Catching Up, Part 3

I haven't forgotten about the whole "catching up" thing. I just got distracted. A common event in my life, apparently. There's not many left after this one so hopefully 2013 will be a thing of the past sooner rather than later.

There's a small chance that some of these photos may be repeats of ones I've already posted. If so, my apologies. I'm lucky if I can remember what I did yesterday let alone 6 months ago.

Let's start off with more hockey photos. The first 3 are from the week-long skating and hockey camp he did in September. Prior to that point, he had been on skates maybe 3-4 times. Afterwards, he may not have been the best, but he definitely looked like he belonged on the ice. For those of you not familiar with hockey, that's Ottawa Senator Chris Neil in the first picture and the third is with the Sens coach Paul MacLean.

And here he is in his Zombie Minions uniform. With appropriate game face, of course.

I went in to check on him after he had fallen asleep and noticed the Spider-Man glove on for some reason. I thought it was funny enough that it deserved a picture.

Tubing down the Rideau River. That's Lucas on the right.

And finally, a bunch of photos from Saunders Farm. Based on Lucas's pants, it looks like these are from three separate visits. It's quite the fun place.

Haircut

It's kind of funny that this post follows the big hair one. Today, I brought Lucas for a haircut, and it was probably the most drastic haircut he's had yet. He's been telling us he wanted it very short--like John Cena or Wayne Rooney--so I said, what the hell, and let him do it. Rather than spew out any more words, I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Before:

During:

After:

He's very happy with it so that's all that matters. It'll be interesting to see what he goes with next time.

Hair

Before getting back to the "Catching Up" posts, here's a photo I took last night. Lucas had just gotten out of the bath, and I wanted to show him just how wild his hair could get (thanks to my genes). So after a quick session with the hair dryer, I combed his hair straight back, as well as mine, and the results are below.

You may notice his arms are a bit pink. Yesterday was our first warm day of the year (sad, really), and we took advantage of it by playing outside all day. Since it's been so long since we last felt heat, it slipped our minds to put sunscreen on him until it was too late. Oh well, next time.

Catching Up, Part 2

Today's adventure into the past consists of 11 photos from Marilu and Lucas's trip to Newfoundland last summer. You may think 11 sounds like a lot, considering I was just trying to get the highlights of the remaining photos, but there were over 120 photos taken during that trip so I think I did a pretty good job paring them down.

I really like this first photo even though I'm not sure where it was taken (I suspect Conche, where Marilu's dad is from), and I don't know any of the kids in it except Lucas (far left, obviously), but it's just a cool-looking picture. So it gets included.

Back in Holyrood, where Marilu's parents live now, they went berry picking on one of the days. I like how we can follow from the actual picking...

...to the tub of berries...

...to the muffins...

...to breakfast. And that, folks, is the life cycle of Blueberrius Newfoundlandis.

Now that I look at that picture, it looks like they are eating pie. But let's pretend they're muffins so I don't have to go back and edit anything, ok?

Lest I forget, here's the sexy fashion that goes with berry picking. Be still, my beating heart!

At some point during the trip, Lucas went to a birthday party that had this thing at it. He's already braver than me when it comes to heights (or spiders, for that matter).

And finally, pictures with various family members that I thought turned out well. The pictures, not the family members. Though I suppose all of them turned out well too.

I have no idea what is happening here. Or where Lucas's pants are.

That dog is the definition of letting it all hang out.

Next time, we'll be back to Ottawa. See you then!

Catching Up, Part 1

Day 1 of catching up begins! Out of 400+ photos, I was able to pare them down to 58 pictures plus a few videos. So this should only take 4-5 days to reach 2014. Of course, once we get there, Marilu and I need to start taking some new photos pronto. If you think the blog has been lax, you should see our camera use. Or lack thereof. Since the beginning of 2014, we maybe have 30 photos taken so far. And most of them are duplicates or not that great. So yeah, we need to get our butts in gear on that front.

