12 Days of Christmas, Day 12: Toronto

Happy Merry Christmas Eve! Tonight we'll be going over to Tracey's for our annual Christmas Eve get-together. That means that in the next few days I'll be able to post the latest iteration of the Lucas, Logan, and Thierry group photo. So be on the lookout for that.

Marilu's brother Steven is arriving today to stay with us for the next few days. It should be a good time since he likes board games and drinking beer, two of the qualities I find most admirable in a person.

The last update for the 12 Days of Christmas series is a decidedly non-holiday one. That's because I don't have any other holiday photos, other than the Santa visit ones from a couple of days ago. So instead, you'll have to make do with photos from our trip to Toronto with my mom and Kevin in August.

On our first night, we went to a pub across the street from our hotel. It had good food and drinks, but its decor was somewhat questionable.

Though Kevin didn't seem to mind.

The next day, we went to the Blue Jays baseball game with our friends Wes and Kelly and their kids. It was Lucas's first time at a professional baseball game, and he had a great time. As luck would have it, it was also the longest Blue Jays game in their history: 18 innings! I'd like to stay we stuck it out for the entire 6 or so hours, but we left somewhere around the 11th inning.

We caught the rest of the game at the Amsterdam Brew Pub, which is a short 5 minute walk from the stadium and sits on the shores of Lake Ontario. The Blue Jays ended up winning, and we had more good food and beer so everyone went home happy.

After dinner, Lucas posed for some pictures outside.

Another attraction we visited was the Aquarium. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is planning a visit to Toronto. The shark tank exhibit is worth the price of admission alone. However, it's crazy busy so it was a damn good thing we bought our tickets beforehand. If you are just walking up, you're probably looking at a multi-hour wait to get in.

Here are a few random photos from walking and/or eating around Toronto.

Lucas was making faces so we decided to do one where we were all making faces. Of course, that's the one in which he's the only one not making a face.

Our last "big" event in Toronto was seeing Medieval Times. For those of you not familiar with it, it's a dinner theater kind of thing (or in this case, lunch theater) where you eat your meal while they do a whole knights jousting, and swordplay show. I'd been once before, back in Orlando, when I was still in high school and had fond memories. I was glad to see that the Toronto one didn't disappoint as we all had a great time.

My mom, Kevin, and Lucas went to pose in front of the throne they had set up, and the king and one of his pages photobombed them.

Lucas poses with our "champion," the knight that represented our seating section, yellow and red. He didn't win, but he was definitely the most charismatic guy out there, smiling every time he rode by.

Because of the ticket package we purchased, we each received a group photo with the queen. I've scanned a copy of it for your viewing pleasure. It's worth it just to see Lucas's expression. The sunglasses are a nod to my brother's pose (with sunglasses) with the Medieval Knights characters at Orlando many moons ago. If I ever get a hold of that photo, I'll have to post it side by side with this one.

And that, as they say, is that, folks. I have to admit I'm pretty pleased with myself for actually following through on this whole 12 Days thing. I hope you enjoyed so many photos in such a short amount of time. It's like we're back in 2007-2008 again!

I hope everyone out there has a wonderful Christmas, and keep an eye on the blog in the next few days for pictures of our Christmas day (as well as the aforementioned Christmas Eve photo). Take care!

12 Days of Christmas, Day 11: The 1st Annual Deal Family Holiday Board Game Tournament

This year, we decided to have a board game tournament over the holidays this. Our goal is to play through all the board games we currently have in what can best be described as the "board game closet." Considering there is a fully-stacked second row behind those games in front, that's a lot of gaming.

After the first two days and 6 games, you can see the results below.

In case you are trying to figure it out, our scoring system is 3 points for 1st, 2 for 2nd, and 1 for 3rd. That means Lucas is actually winning at the moment (13 points) whereas I am in last place (11). I'm looking forward to the more complicated games. :) I'll update the results as time goes by.

Tomorrow's blog update will be photos from our trip to Toronto, which was a few weeks after we got back from Newfoundland. The rest of this post will be devoted to the photos taken between the two trips. The first one is from the goalie's POV as I try to stop Lucas's shots at the local park.

Here's a couple from the mini golf course while Marilu's mom was visiting. 

I suspect this was Lucas's one and only year playing it, but we had a good time with rugby while it lasted. These pictures are from the last practice. We had a kids vs parents game, followed by the kids receiving medals. I gotta tell you, even playing against kids, rugby requires a LOT of cardio. 

I'm glad Marilu got a photo with both of us in it.

In case you're wondering why I'm standing there, I was the team manager.

I have no idea why he looks like he was going to break out in tears here. Maybe he was squinting from the sun.

And finally, a photo from this year's Busker Festival in downtown Ottawa. It was crowded as hell, but we still a fun time.

12 Days of Christmas, Day 10: Santa Claus!

Before the pictures, some news that most of you have probably heard already. On Sunday, Lucas had a hockey game at 9 AM. The bad news was that of 16 kids on his team, only 9 showed up. The good news was that not only did they win 7-3, but Lucas had his first goal of the season (and technically, his "career"). It was a onetimer from right in front of the net and he hit it top shelf over the goalie's shoulder. He's had a lot of good chances this season so it was nice to see him finally convert one.

Earlier today, we went over to the Hazeldean Mall to get Lucas's picture taken with Santa. In an amazing example of naivety, I thought that it would be a quick trip since it was a Monday morning. For some reason, I figured everyone would either a) still be at work, and b) they would have already taken their kids to see Santa. Oh, how wrong I was. Instead, we had the longest wait since we started bringing Lucas to see Santa. When all was said and done, I think we waited around an hour and a half. Good thing we had nowhere we had to be.

Here are a few pictures we got from the experience.

Not quite the photo dump as the Newfoundland series, but hope you enjoy!

12 Days of Christmas, Day 9: Portable North Pole

It's a good thing I built in a day of forgetting about the 12 Days of Christmas since I, well, forgot yesterday. Odd thing too, considering this is probably the shortest one I'll do.

As you'll likely remember from past Christmases, we had Santa send Lucas a video message via the Portable North Pole website. You can see this year's message by clicking here.

And here is Lucas's reaction to it. I'll warn you in advance that this isn't the most thrilling video you'll watch this year since it's mostly Lucas watching the screen. Try to ignore the part at the end where I couldn't figure out how to stop the recording. Damn technology.



I should point out that despite the video saying Lucas was in between the naughty and nice list, he got a letter from Santa at school the next day stating that he was on the nice list. That worked out well. Compared to past years, he's been a heck of a lot better behaved in 2014.

12 Days of Christmas, Day 8: Newfoundland Part 4

The remaining Newfoundland pictures were taken after I left so I can really add much. This first group is from my mom's remaining days there.

I'll chime in here since I've actually been to Cape Spear on a past trip. For those of you not familiar with it, Cape Spear is the easternmost point of Canada, which also makes it the easternmost point in North America. Well, if you count the desolate wasteland of Greenland as part of Europe.

One other fun fact from that day: according to eyewitness accounts, Lucas was on his worst behavior of the entire trip. Even my mom was getting sick of him.

I believe the rest of these photos were taken after my mom left Newfoundland. Marilu, her mom, and Lucas drove back to Ottawa (by way of the ferry from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia) so photos from that journey are included as well.

And that wraps up the Newfoundland trip. Hope you enjoyed. Tomorrow, I'll have Lucas's yearly video message from Santa and his reaction.