Sunday, April 29, 2012

I'm Sexy and I Know It

To understand the video I'm posting of Lucas today, it probably helps if you watch the first one below. For those of you who don't know who the band LMFAO is, their music is probably best categorized in the dance genre. What makes them stand out is that their videos are extremely goofy. Recently, Lucas has become enamored of two of their songs, "Party Rock Anthem" and "I'm Sexy and I Know It." The latter video is included, followed by Lucas doing his own rendition. Enjoy!



Thursday, April 26, 2012

Request

I really appreciate receiving comments on the blog, but if you do leave one, could you please also include your name? I've had a few comments recently that defaulted to "Anonymous" so I have no idea who left them. Thanks, and if you haven't commented before, don't be shy!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

What's in a name?

Before I forget, I wanted to relate a quick anecdote from March, before Lucas knew Marilu was pregnant. We were lying on the couch, talking about baby names, and Marilu said, "Lucas, if you had a baby brother, what you want to name him?"

Without skipping a beat, Lucas responds, "Asshole."

I'm not sure what I felt stronger at that moment: shock or the need to laugh uncontrollably. A month later, I'm still perplexed as to where it came from since "asshole" is not in my normal repertoire of curse words. If anything, I would have expected "f'n moron" since I do let that slip out from time to time when driving with him in the car (ALL the time when driving by myself).

Currently, my favorite boy's name is Anakin while Lucas wants Hawkeye. Unsurprisingly, both of those have been nixed by Marilu. Though if I get enough support for Anakin from you, my loyal readers, who knows, maybe she will change her mind.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Mom's Camera

It turns out I had a few more pictures from October than I thought. I had forgotten that my mom was here during October until I found a folder with a bunch of photos from her camera on it. So let's take a look at the highlights.

I have no idea what the backstory here is, but it's cute.


During my mom's trip, she, Marilu, and Lucas went to see a musical based on the children's show Toopy and Binoo. From the sounds of it, Lucas wasn't all that impressed. I guess we shouldn't have been surprised given the fact he doesn't watch the show much.


After the show, we all went to the Canal Ritz restaurant, located right on the Rideau Canal.


Another place we went during my mom's visit was Saunders Farm (3rd time in 2011?). I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the jumping pillows are a blast. It's about as close to feeling like a kid as you're gonna get as an adult. We've got a season pass this year so I'm sure we'll be there quite a bit.








Big surprise...we went to Cheshire Cat at some point.



Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Oktoberfest 2011

Now that the big news is out of the way (not that any of you commented on it), let's get back to catching up. I'm kind of embarrassed that this post will be covering our trip to Oktoberfest last fall, seeing as we're halfway through April, but whatcha gonna do?

One of the bigger craft breweries in Eastern Ontario is Beau's, located about 45 minutes east of Ottawa. For the third straight year, they held an Oktoberfest in the fairgrounds near their brewery. This was our second time attending as we had a great time during our first visit in 2010. What I remember of it, that is. I got pretty loaded and passed out in the back of the car while Marilu drove home.

It was still fun this year, but I think Beau's misjudged how popular they have become over the last year. There were a LOT of people there, and it made getting beer a pain in the ass by the afternoon. It was even worse when you wanted to get rid of your beer (i.e., port-a-potties). As such, we'll probably skip the 2012 version. Of course, with Marilu being 8 months pregnant by then, I don't think she'll need her arm twisted. There is a closer Oktoberfest, hosted by local brewer Kichesippi, that is about 20 minutes away so we may check that out. But that's a decision to made at a later time. Let's get to the pictures!

As much fun as I had drinking beer, it paled in comparison to the sheer joy Lucas experienced jumping in mud puddles. If splashing for the sake of splashing wasn't enough, a lot of nearby (inebriated) adults got a kick out of it and were cheering him on, which he absolutely loved.



One of the great things about Beau's Oktoberfest is that it is family friendly. There is a whole area dedicated to kids. Here, Lucas works on a craft with some other kids.


This girl was sitting near us at one of the tables, and she fell in love with Lucas. She played with him and basically babysat him for at least half an hour. I think she's a college student in Ottawa, and if I had thought about it, I should have asked her if she wanted to babysit him for real in the future. Oh well, lost opportunities...


For the second straight year, we met up with our friends Jamie and Kristy along with their daughter Grace. As you can tell, Lucas likes hanging out with Grace. Whether the feeling is mutual is questionable.


In case you want to see how much they have grown, click here to see pictures from our trip to Beau's Oktoberfest in 2010. I couldn't help but notice I posted that on Dec 23, 2010, less than 3 months after the event. I shall endeavor to catch up, my fine readers. The good news is that we didn't take many more pictures in October or November so I may wrap up 2011 within the next week.

Until next time...

Monday, April 16, 2012

And baby makes two!

Thanks to Marilu's (as well as unnamed family members) inability to keep a secret , I don't think this will come as a surprise to too many people. However, for those of you who don't know...


That's from earlier today, and as you may be able to read at the top, the baby/fetus/thingamajig is 12 weeks and 1 day old. As such, the due date is October 28, four days after Marilu's. If nothing else, it will make remembering their birthdays easy for me.

You may notice the website revamp. I'm not completely sold on it yet since there is only so much you can do with Blogger's templates. However, it'll do for now. If you have any problems viewing it, let me know.

