Massachusetts 2010: Part 10

One more entry after this one (making this penultimate, for those of you working on your SAT Verbal), and we'll be done with the trip to Massachusetts. Roughly 76 years after we actually went there.

Today's post focuses on our visit to Six Flags New England. Our friends Wes and Kelly (along with their kids) were in Massachusetts, and we decided that would be as good a place as any to meet up. The day was overcast and looked like it could turn bad, but other than a very short period where they shut down some rides because of lightning warnings, the weather was fine. As a result, not many people were at the park so lines were short. Heck, for the kiddie rides, there were often no lines at all.

Lucas's reactions to rides were mixed. I don't think he went on any by himself, and I can probably count on one hand how many he went on with just Brody or Carson. He much preferred if Marilu or I went with him, and even then, he usually was nervous before the ride started. Nervousness that turned to squeals of laughter once it was actually in motion. Go figure.

The day started off on a sedate Thomas the Tank Engine train ride.


He wouldn't go on this bus ride without Marilu. That's Wes in the front seat, not some random person posing for our photographs.


Family photo with some dude from the Thomas cartoons. Well, I assume he is. Lucas hasn't shown any interest in the cartoon, and I don't encourage it since the kids that sing the theme song get on my nerves.


Despite the look of fear, Lucas seemed to like the Merry-Go-Round.


I took this photo from the back seat of an airplane ride we went on.


Feeding time!


As I said earlier, it took Lucas a while to warm up to getting on a ride without one of us. Here he is on a couple of rides with Brody. I think it's safe to say he is having fun. I'll be posting videos once I am done with all the Massachusetts photos since we got some pretty good ones at Six Flags.



This one with Brody is just plain cute. By the way, despite the size difference, they are only a month or so apart in age. Brody is huge for his age.


Since Six Flags has some kind of relationship with DC Comics, there are many photo opportunities with various superheroes and villains from the DC universe. As much as Lucas loves superheroes, I was a little surprised to discover he was terrified of them. The only good picture we got of him was in front of a picture of Bizarro.


He was equally scared of both heroes and villains.



You may have to click on these next 2 pictures to see his face. In the first one, he is calling for Marilu since he doesn't want to get on the teacup ride with me.


Once it started, though, he had an absolute blast. Just look at that face!

Massachusetts 2010: Part 9

One of the days between the EcoTarium and Higgins Armory was another "relax by the lake" day. In addition, we had a BBQ with friends and family.

For those of you who haven't seen him in a while, here's my brother Jared.

There was a color version similar to this picture, but Lucas was making a bizarre face so I decided to go with this one, the "classy" black and white.

Grammy and Lucas hugging during the boat ride.

Lucas developed quite a bit of a crush on Sara, Cheri's daughter (I apologize if I misspelled one or both of those names).

And finally, Lucas helps Kevin at the helm of the boat.

Massachusetts 2010: Part 8

Finally, a Massachusetts post that covers more than 1 day! The third day I was there, I was nice enough to take Lucas out of the house, giving Marilu some much-needed peace and quiet. I decided to bring him to the Worcester Science Center or Eco-center or Sci-Eco Museum or some derivative thereof. I used to go there when I was in junior high so I thought it would be neat to visit it again since it's been well over 20 years since my last visit. In addition, my season pass to the museums up here in Ottawa was valid there and free is always good.

I'd like to say the place lived up to my memories, but alas, it was a fairly boring, tired-looking place. That said, Lucas didn't seem to mind and that's all that really mattered.

If you look closely at his arm, you can see the wicked cool (throwing in a little New England slang) Batman tattoo he got a day or so before.


He wasn't really thrilled with this area, as evident in his expression.


Walking the trail outside.


I'm not sure I understand the expression, but it's cute nonetheless.


I can't believe he stayed still long enough for me to get this picture from the entrance of the EcoTarium (<---I looked it up).
If you recall from a recent entry, I mentioned Lucas is in a phase where he loves all things knights. Well, a couple of days after the trip to the EcoTarium, we went to Higgins Armory, a museum dedicated to knights, armor, weapons, and other things just as cool. That is, after we drove around half of Worcester looking for a peanut-free restaurant. Screw you, Ruby Tuesday's.

