Like Mother, Like Son

These photos are proof that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. (FYI, these were taken with an iPhone in low light so the graininess is the picture, not your computer.)

Portable North Pole 2013

For the 3rd or 4th year running, we've decided to make use of the Portable North Pole website to create a personalized video from Santa for Lucas. If there are any new(er) parents out there, I would highly recommend using this site for your kid. It's free, and it really makes their day. I've included a link to this year's version below. We picked the naughty/nice option since we want to put a little bit of the fear of god (or Santa, as the case may be) into Lucas since he's been a handful lately, especially when it comes to his homework.

Click here to see the video. He hasn't seen it yet, but I'll try and remember to video his reaction like I have in past years.

NFL in Toronto

I'm going to take a detour from posts that are nearly a year old and deliver you some much fresher stuff. Rather than let it get old and moldy, here are the photos from our trip to see the Falcons play the Bills in Toronto last weekend.

We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel, which is actually attached to the Rogers Centre, where the game was being played. It was extremely convenient as we didn't have to worry about driving or even much walking for that matter. We were so close we didn't put on jackets for our walk from the front door of the hotel to the stadium gate.

We took full advantage of the indoor pool while we were there. It was particularly convenient because Lucas could touch bottom throughout the entire pool.

This is a view of the field from the hotel's restaurant, taken the night before as they get everything ready. Many of the rooms, including my mom's, also looked out over the field. Unfortunately, her view was blocked by banners during the actual game itself. Not that it mattered since we had great club level seats on the 50 yard line.

The morning of the game, they set up an NFL Fan Experience area on a nearby street. It was wet and rainy and generally pretty miserable, but we still braved it for a while. Here, Lucas tries out his field goal kicking skills.

Prior to the game, we went to lunch at the Amsterdam Brewhouse, which was located on the water and was within a 10 minute walk from the hotel. I would highly recommend this place to anyone going to Toronto that enjoys good beer and tasty food. Check out the cool design made entirely of their bottle caps.

At the table, we had to do some mugging for the camera.

Here are some pictures we took at Rogers Centre.

Lucas might have gone a little overboard with the stickers.

For what it's worth, it was a fantastic back-and-forth game, and it was made even better by the fact that our Atlanta Falcons won in overtime. They may suck this year, but they definitely made our Toronto trip a memorable time.

Here's a couple of pictures from after the game, showing them tearing down the field. These were taken from my mom's room--the banners had been removed--and they show you how really cool the view is from selected rooms. I might be able to stomach a future baseball game there if I could watch from the comfort of my room.

Nothing special about this one from the lobby. I just thought it was funny.

Hope you enjoyed! We'll probably be heading back to spring in the next update.

Random Photos from June 2013

Today's our Christmas preparation day. Marilu and my mom are setting up the tree as I type this, and we'll be decorating it shortly. After that, we'll be bringing Lucas to see Santa at the nearby mall, and time permitting, we may and go see the movie Frozen.

Play cap guns with the neighbor's kids while wearing nothing but boxer shorts and sandals? Sure, why not?

Getting the world's best birthday present for a 6 year old, courtesy of Marilu's family. I think I got a Tonka truck or maybe a Slip n' Slide for my 6th birthday.

Getting another of his presents ready. Unfortunately, our backyard isn't very level so the pool probably won't make a return appearance next year.

Asleep on the way home from somewhere. Note that his iPad is close at hand.

Funatorium Explorium 2013

Whoops, I missed my update yesterday. I honestly thought I had postdated it one more day so I didn't realize until just now that nothing showed up yesterday. Or today, for that matter, but I'm about to rectify that problem.

Kind of funny thing about this entry. In it, I'll be posting some pictures from the 2013 Funatorium Explorium event in Ottawa, which took place back in February. The amusing bit is that when I looked for the post related to the 2012 version, I discovered it was posted on December 15, 2012. So I may be late in my updating, but at least I'm consistent. Heck, I'm over 10 days ahead of my pace from last year. Just give me 30 more years, and I'll be right as rain!

If you don't recall, the Funatorium Explorium is an event held in several ginormous rooms at the conference center that encourages family fun. There are games to play, shows to watch, and bouncy castles to be bounced in. It's been fun both years we've gone, and I expect we'll be back in 2014.

Here's a link to last year's Funatorium post, if you're feeling nostalgic.

Montreal with Steven and Jen

Here's another bunch of photos from the way, way back machine. We return, once again, to January of this year. Marilu's brother Steven and his fiancee Jen were in Montreal on vacation so we drove over to see them. Here we are at Reuben's Deli, with Lucas flashing the devil horns with Steven.

You may wonder why I took this next photo since it's fairly unassuming. That's before you realize that Lucas had just finished an entire $40 8 oz. filet mignon. I think I was 10 before I had my first filet. Lucky little bugger.

I'm not exactly sure where we were when this picture was taken, but I thought it was cute. (edit: Marilu informed me that I wasn't there at the time of this picture so that explains my confusion about its origin)

The next day we went to the Biodome. We'd been there when Lucas was much younger so we decided to make a return trip. Lucas had fun, and it's an impressive looking place, but in my opinion, for the amount of money it costs, there are better alternatives out there. I doubt we'll be back again soon.