But enough about that. Here's the first batch of photos. We'll start off with the oldest ones, taken during March break of last year. Lucas and Marilu spent the week in her hometown of Labrador City.

Snowmobiling near the mine with her brother Jonathan.

Lucas hanging with his cousin Colby.

Great shot of the moms and cousins.

Jumping forward to July, here are a couple photos from when my dad and brother visited. I'm not sure if Lucas is intending to look like an "Arrrr" pirate in the first one.

Cow is one of Lucas's oldest stuffies. If I remember right, my dad bought Cow for him during my dad's first visit after Lucas was born. To this day, he's still one of Lucas's favorites.

Later in July, we took a trip over to the east side of town to visit Little Ray's Reptile Zoo. Lucas was really interested in lizards at the time, and I think this was one step toward our eventual purchase of Spot.

You know that thing you see on rear view mirrors, "Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear." Well, this picture was just the opposite. I think I used the zoom feature on the camera since there is no way I was that close to the tarantula in Marilu's hand. More power to her, but my arachnophobia was kicking in hard.

Just feedin' the turtle. Or tortoise. I'm sure they told us the difference, but I'll be damned if I can remember which is which 9 months later.

Can't have a reptile zoo without a giant alligator lurking around. Or is it a crocodile? Bah, let's not get started on that again.

Despite my earlier statement, I was able to get close to this tarantula, but that's because of the thick glass. Otherwise, I'm sure he would leap straight at my jugular.

And last but not least (well, maybe least, who am I to judge?), another picture of Lucas and me. I believe this was taken at a restaurant in Montreal. We were there since Marilu and Lucas were flying out from the Montreal airport to visit her family in Newfoundland.

And that's a good way to end tonight's update, teasing the next post, which I believe contains over 10 photos from the Newfoundland trip. See you next time!

Catching Up, Once and For All

One of the things that has kept me from regularly posting in this blog has been the fact that I'm so far behind when it comes to uploading photos. I have a "To Do" folder, which currently contains over 400 photos, going all the way back to March of last year. So most of the time, when I think about posting something, I see that unwieldy number, my morale deflates, and I put it off "until tomorrow."

It occurred to me earlier that the way to get over this feeling is to get rid of it all and start with a clean slate. Now by that, I don't mean I'm going to delete all the photos. What I mean is that I'll do 4-5 entries over the next week or so that will just feature the highest of highlights. No more 10-15 photos for a single event, such as a vacation. At least not for 2013. The downside is that I won't be able to post every single photo I like, but on the positive side, once I'm caught up (or at least back in 2014), I won't feel like this is an insurmountable task, and I'll be able to post regularly again. Now that Lucas is getting older, I would like to do more updates that focus on news as well since there's a lot of stuff happening in his (and our) life. Did I mention he's playing soccer and rugby this summer?

So with that said, I'm going to finish off this post and go organize the To Do folder. I'll have the first Catching Up post done tomorrow, and then the rest will come by this weekend. With any luck, everything from this weekend forward will be 2014. See you soon!

Skiing at Mt Pakenham

Today is Lucas's last day of ski lessons for this year. According to Marilu, he's made great progress since the beginning of the season. They do plan on going at least a few more times before winter is over (possibly dragging me along at least once), but today is the end of "official skiing."

Earlier, Marilu took a video of Lucas on the slopes prior to his lesson and sent it to me via text so I could put it up on the blog. The quality isn't that great, thanks to the fact that iPhones suck at video, but at least you can get a general idea of how Lucas is doing. Just follow the black and blue blob on the field of white. :)



For the record, this next week is March break for Marilu and Lucas, and although we have no plans for vacations in far-flung exotic locations, we will be heading down to Syracuse for a quick getaway from Monday to Wednesday.