This time around, my mom and dad were with me so I was able to get some pictures with both Lucas and me in them. If you look closely at this picture (click on it for a better view), you'll see Lucas has a very diabolical look on his face.


I'm not on drugs, despite my dazed look.


Higgins Armory was full of countless suits of armor and nifty weapons. So what impresses Lucas the most? The little castle and knight action figures in the kids room on the 3rd floor. He stayed in there for a good half hour. In fact, he only begrudgingly visited the 4th floor when I carried him up there and then quickly headed back down to play some more.


"What do you mean I have to leave? I love this castle!"


Lucas's brief visit to the 4th floor, MY favorite part of the Armory.


In case anyone is interested in my opinion, I would pass on the EcoTarium, and I would highly recommend Higgins Armory.

Massachusetts 2010: Part 7

I'm going to try and speed up the rest of the Massachusetts photos since it's almost 2 months after the trip. To aid in this endeavor, I've moved all of my pictures to my laptop, which is not only faster than my desktop PC, but it's also more convenient. I can update while watching TV or, as I am now, lying in bed.

Day 7 saw my arrival. I flew into Boston, and right from the airport, we headed over to the Boston Children's Museum, which was fantastic. I would heartily recommend it to anyone with kids. It completely blew the children's museum here in Ottawa (or Gatineau, specifically, out of the water).

In the parking garage, I gave Lucas a present I'd picked up in Ottawa: a new Playmobil knight. FYI, if you are ever looking for gift ideas for Lucas, he loves knights. Just look at his face!

Here are some random photos from the museum.




This one of all of us posing would be perfect is Lucas was not holding a dinosaur in front of his face.


I like to call this one "The Psycho Road Worker." He just looks really menacing and unbalanced there.


This one is much cuter.


My expression in this one amuses me for some reason.


One of the exhibits had a green screen that kids could stand in front of, and on the TV monitors, it looked like they were in a cartoon. I figured I'd explain it since this picture would probably be more than a little confusing, otherwise. Lucas played in that room for well over 10 minutes.


Another wacky father and son portrait. I think more of our pictures together fall under "wacky" than "serious." That's probably a good thing.


Based on his reaction to the headdress, I don't suppose Lucas will become a Vegas showgirl anytime soon.


After the museum, we had dinner at Maggiano's, a favorite restaurant of ours. How can you go wrong with all-you-can-eat family-style Italian dinner? On the way there, we walked through the park made famous by the children's book "Make Way for Ducklings." There are little statues of the ducks, and I guess it's popular for kids to take pictures sitting on one of the ducks. At least it was popular that day, as we had to wait for 2 or 3 other people to take pictures before Lucas got his.


The next logical action is to go chase the ducks.

I'm only using one photo from dinner at Maggiano's, but I think you'll agree it's a winner.

Tales of woe

So, we had some drama earlier. At about 5 this afternoon, I got news that my listing was conditionally sold so I was pretty happy. I was at the computer emailing the other agent to let him know I'd received the offer, Marilu was in the kitchen, and Lucas was playing in the living room. I heard a *snap* sound that reminded me of a rubber band and then Lucas begins wailing like a banshee. He came running into the kitchen, screaming his head off and I ran over to where he had been sitting behind the couch and found his EpiPen, opened and used.

Marilu said he was bleeding, and she realized it's from his two index fingers. We don't know the exact details, but he must have pushed on the end of the EpiPen and the needle popped out, getting both of his fingers. We're less worried about the shallow cuts and more worried about the fact that he might have a great deal of epinephrine running through his system.

I called 911 and they got the information they need to send an ambulance over. In the meantime, Lucas was still crying pretty hard and holding his obviously injured hands out, away from his body. However, other than the cuts and the fact that he was shaken up (as were we), he appeared to be okay.

