Massachusetts 2012 - Part 6b (The Rest of the Pics)

Almost across the street from my mom's place is the home of my 6th grade girlfriend's parents. Her dad is an avid hunter, and this year, we took him up on his offer to show Lucas how to use a bow. He got a chance to try out a normal bow...

...as well as a compound bow. I'm particularly impressed that I was able to catch the arrow in flight on an iPhone camera.

As you see in the picture below, Lucas had pretty good aim with the bow (not counting the two antler arrows that he stuck in manually.

Lucas even got a chance to try out a BB gun. Suffice to say, he had a good time that afternoon.

Here's our little Robin Hood in action:




Yet one more picture by the fire. Like I said, we were out there a LOT.

One afternoon, while no doubt feeling bored, my dad, Jared, and Lucas came up with this game that I dub Driveway Ball. I'm not sure of the rules, but it had something to do with pitching a ball out of the bed of a pickup truck and hitting it with an empty 2 liter bottle. I guess I do have redneck blood in me.




On one of the last nights in Massachusetts, I took the opportunity to do a little pout fishing. I haven't done it since I was about 12, so it was quite a nostalgic feeling. They were biting really well that night as I caught about 5 or 6 of them in less than an hour.

Marilu and my dad posing in the brewery at Hyland Orchard. Tasty beer!

More from Hyland Orchard, outside this time.

Great photo of Lucas with his two Grampys.

After Hyland Orchard, we went to Kevin's barn, which is almost literally across the street. Lucas got to interact with his horses.

And we wrap up the Massachusetts vacation with this cute shot of Lucas with his Uncle Jared.

The next couple of posts will be more recent pictures since I haven't posted much "new" stuff lately. However, I'm planning to post the Newfoundland pictures soon so keep an eye out for that. Have a good weekend!

Massachusetts 2012 - Part 6a (The Rest of the Pics)

Thus far, there has been a theme to all of the posts for Massachusetts. For these last two posts, they are basically the best of the rest. Of the hundreds of photos taken, I selected the ones I liked the best--for one reason or another--and present them for your enjoyment. At some point, I'll post them all to the online photo albums (that is a headache/work in progress), and you'll be able to view the whole smorgasbord of New England goodness. So without any further adieu, let's see what's happening.

Before Marilu arrived, Lucas was missing her so I encouraged him to draw something in chalk with her in mind. I can't exactly recall what the point of it was, but it helped him get over his missing mom.

An example of Lucas goofing around.

Lucas looks like a deranged sales rep for Perry the Platypus juice drinks.

Admittedly, this is not the best photo of Lucas, but it was one of the few I had of him by the fire at night. It's surprising, considering how often we were out there during our vacation. I particularly miss it now as we are well-entrenched in October, and the temperature is sliding toward freezing.

I'm pretty sure I took this photo since I was amused at just how messy Lucas was at his most recent meal. It's one thing to cover your face with food but your elbow?

Just posing.

This is one of the best pictures I can recall with Lucas and his Uncle Jared.

As a belated birthday gift, my cousin Greg bought Lucas this telescope. It's actually quite advanced--Lucas won't be using it for a few years--but it's a great gift that I'm sure he will get a lot of use out when he is older.

Greg and I. We don't have nearly enough pictures together so I'm glad I got this one.

Family night at Eighty Ates!

This was taken at the beach at Indian Ranch where we saw Gretchen Wilson in concert. The scowl on my face is due to the fact that I'm carrying a Bud Light and a Michelob Ultra. The beer selection was piss poor so I had to slum it for a couple of hours. I don't know how people drink that swill regularly.

This is less due to his opinion of the music and more due to the fact that his ears are sensitive to loud noise.

This was taken on our way home from the concert. It was kind of nice having a concert venue within walking distance of home. Plus, we got to stop at The Lodge for steaks on the way.

More from the front lawn.

I can't recall why Jared was posing like this, but the picture amused me.

Here's an early preview of Lucas's Halloween costume. Han Solo, beware!

We visited my Uncle Randy down in Connecticut on one of the nights, and Lucas had a blast playing with his two dogs and their puppies.

I'll wrap up the Massachusetts trip tomorrow.

Massachusetts 2012 - Part 5 (Springfield Zoo)

The second day of our trip to Springfield, we went to the Forest Park Zoo. It's not a huge zoo, being nestled in a park, bur it was a nice break since it allowed you to get a lot closer to the animals.

These first couple of shots were taken by his Highness, King Lucas. In the first one, we weren't trying to get a port-a-potty. Instead, if you look just above it, there's a peacock we were tracking.

Marilu hams it up for Lucas.

Not much to say about the rest. Just pictures from a zoo. Enjoy.

Even though he doesn't understand the term, here's Lucas giving his best thug look.