Chinese Buffet and Spartykat

For dinner tonight, we brought Lucas to his first Chinese buffet. Due to the questionable state of ingredients at those types of places, they were off limits due to his peanut allergy. However, now that it's a thing of the past, it was time to stuff our faces. As you probably know, Lucas likes to eat so it should come as no surprise that he was a fan of tonight's dinner. His favorite part was probably dessert. Half of his plate was covered in jello and the other half was chocolate pudding. He then proceeded to dip his pieces of jello in the chocolate pudding. So he ought to be wired tonight.

Earlier in the afternoon, Lucas had a special visitor at his skating lesson: Spartykat, the Ottawa Senators' mascot. The kids had a great time as Spartykat skated around with them, and at the end he gave them each a signed poster and posed for a picture. Definitely a fun afternoon for Lucas.

Success!

No more peanut allergy!

It was quite the process to get that result though. First off, the doctor re-performed the skin test from last month. For some reason, Lucas was scared at first even though he remembered that it didn't hurt when he got it last month. Thankfully, I didn't have to hold him down this time as my mom (who is visiting) helped him come to his senses.

After that, the doctor had him eat 1 peanut M&M. We were supposed to wait 10 minutes, but because the doctor had other appointments, he didn't get back to us for about 20 minutes. We then repeated the process with 2 M&Ms, 4 M&Ms, and finally 8 M&Ms. The doctor was busier as the morning went on so the time between checking in with us kept increasing so in the end, we were there for almost 3 hours. It was all worth it though since the peanut allergy is now behind us.

That said, there is a small chance (~10% or so) these types of allergies can come back, but the doctor said that we can decrease that chance by making sure he eats peanuts at least once a month. Trust me, I'll make sure he hits that quota.

Allergy Test

Lucas has his follow-up peanut allergy test this morning. We'll be going into the doctor's office around 8:20, and then he'll proceed to eat one peanut M&M every 10 minutes for about 2 hours, all under the supervision of the allergist. Hopefully, there will be no problems and at the end of the 2 hours, he'll be declared allergy free. I'll update later today to let you know, but in the meantime, keep your fingers crossed!

Olympics

Lucas shows his allegiance in the US-Russia men's hockey game. Close game!

All we were missing was Noah

Last night, we had a finished basement. This afternoon, this is what the entry hallway to it looked like:

I was woken this morning to Marilu telling me there was water in the basement. I ran downstairs to discover water streaming down in at least 3 different locations in our laundry room. I ran upstairs, and lo and behold, the main floor toilet had overflown. I suspect Lucas may have put too much toilet paper in it at some point last night, but who knows? Whatever the case, we stopped the overflow with a single pump of the plunger, but the damage had already been done.

We called the insurance company and they sent out an emergency contractor. Four guys worked on our basement and upstairs bathroom/entryway almost all day, and the above picture gives you an idea of what they accomplished. 

They put anything that had been water damaged in our garage, and based on what I've seen, we didn't lose anything of importance. I thought three boxes of comic books I had from the 80s and early 90s were destroyed since they were sitting in the water, but miraculously, the water didn't soak through the cardboard. Go figure.

The insurance adjuster is visiting tomorrow along with a guy from the contractor who will provide an estimate for the work that needs to be done. Hopefully, we'll be back to normal sooner rather than later. That said, it blows my mind that one little toilet can wreck a home so thoroughly.

FYI...

Lucas lost his second tooth today. He pulled it out himself at school. The Tooth Fairy just visited his bedroom and left him a toonie ($2 Canadian coin for those of you south of the border).

Rainbow Loom

This morning, Lucas decided to wear every single one of his Rainbow Loom creations to school. (If you don't know what Rainbow Loom is, check out their website here. It'll be a lot easier than me trying to explain it.) Surprisingly, he actually let me get a picture of him. Sorry about his psychopathic stare. By the time I realized how bad his face looked, he had already started putting his school clothes on so I guess we'll have to live with it.

Before and After

Last time I took Lucas for a haircut, I only had them take an inch off was way too little considering the state of his hair. This time, I made sure I got it right. A picture if worth a thousand words, and even though I can talk a lot, I'll let the picture below show the transformation. (Side note: this is the first time I've ever stitched two photos together. It wasn't quite as bad as I expected.)