By the time the ambulance arrived, he had stopped crying and was actually friendly when the 3 paramedics came in. They checked him out and didn't seem overly concerned, but they did say that it was highly recommended he go to the hospital to get checked out since there was no telling was the drug (chemical?) might be doing to his system.

So Marilu and Lucas got in the ambulance, and I got in our Torrent, and we drove to the children's hospital CHEO, clear on the other side of town during rush hour. It wasn't as bad as I thought the drive would be, but I'd rather not make it a daily trip.

To make a long story a little bit shorter, the worst part of the hospital was the wait. I think we checked in somewhere between 6 and 6:30, and we didn't see the doctor until nearly 9. Once she did see him, she gave him a clean bill of health. Much ado about nothing, basically, but better safe than sorry.

In case you are wondering about how he got the EpiPen, it was on top of a table we have just inside the front door. Marilu put it there after his allergist appointment yesterday, and we both forgot to move it. It was a little ways back so he had to reach back and get it, but if there's one thing he's good at, it's climbing and getting a hold of things that he shouldn't. Our bad, but it'll be interesting to see if he learns anything from this. I'm guessing "no" since he is only 3, but you never know.

Anyway, that was our little slice of drama for the day. My first ever call to 911, and Marilu and Lucas's first ride in an ambulance. An adventure I hope we need not repeat anytime soon.

Allergy update

Alas, he still has the peanut allergy. He'll be re-evaluated in another 18 months so hopefully it will be gone by then.

Mr. Peanut

Just a quick note to let you know that we are bringing Lucas to the allergist tomorrow morning for his 18-month re-evaluation. As you may remember, back in spring of 2009, we brought him in and found out he was allergic to peanuts (but no other types of nuts). Apparently, between 10 and 20% of kids grow out of the allergy so we're really hoping he happens to be one of them. Keep your fingers crossed, and I'll update tomorrow night with the results.

Massachusetts 2010: Part 6

I tried uploading pictures one at a time, and that worked, so I tried doing 2-3 at a time, and that worked as well. It only failed when I tried the maximum of 5 pictures, which I do with almost every post. If this keeps up, I'll be moving the blog to another site very shortly or just giving up on the blog structure altogether and use Flickr.

Anyway, these pictures are from the day after everybody relaxed on the lake. Marilu, Lucas, and my mom headed to Davis Farm, a place I've never heard of but it looks like it was a lot of fun for them. I finally got there on Day 7 so I should be able to start adding a bit more to the pictures in the next post. Enjoy!

Still not working

Something is either wrong with my computer or with this website. It's several days later, and I still can't get the pictures to upload. So until I figure out what is wrong, consider "Let's Make a Deal!" shut down.

Please pardon the mess...

I was hoping to do a post for Day 6 of the Massachusetts trip, but Google's photo uploader doesn't appear to be working at the moment. So I guess it will have to wait until tomorrow. Sorry about that!

Massachusetts 2010: Part 5

Based on the pictures from Day 5 of their trip to Massachusetts, it appears Marilu and Lucas took a break from driving around and made the most of staying at the lake. I love this first one. That is just the picture of relaxation.


The dock even included swim-up bar with appetizers! :)


Later on, they went for a cruise around the lake with Nancy, Bobby, their grandson Aidan (spelling?), and of course, Grammy and Grampy Kevin.



I never get tired of him throwing up the devil horns (even if he's probably just trying to be Spider-Man or show the number 3).


Checking out the view from the front.


I have no idea what prompted this face. I can't tell if he is just making a face or if he is actually upset since none of the other pictures show the moments immediately before or after this shot.


Sometimes a kid just needs a snack ("snack" since I can't recall the name of those ice things).


I like how this picture came out with the sun trying to peek out from behind the clouds back there.


And finally, a shot from the picnic table later on that night.


And finally, a video of Lucas testing out the new exclamation he learned from Aidan: "Oh my God!" What a cute little heathen.

Blah

I hope to have more pictures up soon. I've been under the weather for a few days now and haven't been at the computer much. Hopefully, I'll have some time tomorrow (Monday).