In case you're wondering, our camera lens isn't smudged in the first few photos. We happened to be in the jungle section of the biodome, and the humidity wreaked havoc on photos.

One last pose with his uncle and soon-to-be aunt before we headed back to Ottawa.

Sporty Lucas

If your memory is better than mine, you may recall that I was the assistant coach on Lucas's Blast Ball team this year. I think I may have posted a couple of pictures way back when, but here's a couple others that Marilu took. Most of the time, it was just me and Lucas at practice so unfortunately, this is the extent of the pictures from this season.

He's really putting forth his best effort in that second photo.

This next picture isn't Lucas's best shot, thanks to his facial pose, but it's the only photo I have of him getting his level 2 green belt at Little Dragons. I think this might also be the last martial arts photo we have of him since he hasn't gone since the beginning of the summer (not counting his birthday party in June). We may try and get him back into it in the spring, depending on how busy he is with hockey and swim lessons.

I think I may have posted these last 4 photos, since they are from January, but they are in my To Do folder so I'll throw them in here just to cover my bases. Just some random photos that I liked.

Lucas poses in a t-shirt he got from his Uncle Jonathan.

Posing with Cow, a stuffed animal my dad got him back when he was less than a year old. It's still one of his favorite stuffed animals.

Using his Christmas money, he bought this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles playset. Look at the size of that friggin' thing! I wish I had toys like that when I was a kid.

More cuddle time with the Stuffies.

Doctor's Office Redux

Remember Lucas's crazy picture from the doctor's office? Don't feel bad if you don't since it was back in March 2012, but if you want a reminder, click this link for a refresher. I liked this photo so much that Marilu gave me an iPhone case with the picture on it as a present.

The point of all this is that there is a sequel to that picture. If the word "sequel" applies to pictures...I'll have to look that up. Just like the videos in the previous post, these two pictures are also from May of this year. We were at the doctor's office (again), and I showed my iPhone case to the nurse, who got a real kick out of it. So Lucas decided to pose again. It's not quite as funny as the first one since that one was more spontaneous, but the results are still amusing. Enjoy!

And away we go!

Between now and Christmas, I'm hell bent on putting up a new post every day, in order to finally get caught up. I find that I'm so backlogged with pictures now that when I think about trying to catch up, I just put it off since the problem seems insurmountable. But if I do get through this and catch up, it will make it much easier to stay on top of things. So, here goes, post #1!

Back in May, Lucas got his hands on one of our iPhones. This is what happens when a 5 year old (at the time) figures out a smartphone's video function. Your guess is as good as mine as to what the hell he is saying.

Tomorrow, we're driving to Toronto for the weekend. We'll be meeting up with my mom and Kevin, and then Sunday, we'll all be going to the Falcons vs Bills NFL game. Buffalo plays one game a year in Toronto, and as luck would have it, they are playing our favorite team this year so it was too good to pass up. It'll also be Marilu and Lucas's first NFL game. We'll be sure to take plenty of pictures.

Don't worry about my vow to post as much as possible in the next month. As soon as I wrap this post up, I'm going to add another 2-3 and postdate them so they should show up around noon tomorrow and Sunday (and maybe Monday).

Have a good weekend, all!

Still Alive!

New pictures are coming! I have my accounting final on Saturday so I've been focused on studying for that, but once it's complete, I'll have plenty of time to upload some new photos and videos so please bear with me!

The Tooth Fairy Cometh

It's taken 6 years and 4 1/2 months, but this finally happened about 20 minutes ago...

The tooth had been loose for over a week now, and it was real wiggly at bedtime tonight so Marilu helped him pull it out. He was more than a little nervous as she was pulling, but immediately afterwards, he was ecstatic, as you can see here. None of the others are loose at the moment so it may be a while before our next tooth fairy update.

Halloween 2013

I'm currently bogged down with accounting stuff so I'm going to keep this short and sweet. Here are a couple of pictures from last night's trick or treating. Lucas was in a rush to get out there and collect his candy so I didn't get a chance to get a really good picture of him. So here he is, in all his "not looking at the camera, red eye" glory.

And here are this year's pumpkins. You'll note they aren't nearly as detailed as previous years. I didn't really have time nor did I feel like spending 2 hours carving a single pumpkin. I was able to carve each of these in about 10 minutes so that was nice. Lucas came up with the design of the one on the right, actually drawing it on a sheet of paper and then I adapted it (which basically entailed removing the body he wanted attached somehow). The left one was inspired by a pumpkin we saw on the Curious George Halloween special. So even though they aren't as fancy schmancy as other pumpkins I've carved, this was the first year Lucas had input on both. Maybe I'll let him carve one himself next year.

We really lucked out on the weather. Earlier in the day, it was rainy and chilly, but by nighttime, the rain was just about gone and the temperature had come up drastically. As a result, there were about a million and one kids trick or treating on our street. Marilu and Lucas had put together treat bags earlier in the week so she exactly how many bags we had. We went through all 157 of them. Quite a turnout!

Okay, gotta run. Accounting for foreign currency transactions is calling my name. Thrilling, eh?