Begone, Allergy!

We received some fantastic news today: Lucas is (99% sure) peanut allergy free! Ever since he got diagnosed with it, we've had appointments every 18 months to check the state of the allergy. After his last appointment, a year and a half ago, he was still showing symptoms, but they were lower than they had ever been before so we had high hopes for this visit. Apparently all those crossed fingers paid off!

To be completely sure, we need to do a follow up at the doctor's office where Lucas will eat one peanut M&M every 10 minutes for about 2 hours, and the doctor will monitor him. However, as alluded to above, he told us today that the skin test is 99% reliable so to say we're happy is an understatement. It could be a month or two before we get the follow-up done, but rest assured I'll keep you informed.

Snow Crash/Fashion Icon

We had a bit of a scare yesterday afternoon. While at the sled hill, Lucas went over a jump that was much steeper than it looked, flew straight up about 2-3 feet and came crashing back down on his head and neck. To say I was worried was an understatement. Thankfully, other than a sore head and chest, as well as a cut on his upper back--presumably from the sled--he's okay. Honestly though, when I saw how he landed, I don't think I've ever been so scared. Needless to say, we'll be avoiding the jumps in the foreseeable future.

In lighter news, yesterday morning, I laid out his clothes for school. It was just the usual: t-shirt and pants. Five minutes later, he came down in the outfit below. I was so distracted by the tie, I missed the fact that his shirt was buttoned incorrectly. :)

Some News and Catching Up

In case you're wondering, I've waited a week to post again on purpose. Since some people only look at the top update on the page, I wanted to make sure a reasonable number of people got to see the last entry before it dropped down the page a little. That, and I'm lazy sometimes.

Not too much news in the Deal family for the past week. Lucas started up skiing last weekend, and last Tuesday, he also began a 6-week skating program. The latter is geared toward fairly new skaters so Lucas is actually one of the best skaters in the class, given all his hockey practice. It's a world of difference from last September when he could barely stay on his feet. He's probably not going to get a whole lot out of the class, but we're hoping he strengthens his fundamentals. Those two activities, plus his hockey, are probably all we'll have him do for the next couple of months. Come the spring, he's expressed interest in playing soccer and baseball so we'll probably sign him up for both of those sports as well. Anything to keep him active!

Oh, lest I forget. Lucas's latest obsession is the Nickelodeon TV show iCarly, which is on Netflix. He started watching it over the holidays, and I think he's watched almost 2 seasons of it so far. I'm not sure why he's so interested in a show about two teenage girls who have their own Web show, but who am I to judge. That said, Marilu and I noticed he really seemed to like a female guest star who was on one of the episodes. His first crush! :)

That's enough talk since I know you like to see pictures. Today's theme is Saunders Farm, a local farm that we brought Lucas to several times over the summer. I've posted pictures from there before so I'm sure most of you know what I'm talking about. There are lots of fun things to do, including mazes, a splash pad, and my favorite, the jumping pillows. I've organized the best pictures from our 2013 visits below.

Lucas's favorite activity at Saunders Farm is panning for gold, or minerals, as the case may be. It's also the most expensive since it costs around $10 for a big bag of sand filled with said minerals, but he has a blast doing it, and he keeps all the minerals he finds (or as he calls them, gems), so it's hard to say no to that cute face. I should point out that I wore a bigger version of this shirt that day. It was hard to miss us.

Fun times at the splash pad.

Showing off a "gem" from a different visit. Same hat though.

Lucas and I on the jumping pillows. If you're wondering about the awkward stance, I think I had just landed a jump. You can tell since he's been launched in the air. There might be a video of this. I'll check, and if so, I'll post it in a separate entry.

Flying down the giant corrugated slide.

And finally, some photos from around the Farm with his Grampy George and Uncle Jared.

The videos I referenced earlier uploaded quicker than I expected so here they are for your viewing pleasure.