October 2015 (and one from today)

I was just looking through some of my older photos tonight, and I noticed a couple of before and after haircut photos from October 2015. They really stood out since Lucas got a haircut tonight, and it's basically the same type of haircut he's been getting since early spring: a trendy cut that's really short on the sides and back but fairly long on the top, particularly in the front. In fact, I took a photo earlier so here's what it looked like about 4 hours ago.

Jump back almost 2 years, and it was a drastic change. Before...

And after. See what I mean?

Looking back at that fair month, here are some other highlights. First off, a couple of Lucas and Marilu at a rivalry football game between her alma mater, Carleton University, and the University of Ottawa.

Next up, Marilu's birthday. Here she models the Sens jersey we got her. I think the Falcons toque might also have been a present. I can't imagine why else she would be wearing it in this picture.

I can't recall where we went to eat for her birthday, but based on these photos, I think it might have been Baton Rogue. We haven't been there in quite some time due to a bad experience with a steak our last visit.

I wanted to point out that the other thing I did for her birthday was to make her favorite dessert, cheesecake, from scratch. I've never baked before, and I don't even care for cheesecake, but by all accounts, it turned out perfectly. One of these days I'll do it again.

And what October-themed post would be complete without Halloween? Two years later, I'm still pretty happy with the way these Minions pumpkins turned out.

Of course, you can't carve pumpkins without a bit of silliness.

You could probably take 1000 guesses and never figure out what Lucas's costume was that year:

That's because it was based on a supporting character on an obscure Casper cartoon he was obsessed with at the time. Nowadays, it's all about YouTube videos or tween/teen live-action shows.

And finally, this shot of him and Zach, post trick or treating. Got the iPads out and chowing down on chocolate!

Woohoo! I staved off being 2 years behind for at least another month or two. Seriously though, I'm going to keep weaving stuff like this in with the newer stuff until that mythical day that I actually catch up. Hope you enjoyed this partial trip down memory lane!

A's Baseball 2017 - End of the Season

Lucas's baseball season wrapped up at the end of June. Once again, he had a really good time even though the season was a bit of a mess for a couple of reasons. First, Ottawa's springtime weather was just awful. The season got pushed back a week or two in May due to wet fields from rain and late snowfalls. Then, during the season itself, it seemed like rain arrived every time Lucas's team had a game. If I recall correctly, in their first 10 games, 4 of them were cancelled. I think they all got rescheduled by cramming in a bunch of games at the end of the season, but it wasn't ideal.

The other problem was the organization versus last year's season. For instance, on top of the regular season last year, we had a Saturday tournament against a league from the east side of town, and then at the end of the season, we had a day-long tournament. You may remember that as a busy day for us as it was also the day of Lucas's 4-on-4 hockey tournament, and both of his teams made it to the finals. This year in baseball? Nothing, nada, zilch. They just had their regular season and then had a couple of exhibition games on the final Saturday (which I think were just makeups for the rainouts). No tournament, no league champions. Kind of disappointing.

All that said, Lucas had a great time since he had no less than 4 good friends on his team. I think that's the most kids he's ever known before the season even started. He also really likes baseball, moreso than even hockey, I think. It's a shame, though, that the baseball season is so short. The spring season is only half of May and the month of June. Hockey, while fun to watch, goes on for about 14 months every year so it would be nice to add some of that to the baseball season. Though I guess bad weather doesn't stop hockey so there's the rub.

Anyway, here are some pictures of Lucas and his teammates from the last day of baseball. Enjoy!

This one was taken immediately after the first of their two exhibition games. Lucas and 3 of the aforementioned friends--Zach, Magnus, and Kyle--pose for the camera.

After that, the team had a pizza party. Once the kids finished scarfing down the food, the coach gave them a pennant that had the team name and all their names on it. Lucas's is already on the wall in his room.

The whole team posed for pictures after that. There was a serious photo, but one fun is that? Here's one of the goofy ones. That's Lucas right in the middle, administering what looks like a chokehold.

The rest of the photos are from the second game, later that afternoon. Here, the patient outfielder waits.

Preparing to bat.

Not preparing to bat.

I believe this was Lucas's last at-bat of the season. I particularly like this shot since you can see he got a good hit. If you look closely, you can see the ball in the upper right part of the photo. I can't recall if this was a single or double. He'd probably know. :)

And one final shot for the road, with Lucas at shortstop and Zach in the foreground at second.

And that's that for baseball. I'm going to be heading down to Massachusetts tomorrow afternoon for the long weekend, but when I get back, I'll have plenty more pictures to post. Hell, I still have some from 2015 that need to be uploaded!

So have a good weekend, and I'll see you again soon!

Canada Day 2017

Ugh, it's been way too long since my last update. Here's a picture from Canada Day to tide you over for now. Many more to come soon...