Massachusetts 2012 - Part 4 (Six Flags)

Hello again! The bad news is that, yes, I obviously didn't upload any new pictures this weekend. The good news, however, is that I have spent the last couple of hours uploading the rest of the Massachusetts vacation photos, and I have created 4 new posts. Rather than deluge you with so many photos all at once, I'll add the remaining three entries every other day so they should all be up by next week.

In current Lucas news, our tiny terror has had some issues at school as of late. A couple of weeks ago, he and 7-8 of his other school chums got in trouble for having their own little fight club during recess. I guess they were all playfighting, but that's a no-no nowadays. (Unlike when I was a kid, and you could come back to class with bruises and the teacher wouldn't lift an eyebrow.) Digression aside, after we talked to him and gave him some random punishment (no videogames for an entire weekend, I think?), he's been doing well. In fact, his teacher even gave him some a couple of stickers yesterday for his good behavior.

However! On the way home yesterday, he got in trouble on the school bus for throwing a rock. It doesn't sound like it was malicious--he mentioned he was throwing it as part of a make believe game of hopscotch--but still, you don't throw a rock on a bus. He seems to get in trouble whenever he is with his friend Ryan, and we've asked that they not be seated together. For whatever reason, the bus driver doesn't seem to exercise her authority as apparently they sit across from each other in the same aisle. We, along with our daycare provider, think she needs to pull her head out of her ass and do a better job separating them, but what can you do if she just doesn't get it? Apparently, he is being written up for this incident and two write ups can mean he won't be able to take the bus anymore. We acknowledge that he is in the wrong this time, but if something happens again, and it's a result of them not being separated, then we\ll likely have words with the driver's supervisor.

That's enough of current news for now. During our last week in Massachusetts, we took a mini-vacation with my dad over to Springfield. On the first day, we visited Six Flags New England. If you have a really good memory, you may remember our previous visit in 2010, which you can see here.

We started off in the kiddie area, and that was probably a good idea. After Lucas rode some of the bigger rides, he didn't think much of the "baby" ones, as you'll see in later pictures. Here, though, you can see he is having a good time.

He also enjoyed the roller coaster, riding it twice: once with me and once with Marilu. For obvious reasons, it's hard to get a good photo of a roller coaster in motion so I cheated a bit and took a video. Marilu and Lucas are in the first car here.



You can see he's starting to get a little tired of this type of ride as he does his best to smile.

Here's a couple more pictures of Lucas on the "baby" rides, but he had a good time since he had company!

One of the themes at Six Flags involves the DC superheroes, and as you can imagine, Lucas was all over that. This is the entrance to that section of the park. Note that Lucas is doing his best hero stance.

Throughout the day, they have different superheroes show up that you can take your picture with. We got lucky and were there when Green Lantern, Robin, and Batman made appearances. Robin is Lucas's favorite superhero (for some reason), and he was besides himself when Robin talked to him and took the picture. I don't think I've ever seen his smile as big as it was for those few moments.

Lucas and I try out one of the "adult" rides, the teacups. If you look back at our 2010 adventure, we tried them out then as well. Although I don't have a picture from it, we also went on a mid-size roller coaster, which is probably the most adult ride Lucas has been on. He really liked that one. Unfortunately, the height restrictions on the other roller coasters were still too much for him to try them out,

Not quite as good as Robin, but Lucas still liked meeting Scooby and Scrappy-Doo.

I think this was the last ride Lucas went on. After going on the teacups, the Scrambler, and the aforementioned roller coaster, this slow kiddie ride was not very exciting as you can see by his body language.

In fact, he rated it a thumbs down!

Pictures from the zoo in the next installment!

Damn Internet

Quick update. A couple of days ago, we hit our limit on uploading and downloading for the month. Rogers only gives us a paltry 60 GB so unfortunately, I have to wait until our next billing cycle to upload more photos. Otherwise, it's gonna cost us. The good news is that our new cycle starts on the 28th so I should be able to get some more pictures up this weekend. Keep an eye out!

Rory Update

We received some odd news last week. Marilu had gone in for a followup appointment with her OB/GYN. I believe it was the first time she's seen him since everything happened back in May. According to the pathology report, it turns out Rory was, in fact, a girl. Because of everything that happened, we never got confirmation of the sex when we were at the ultrasound, and I guess they never thought to bring it up when Marilu gave birth.

When Marilu told me, I'll admit I was stunned. I wasn't sure how to take this news, and to be honest, I'm still not sure how I feel. To a much lesser extent, this must be what it's like when someone finds out they were adopted. In the sense that something you took for granted is proven otherwise.

I suppose it's good that Rory is a name that can be used for both boys and girls, although the middle name Gerard doesn't really work.

We haven't told Lucas yet, and we're probably not going to for at least a few years. He still mentions his little brother from time to time, and I'm not sure what he would think about this. That said, I don't want to wait too long since I don't want it to be a major shock when he is a teenager or something.

Anyway, that's the news for the week. I thought writing about it might help me make a little more sense of it, but it's still weird. Guess it will be for a while.