Catching Up, Part 2

Today's adventure into the past consists of 11 photos from Marilu and Lucas's trip to Newfoundland last summer. You may think 11 sounds like a lot, considering I was just trying to get the highlights of the remaining photos, but there were over 120 photos taken during that trip so I think I did a pretty good job paring them down.

I really like this first photo even though I'm not sure where it was taken (I suspect Conche, where Marilu's dad is from), and I don't know any of the kids in it except Lucas (far left, obviously), but it's just a cool-looking picture. So it gets included.

Back in Holyrood, where Marilu's parents live now, they went berry picking on one of the days. I like how we can follow from the actual picking...

...to the tub of berries...

...to the muffins...

...to breakfast. And that, folks, is the life cycle of Blueberrius Newfoundlandis.

Now that I look at that picture, it looks like they are eating pie. But let's pretend they're muffins so I don't have to go back and edit anything, ok?

Lest I forget, here's the sexy fashion that goes with berry picking. Be still, my beating heart!

At some point during the trip, Lucas went to a birthday party that had this thing at it. He's already braver than me when it comes to heights (or spiders, for that matter).

And finally, pictures with various family members that I thought turned out well. The pictures, not the family members. Though I suppose all of them turned out well too.

I have no idea what is happening here. Or where Lucas's pants are.

That dog is the definition of letting it all hang out.

Next time, we'll be back to Ottawa. See you then!

Catching Up, Part 1

Day 1 of catching up begins! Out of 400+ photos, I was able to pare them down to 58 pictures plus a few videos. So this should only take 4-5 days to reach 2014. Of course, once we get there, Marilu and I need to start taking some new photos pronto. If you think the blog has been lax, you should see our camera use. Or lack thereof. Since the beginning of 2014, we maybe have 30 photos taken so far. And most of them are duplicates or not that great. So yeah, we need to get our butts in gear on that front.

But enough about that. Here's the first batch of photos. We'll start off with the oldest ones, taken during March break of last year. Lucas and Marilu spent the week in her hometown of Labrador City.

Snowmobiling near the mine with her brother Jonathan.

Lucas hanging with his cousin Colby.

Great shot of the moms and cousins.

Jumping forward to July, here are a couple photos from when my dad and brother visited. I'm not sure if Lucas is intending to look like an "Arrrr" pirate in the first one.

Cow is one of Lucas's oldest stuffies. If I remember right, my dad bought Cow for him during my dad's first visit after Lucas was born. To this day, he's still one of Lucas's favorites.

Later in July, we took a trip over to the east side of town to visit Little Ray's Reptile Zoo. Lucas was really interested in lizards at the time, and I think this was one step toward our eventual purchase of Spot.

You know that thing you see on rear view mirrors, "Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear." Well, this picture was just the opposite. I think I used the zoom feature on the camera since there is no way I was that close to the tarantula in Marilu's hand. More power to her, but my arachnophobia was kicking in hard.

Just feedin' the turtle. Or tortoise. I'm sure they told us the difference, but I'll be damned if I can remember which is which 9 months later.

Can't have a reptile zoo without a giant alligator lurking around. Or is it a crocodile? Bah, let's not get started on that again.

Despite my earlier statement, I was able to get close to this tarantula, but that's because of the thick glass. Otherwise, I'm sure he would leap straight at my jugular.

And last but not least (well, maybe least, who am I to judge?), another picture of Lucas and me. I believe this was taken at a restaurant in Montreal. We were there since Marilu and Lucas were flying out from the Montreal airport to visit her family in Newfoundland.

And that's a good way to end tonight's update, teasing the next post, which I believe contains over 10 photos from the Newfoundland trip. See you next time!

Catching Up, Once and For All

One of the things that has kept me from regularly posting in this blog has been the fact that I'm so far behind when it comes to uploading photos. I have a "To Do" folder, which currently contains over 400 photos, going all the way back to March of last year. So most of the time, when I think about posting something, I see that unwieldy number, my morale deflates, and I put it off "until tomorrow."

It occurred to me earlier that the way to get over this feeling is to get rid of it all and start with a clean slate. Now by that, I don't mean I'm going to delete all the photos. What I mean is that I'll do 4-5 entries over the next week or so that will just feature the highest of highlights. No more 10-15 photos for a single event, such as a vacation. At least not for 2013. The downside is that I won't be able to post every single photo I like, but on the positive side, once I'm caught up (or at least back in 2014), I won't feel like this is an insurmountable task, and I'll be able to post regularly again. Now that Lucas is getting older, I would like to do more updates that focus on news as well since there's a lot of stuff happening in his (and our) life. Did I mention he's playing soccer and rugby this summer?

So with that said, I'm going to finish off this post and go organize the To Do folder. I'll have the first Catching Up post done tomorrow, and then the rest will come by this weekend. With any luck, everything from this weekend forward will be 2014. See you soon!

Skiing at Mt Pakenham

Today is Lucas's last day of ski lessons for this year. According to Marilu, he's made great progress since the beginning of the season. They do plan on going at least a few more times before winter is over (possibly dragging me along at least once), but today is the end of "official skiing."

Earlier, Marilu took a video of Lucas on the slopes prior to his lesson and sent it to me via text so I could put it up on the blog. The quality isn't that great, thanks to the fact that iPhones suck at video, but at least you can get a general idea of how Lucas is doing. Just follow the black and blue blob on the field of white. :)



For the record, this next week is March break for Marilu and Lucas, and although we have no plans for vacations in far-flung exotic locations, we will be heading down to Syracuse for a quick getaway from Monday to Wednesday.

Chinese Buffet and Spartykat

For dinner tonight, we brought Lucas to his first Chinese buffet. Due to the questionable state of ingredients at those types of places, they were off limits due to his peanut allergy. However, now that it's a thing of the past, it was time to stuff our faces. As you probably know, Lucas likes to eat so it should come as no surprise that he was a fan of tonight's dinner. His favorite part was probably dessert. Half of his plate was covered in jello and the other half was chocolate pudding. He then proceeded to dip his pieces of jello in the chocolate pudding. So he ought to be wired tonight.

Earlier in the afternoon, Lucas had a special visitor at his skating lesson: Spartykat, the Ottawa Senators' mascot. The kids had a great time as Spartykat skated around with them, and at the end he gave them each a signed poster and posed for a picture. Definitely a fun afternoon for Lucas.