Scenes from the birthday

Now that we got the big surprise over with in the last post, here are some more photos/videos from Lucas's 10th birthday. As you may recall, his regular party was cancelled. However, because he was at his best behavior most of the time ever since the guitar incident, we let him have a smaller get-together for his big day.

Marilu picked up Lucas and 3 of his best friends from school and they went to see Cars 3, which as luck would have it opened on his birthday. Afterwards, they came back to the house for a couple hours of play as well as pizza and cake.

For the cake, Lucas decided he wanted MY favorite cake, the always popular Coca-Cola cake that I've had for most of my birthdays since I was a kid. It's not fancy, but damn, it's tasty.

The obligatory singing video, which goes on much longer than when I was a kid.

And yes, he was eating a cucumber while blowing out his candles.

After the singing and candles, I took a few pictures before the boys dug in.

And here's a final shot of Lucas laughing with Parker while opening his presents.

Over the weekend, I asked Lucas is he would have rather had the large party, and he said that he really liked the smaller version. I'll tell you this, it was a lot less work for me and Marilu since we were going to have to run a bunch of events so we weren't complaining. Odds are, this is more like what the parties will be like going forward so I guess we'll just have to get used to it. He's already thinking about a sleepover next year so that ought to be...interesting.

10th Birthday Surprise

I'll post more pictures/video from Lucas's 10th birthday, but for now, I want to show his reaction after getting the news of his big present from my dad. See below for more...

So for anyone who didn't already know the news that we've been keeping from Lucas for over a year now, we're going to Disney World in August. Woohoo!

Demolition Derby

So, this weekend was a little more exciting than most. This happened...

Don't worry, no one got hurt though I was tempted to attack the other driver before cooler heads (i.e., Marilu) prevailed.

The story, in a nutshell: on Friday night, we went to see Pro Bull Riding downtown with my mom and Kevin, who were up visiting for the weekend. Afterwards, we dropped them off at their hotel with Lucas, who (luckily) was staying with them. We were literally about 2 blocks from our house when some dumbass tried to make a left in front of us and despite Marilu's best efforts, we slammed head on into the side of his card. Luckily, we hadn't even reached the speed limit yet or it could have been worse. Heck, the airbags didn't even go off.

Anyway, we called the cops and they came and took our story and pretty much immediately found fault with the other driver. I should mention it was a couple of Indian guys--one who could barely speak English--in a rental car. I don't think they had gotten insurance on it so it gives a warm feeling to think he's going to end up owing a lot out of pocket.

Our insurance will cover everything without costing us a thing, and in the meantime, we've been given a Jeep Grand Cherokee to drive around in so it's not all bad.

In the next post, I'll try and post photos from some less traumatic moments of the weekend.

The Pitching Prodigy

Ok, so maybe the title is a little bit over the top, but the fact remains that Lucas had what was probably his best baseball game this past Saturday morning. If you feel like watching 3+ minutes of video, you can see the first of two innings he pitched below (spread over 2 videos...I think I missed one ball and one strike, but you can add it up if you want). If time is money to you, simply skip past them and read on for a quick summary.

In a nutshell: 1 inning, 12 pitches, 3 balls, 9 strikes, 3 strikeouts. Woohoo! On top of that, he had two hits (a single and a double) that were good for 3 RBIs. Normally, the kids only pitch one inning, but since he pitched his so fast, the coach had him pitch one more. While it wasn't quite as triumphant since he walked 2 kids, he still had 2 more strikeouts and no runs against.

Here's the single. You'll notice he's hitting off a tee. The kids do pitch, but if there is a walk, they have them hit off a tee instead since it gives everyone more experience. And is far less boring to watch than one walk after another when you get a bad pitcher.

And here's the double. Note the 2 RBIs. :)

Finally, if videos aren't your thing, here's a cool photo I caught of the ball in midair between pitcher and Lucas.

For the record, they ended up winning that game 7-5 after starting it 0-5 so it was a great comeback by a great group of kids. Plenty more news, photos, and videos to come as it's been a busy sports season so far,