Last Day of 3rd Grade

I always like to take a picture of Lucas on both the first day and last day of school, and this year was no different. I'm pretty sure I have a blog entry for Day 1 of kindergarten somewhere on here, but rather than make you look for it, here's the picture I took.

And then here's the one I took this morning for the last day.

So he's a bit taller, and he's got a little less hair, but it's pretty much the same ol' Lucas!

Super Fantastic Sports Spectacular 2016

This past Saturday, Lucas had a very busy sports day. As luck would have it, his end-of the-season tournaments for both baseball and 4-on-4 hockey took place on the same day. Since Lucas's hockey team was the #1 team in the league, they got a first-round bye and didn't have to play until the semifinals. In baseball, the top 8 teams in his league played in the championship bracket and the bottom 8 were in the consolation bracket. Lucas's team finished the season at #5 so their first game was against the #4 Rays at 8 AM.

We weren't sure what to expect since the Rays played on Mon/Wed during the season, and the Padres were a Tue/Thu team so there were no common opponents. However, once the game got under way, it was apparent the Padres were the better team, easily dispatching them 14-3.

Baseball game #2 was scheduled for 12:00 so we figured Lucas could play for 50-55 minutes before running across the street and getting suited up for his 1:15 hockey game. However, one of the umpires was late and the game didn't get started until after 12:30 so Lucas got one at-bat before we had to leave. As you can imagine, he was quite disappointed. I gave my contact info to one of the other dads so he could update me with the score. I wasn't optimistic about their chances since the team we were playing, the Phillies, were the #1 team in the league and had a 6 game win streak coming into that game.

So off we went to hockey where Lucas's team won their semifinal game 5-3. The score was actually closer than it probably should have been, given that his team had all but one player and their opponent had no subs. Still, a win is a win.

The hockey games are much shorter so the final started at 2:15, before the 2nd baseball game was over. Teal, Lucas's team, ended up beating Silver, the #2 team in the league by a score of 7-2 or 7-3. So Teal was the 2016 Novice Intermediate champions. They all got some nice little trophies for that victory, which you can see at the end of this blog entry.

During the hockey championship game, I got a text from the other dad that Lucas's team upset the Phillies 7-6 and were now in the baseball championship game as well! What a day!

We went home briefly and then returned to the field for 5 PM to play his last game of the day (and of the spring season). The Padres played hard, but in the end, they fell to the Astros 9-3. The third game was especially tough since pitchers can only have 75 pitches per day, and the Padres used up their best pitchers in the first two games so by the time the 3rd game rolled around, let's just say there were a lot of walks.

Whatever the case, the kids had fun, and they far exceeded our expectations by making it to the finals. The Phillies were a 4-month team (vs 2-month, which is what the Padres were), which means they had some of the best kids on their team so beating them was a pretty big upset. Marilu had the presence of mind to take a team picture after the morning game so here are the Padres in all their glory. Our little wonderboy is the only one in the Joe Cool glasses.

I uploaded that photo onto the computer after the game, and unfortunately I forgot to put the memory card back in the camera for the hockey games so the only hockey-related picture I have is one of Lucas with his trophy at the end of the day (in the wrong uniform). That said, one of the other hockey dads did take some team photos after the final so I'm hoping to get those from him in the next couple of days.

Finally, here's a good picture (in my opinion) from the day's first baseball game of Lucas and me at first base. I was the first base coach for the team this season, and he had just hit a single.

So, in one day, Lucas became a 4-on-4 hockey champion and the runner-up baseball champion. Not bad. Not bad at all!

Lucas's 9th Birthday Party

This past Saturday, Lucas had his 9th birthday party at the recreation center located about 5 minutes from our house. There's something to be said for parties that are close and easy to get to. All but one of the invitees go to his school so it was convenient for them as well. We're just all-around great hosts!

Anyway, it was a sports party so the kids got to play for an hour in the gym, before retiring to a party room for snacks and cake. Lucas's first choice of activity was dodgeball.

This one is a little blurry, but I thought it was funny to see him bean his buddy Carson.

They followed that up with a rousing game of soccer.

Finally, they wrapped things up with floor hockey. The birthday boy pouted a bit at the team selection until the helpers relented and let him play on Carson's team. It should be noted that Carson played in a higher division of hockey than any of the other kids last season so Lucas wanted that advantage. And it definitely showed...until me and one of the helpers joined the opposing team to even things out.

I like how the Red team looks like they are marching in this one.

Reveling in a goal, apparently.

After that, the kids headed to the break room where they lined up for snacks.

The birthday boy approves.

Happy Birthday!



A picture of Marilu's cake. She could explain it better, but it was essentially ice cream sandwiches under a layer of chocolate pudding/frosting, covered in Oreo crumbs, Quite tasty, I can say from experience.

