about it on the ride home from the airport, I realized just how much I hate living so far from any family, whether its mine or Marilu's. Lucas has such a great time whenever someone visits and when they are gone, it's just the three of us. Yeah, there are his daycare friends and kids around the neighborhood, but I can't help but feel he is missing out on experiences that children with local grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc, get on a regular basis.

Part of my feelings are selfish--who doesn't want easy access to a babysitter?--but it goes beyond that. I watched how overjoyed he was to play with his Grammy and Grampy the past 5 days, and I just feel bad that these interactions are so few and far between.

Knowing that there is no easy solution due to the international situation of our living status doesn't help. Even if everyone wanted to live in one place, it's almost impossible from a logistical standpoint. So basically, the situation just plain sucks.

Enough feeling sorry for myself. In positive news, I conditionally sold my first house this past Friday so I'm actually bringing money into the home again. Let's hope that is followed by a torrent of additional business.

I know I said I was going to post a follow-up to the Winterlude pictures--and I am--but for now, I wanted to post some pictures from this past week. Thanks for the visit, Grammy and Grampy!

For weeks, Lucas has been anticipating the Spider-Man scooter than my mom and Kevin were bringing up for him. So much, in fact, that we were able to bribe a lot of good behavior out of him. "If you don't do X, you won't get your scooter!" Wednesday was the big day, and we put it together not long after he got home from daycare. I believe he rode it up and down the driveway once and then moved on to something else. Go figure. However, they also brought the outfit you see in this photo--which is actually Spider-Man pajamas--and he would wear almost nothing else this weekend. Except for when we had to go outside on cold days, he wore the PJs nearly 24/7. So at least one Spider-Man themed present was a massive hit, just not the one we expected.


Here's a better shot of the PJs.


Amazingly, we finally got him to cooperate on this photo with my mom and Kevin.


Neither Lucas nor Kevin were looking at the camera in this one, but I really like the way their looking at each other turned out.


And finally, one with Lucas and the moms for Mother's Day. Thanks for coming up, Grammy and Grampy!

Winterlude 2010, Part 1

The real estate world has been pretty busy for me lately so hopefully the lack of pictures this past week will soon be offset by an influx of money. Keeping my fingers crossed...

Last post saw me go through most of February, but one notable event I skipped was our trip downtown to Ottawa's Winterlude. For those of you unfamiliar with Winterlude, I believe Ottawa has a few things associated with it, but the main focus is the frozen canal. Also of interest are the ice sculptures. On the day in question, we got to experience both.

For some reason, Lucas got it in his head that Cow needed to make the trip with us. So Cow sat in the back seat with him.


Lucas posed with several of the ice sculptures. Just about all of them were really amazing.



In this case, he sits on the ice sculpture, a huge throne of sorts.


I had Marilu take this picture of Lucas and me since it suits my arachnophobia. Why not pose in front of a massive ice tarantula?


Sigh...this was going to be an all-inclusive post, but Blogger is not letting me upload any more pictures at the moment. As a result, more ice pictures as well as some of Lucas skating will have to wait until tomorrow. Until then...