12 Days of Christmas, Day 6: Newfoundland Part 2

Continuing the Newfoundland adventures...

I wasn't there the first week so I'm not sure where they are in these next few pictures (and video), but they sure seem to be having a good time.

This is the first picture I took upon arriving in St John's. It's a panoramic picture of a bit of downtown, the harbor, and in the upper left, Signal Hill.

My mom and I downtown, in front of some of the more colorful houses you'll ever see.

Visiting Signal Hill.

Photos from a family get-together at the house of Marilu's relatives.

My mom getting screeched. If you're not familiar with that, it's an amusing ceremony that makes you an honorary Newfie.

Speaking of my mom, here's a picture of Marilu and her at a bar on George Street, an area of St John's known for its pubs. She stayed out with us until 3 in the morning so I guess that partially explains why I'm a night owl.

In the next post, we go whale watching!

12 Days of Christmas, Day 5: Newfoundland Part 1

Today's post will mostly be a photo dump of pictures from our trip to Newfoundland this summer. Most of the people who follow this blog were either there or know the people involved so my commenting will be minimal. Feel free to post any questions in the comments if you are wondering who/what/where/why.

Drinking milk or cream while waiting in the Maple Leaf Lounge at the Ottawa Airport. Meal of champions.

Lucas and Colby playing with their iPads side by side. My, how times have changed.

Marilu and Kyle.

 The older brother and cousin couldn't resist a similar shot.

 Marilu's dad and Kyle.

Hangin' out on the couch.

This next series is from a trip to a place called Lester's Farm.

Here's Lucas doing his best American Ninja Warrior impression on the tires.



Apparently, that visit sapped the energy of the Cousins Three.

Back at Marilu's parents' house.

And finally, Lucas tries his hand at fishing.

That's it for today. I did the math before uploading these photos, and it should take 3 more days to get through the rest of the Newfoundland photos. Believe it or not, that's after I narrowed it down once already, from the whole set, which consists of several hundred photos. Remember the days when we had to be stingy with our film?

12 Days of Christmas, Day 4: June 2014

Another day, another month. I'm slowly but surely clearing my way to the present. Don't worry, things will get a little more specific tomorrow when I cover the summer's trip to Newfoundland (or at least part of it).

Here are the remaining photos I have from June of the year. We start off with Lucas rocking out on the Rock Band drums. One of these days, we may give in and get him the drum kit he wants, but hopefully he'll fall in love with a less noisy musical instrument before then. I've tried to tell him that the guitarists get all the girls, but he's still a few years away from that being a compelling argument.

This next one is from a Canada Day party at the house of our friends, Brigitte and Casey. Casey has Kayden on the left, Wes has Brodie, and I've obviously got Lucas on the right (in my fantastic shirt). All 3 kids were born the same year, and although we don't have quite the tradition of taking their picture as the Christmas Eve party (with Thierry and Logan), we have taken pictures of the 3 of them whenever possible. I'll try and hunt those down for a future post.

I just realized I've already posted this next one on the "last day of school" post back in June, but since it's already uploaded, you can enjoy it again.

I wonder where Lucas gets all that goofiness from?

Oh yeah.

The last photo was taken in Kingston, a city about 2 hours from Ottawa. We were down there in late June for a rugby tournament and afterwards, we explored the downtown. It was a nice looking place and we hope to get back there sometime soon.

So like I said earlier, tomorrow (and possibly the next couple of days) will focus on our trip to Newfoundland over the summer. Also, I had a job interview at the US Embassy earlier today. I should know their decision by the end of the week, but feel free to send your good luck vibes my way between now and then.

12 Days of Christmas, Day 3: May 2014

So Lucas's team didn't win the hockey tournament. In the round robin games, they tied 2 and lost 1 so they didn't even make it to the semifinals. Although that sounds bad, I should point out that the semifinal games were at 7:30 and 8:30 in the morning today. Across town. And we were at a party last night. So I can't say we were too upset about the early exit. One other bright note is that all the games, even the loss, were close ones so that was good to see. A blowout on either side is never a fun thing.

As you can probably figure out from the post's title, today's theme is May 2014. As in, "time to post the rest of the photos I have from May before May 2015 comes around." So without any further adieu, we start with Mother's Day. I think that's one of the best smiles Lucas has had in a photo.

Not really sure what's happening here.

I haven't been in a Starbucks in years so Marilu must have taken this photo. That is one giant cookie.

The photo above was taken on the same morning as all of the following ones. I was trying to remember the story behind them, and it finally occurred to me. I had an exam for one of my accounting classes that morning so Marilu and Lucas dropped me off for that and then went to the Museum of Nature. It looks like he had a good time.

And on that cute note, see you tomorrow!

12 Days of Christmas, Day 2: Random Videos!

Time to play catch up with some older videos. How old, you ask? Well, this one's from Easter so there you go.

Next up is a video from May. Lucas and his friend Seth were playing in our front yard and decided to do a "demonstration" with Lucas's GI Joe nunchucks. We were lucky enough to have Seth record it on my phone, along with commentary.