Let the feasting begin!

After the cake, we had the kids do a few challenges where they could win prizes. The first was a darts competition (won by Kyle), then a hockey shooting contest (not surprisingly won by Carson), and finally musical chairs (tie between Carson and Deavon). The kids REALLY enjoyed this part of the party, which made us think that next year's party will be nothing but challenges. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of this portion of the party since I had to help out with the various events.

Last but not least, I had the kids pose for a picture, which has become something of a tradition over the last 3 years. One normal photo followed by goofiness.

And that's all, folks! Hope you enjoyed.

Through the years

Although I've done a retrospective with the Christmas Eve photos, I was surprised to realize that I've never done one with pictures of Lucas on his birthday. So without any further adieu...

2007 (0 years old)

2008 (1)

2009 (2)

2010 (3)

2011 (4)

2012 (5)

2013 (6)

2014 (7)

2015 (8)

His 9th birthday party is tomorrow afternoon so I'll add a photo from that once it's over. Hope you enjoyed!

Incidentally, I ran across this one from Father's Day 2010 that I liked so much, I decided to repost it for the hell of it.

9 Years!

Lucas is 9 years old today. Unbelievable! It seems like he was just popping out of Marilu last week, and now he's only a year away from double digits. Here's a picture of him from this morning posing with his gift from us, a Sphero Ollie (think 21st century remote control car).

Changes are afoot

I just wanted to give you a heads up that major changes are coming to the blog soon. Due to some little shitheads at Lucas's school finding the blog and teasing him about pictures of him in the bathtub when he was only a year or two old, I decided I'm going to make the blog more private.

I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do yet since Blogger is an all-or-nothing blog, meaning it's all private or all public. I've read where people maintain two blogs, one public and one private, so I may do that since I'm comfortable with the Blogger format. There are also other blog sites such as Wordpress that allow you to make specific entries private. That's the more elegant solution, but I don't know that I feel like switching to a whole new site.

Either way, in order to access the private stuff, you'll need to login, and I'll need to give you access. I honestly don't know how many people read this blog past immediate family so if you want access to the next incarnation of the blog, email me or add a comment to this post, and I'll be sure you're on the guest list when Deal Blog 2.0 opens.

That is all.

4 on 4 Tournament

Yesterday, Lucas had a cross-town tournament with his 4-on-4 team. "Cross-town" refers to the fact that there is a 4-on-4 league on the west side of town (at the Bell Sensplex) and one on the east side (at the Richcraft Sensplex). I'm not sure if they alternate who hosts it, but this year, it was at Richcraft so we got to go for a 30 minute drive early in the morning.

Each division had 5 teams in it, which meant each team would play 4 other teams. Then the top 2 teams at the end of the day would play each other for the championship. In Lucas's division, there were 3 East teams and 2 West teams (including his team). They did remarkably well in the round robin, going 4-0. They didn't even get scored on until the 3rd game.

In the finals, the game was extremely close, and the game ended as a tie. Lucas's team scored with less than 2 seconds left to tie it up so it was about as exciting as a game can get. Unfortunately, they then went to a shootout, which in my opinion is the most anticlimactic way to finish a hockey game, According to the rules, the shootout order is done by player numbers, starting from the lowest to the highest. This put Teal at a distinct disadvantage as the other team's two best players wore their lowest numbers and Teal's best shooters both were high numbers. As a result, Teal lost their first game since Lucas joined the team a month ago.

As expected, the kids didn't let it affect them too much. It probably didn't hurt that the only reward for winning was taking a picture with a big trophy. They didn't actually receive trophies or medals for the win so it didn't feel like they were missing out on much.

For what it's worth, Lucas played pretty well. He had two very pretty one-timers, and I was lucky enough to get the second one on video, which you can see below. It's a little hard to see, but he's #55, and he is the kid planted just to the left of the goal. The video's a little slow since the play is mostly in the corner, but it pays off at the end.



Here's a goofy photo Lucas posed for prior to one of the games.

2016 Massachusetts Trip #2, Part 5

I've still got another couple of months until we hit the 1 year mark on our second Massachusetts trip from 2015, but I wanted to get the last post in now, lest I forget. In my defense, I have been updating on more recent things, but it's true I really need to clear out the backlog on the stuff from 2015 sooner rather than later.

There's not going to be much text in this post since I'm tired and ready for bed. So enjoy the pictures. The first batch is from our ride on the Indian Princess, an old-fashioned paddleboat on Webster Lake (or Lake Chargoggagoggmanchaugagoggchaubunagungamaug, if you're a native).

And the second is from our visit to Purgatory, a state park in Massachusetts that has a bunch of really cool chasms and caves. Lucas was nervous at first but was having a ball by the end of it (and making ME nervous).

And that's it for Massachusetts 2015!