Many more updates to come!

Carp Fair 2011

So, back to September it is. Only for one post though. I realized that I had covered most of September just before we left for vacation. However, I left out our visit to the Carp Fair so I wanted to post pictures from that. For those of you outside of Ottawa, Carp is a town on the far west side of Ottawa, about 10 minutes from our home here in Kanata. Throughout the warmer months, they have a farmer's market on the Carp fairgrounds every weekend, and then toward the end of the season, they have their annual Carp Fair. It's pretty much what you think of whenever you think of a county fair in the States: a midway with rides, livestock, tons of food, etc. Everything is overpriced, but it tends to be a fun way to spend the afternoon.

To make things easier on ourselves, this year we brought one of Lucas's friends, Zach, with us. The idea was that if he had a friend with him, he wouldn't get bored, and they could keep each other entertained. It was a pretty good idea for the first hour or so, until they started getting hyper, and that's when they would either run off on us (either together or separate), or start fighting each other over random things. Based on past playdates Lucas has had with Zach and other kids, this is pretty much par for the course. Other kids are fun for a while, but after a while, it starts to devolve. I assume this is probably natural behavior.

In any case, I've talked enough for now. Here are some of the highlights from our visit to Carp Fair 2011.


Lucas provides an example of how not to travel down the massive inflatable slide.



I may have been a little too exuberant on the ride in this next picture. It's one of those ones that has a wheel in it that the passengers can manually turn to increase the speed of the strawberry's spin. I realized I needed to tone it down when both Lucas and Zach went flying. That said, they loved it and were laughing up a storm while narrowly avoiding concussions.


Marilu had to go down the burlap sack slide with Lucas while Zach went solo. Honestly, Lucas can be a bit of a pansy when it comes to rides.


If I recall correctly, this picture was taken just after they started to get hyper. We had the two of them sit on this bench in order to calm down a bit. Didn't help at all, but at least we got a decent picture out of it.


Admit it, this looks fun.



You can't go to an agricultural fair and not take at least one picture of pigs.


Last picture of the day and arguably the best.


Woohoo, September 2011 is in the books! Onward to October! Eventually. For now, I'm going to post this and then watch an episode of Breaking Bad. Night all!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

March Break - The Final Two Days at Sea

After St Maarten, we began our long journey back to Port Canaveral (wish it was longer!). Here are some of the highlights of those two days.

Leaving St Maarten. How depressing.


Lucas and I pose at dinner in our snazzy shirts. He even had matching shorts!


The next day we tried playing miniature golf with Lucas. The key word there is "tried." Although the pictures look like we had a fun time, it was a bit stressful. He didn't really want to be there, and we ended up leaving around the 8th hole when he flung his club and ball onto another green.



More face painting from Camp Carnival. This time, he got the Carnival logo. Cheap advertising for them, I guess.


One of Lucas's favorite parts of the trip was an urban dance troupe called Fun Force. We saw them perform a couple of time earlier in the cruise, and then on the next to last day, they did a thing in the auditorium where they kids from different age groups come up and learn some of their dances. Unfortunately, I didn't get any great pictures of Lucas since I was (and still am) trying to figure out the new camera. However, this one shows he was having a good time even if his head is turned. He didn't really do much of the dance, but we were very happy to see him run on stage, given his shyness issues in the past.


After the dance demonstration, the guys from Fun Force posed for pictures in the atrium. While waiting in line, Lucas and Brandon took this picture together in their matching glow-in-the-dark pirate shirts.


Lucas, Brandon, and Fun Force.


I'm not sure what Brandon thought of Lucas, but Lucas definitely considered him best friend material on the cruise. Here's one final shot of them together outside the restaurant followed by our last family photo.



Why, you might ask, did I take a picture of my food? Well, on a cruise, all the food is free so it gives you a chance to try things you might not otherwise try if you had to pay for it. For our last dinner, what of the appetizers was frog legs. Normally, I wouldn't have given these a second thought, but then I figured, what the hell. I'm glad I did since it turns out they aren't that bad. I'm not going to start ordering them instead of chicken wings in the future, but I would definitely try them again.


Some more photos from our last night at the restaurant. It's a little hard to see here, but all the waitstaff were lined up on the stairs and singing to the audience.




This was our head waiter, Antonio. You couldn't have asked for a nicer, more helpful guy. That said, he probably secretly hated us gluttonous white devils with money.


Lucas and I take one last picture in our room before debarking. It may not look like much, but we had a fun time there.


I'm just including this since it was the very last picture from the trip. This was taken during our several hour layover in Detroit. Lucas had his blue blanket as well as a buttload of Star Wars figures, and he was happy.


So that wraps up our vacation pictures. I'll probably go back to trying to catch up on older photos in the next few entries. A quick glance shows that I have some from as far back as September to post so I have my work cut out for me. Whatever the case, I hope you enjoyed this series and thanks for following our adventures!

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Easter Morning 2012

Highlights from Easter morning. I'm making up for the delay in posting by putting these up literally 10 minutes after they were taken today.




In case you're wondering about the ears in this next one, Marilu had turned on the coffee bean grinder.


Of the 17 eggs the Easter Bunny left, this was the most difficult for Lucas to find. He was literally looking right at it for about 20 seconds before he clued in to our hints.





Happy Easter, everyone!