Finally, we jump ahead a month to June. I borrowed the dance game Just Dance from the library, and Lucas had a heck of a time with it. Here he dances to the song "The Final Countdown" by Europe.

In dance-related news, Marilu signed Lucas up for a hip hop dance class in early 2015 since his good friend Zach is going to be in it as well. This should be an interesting experience.

12 Days of Christmas, Day 1: Sens vs Kings

In my homage to the iconic Christmas song, I'm going to attempt 12 posts of pictures between now and Christmas. If you do the math, you'll notice there are actually 14 days until Christmas proper. That gives me 2 days in which I can screw up and forget. Or, thinking positive, it means you'll actually get 14 days of Christmas posting goodness. We'll see how it goes.

Unlike most of the posts to come, which will be of events that are months and months old, this one includes pictures taken just last night. We surprised Lucas with an LA Kings t-shirt and tickets to the Senators vs Kings game that night (shirt and tickets were an early Christmas present thanks to Uncle Jared). I think I've mentioned it previously, but his two favorite teams are the Kings and the Chicago Blackhawks. Go figure.

We got there with plenty of time to spare and were able to take advantage of the Turnback Thursday deal of $1 hot dogs and drinks. So after scarfing down 2 hot dogs each, I had him model his new shirt, which featured his favorite player, goalie Jonathan Quick. Once again, go figure, since he doesn't play goalie. Sorry for the quality, the iPhone 4S sucks in anything other than ultra-bright conditions.

At Lucas's request, I took this picture of Quick during warmups. As you can see, we had decent seats, even though we were in the 3rd level.

During the first intermission, I bought a bacon poutine, which we shared. As I said in a related Facebook post, you can't get much more Canadian than eating poutine at a hockey game.

As luck would have it, the family of one of Lucas's hockey teammates, Matthew, had seats almost directly in front of us. Thanks to some people in that row leaving early, Lucas was able to sit with Matthew during the entire 3rd period.

It's a bit blurry, but Matthew's friend to the right was wearing an LA Kings shirt with Jonathan Quick on the back. So Lucas got along with him well.

Speaking of hockey, Lucas's team has its first tournament of the season this weekend. He's got a game tonight, two tomorrow, and then if they do well, one on Sunday. The tournament is in-town this time, but over the holidays, he's got one in Brockville, which is about an hour from here. We'll be staying over at a hotel with a bunch of other families from his team so that ought to be fun.

One last thing. You may notice Lucas's hair looks a little shorter. If so, good eye. Before the game, I brought him over for a haircut. Here are some bonus photos from the process.

See you tomorrow!

Awkward!

If you're not familiar with Elf on the Shelf...then you must not have kids or know anyone with them. Seriously though, Elf on the Shelf is a fairly recent addition to the Christmas season, started back in 2005, according to Wikipedia. It involves buying an elf doll, who one morning magically appears somewhere in the house. He stays in that location all day, and at night, when the kids are asleep, he magically returns to the North Pole to report to Santa Claus (or something like that, it's been a while since I read the accompanying book). The next morning, he reappears somewhere else in the house and the process repeats itself again and again. This starts around December 1 and lasts until December 24. Presumably, after Christmas, he heads back to the North Pole for the rest of the year, making toys in Santa's sweatshop, hooking up with elf maidens, and whatever else they do for fun in the bleak, frozen tundra.

From a parent's perspective, the Elf is fun the first few nights. It does become a bit of a chore by the end as you are trying to come up with creative hiding places. We don't go overboard with it, but a quick Google of "Elf on the Shelf" online will show you that there are many parents out there with WAY too much time on their hands.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet is the key rule surrounding Elf on the Shelf (okay, enough of typing that out each time: Lucas named his Awkward so we'll with stick with that from here on out). The one rule that must be followed, lest Awkward return to Santa with a "bad child" report, is that he cannot be touched. Lucas can look all he wants at his red and white-clad friend, but absolutely no physical interaction.

So knowing that piece of information, it's what made Awkward's location this information amusing to us while conversely being agonizing for Lucas.

Yep, Awkward is "using" Lucas's iPad. And since there's no touching, it effectively means Lucas doesn't get his iPad back until tomorrow. Brilliance!

I would like to point out that this was Marilu's idea so to all of you who see her as sweet and innocent, there's definitely a sociopath hidden under all those layers. :)

What's Playing?

For my own reference when I look back on this blog years from now, and possibly for your own interest, I'm linking videos to Lucas's two favorite songs (as of Fall 2014). The first one, "That's What You Get" by Paramore, is by far his favorite. I think he asks for me to play it at least once during every car ride, and he can sing along with 80-90% of the lyrics. He discovered it while playing Rock Band 2 on the PS3 with me.



The second song, "Lola Montez" by Volbeat, was on my own playlist, and I think he took a shine to it after hearing it enough times in the car.



Besides rock, he's recently started to develop an appreciation for country music. The only country artists I play frequently are Toby Keith and Garth Brooks so that's what he likes at the moment. We'll see where it goes from there.