In a recent post, I mentioned Lucas's desire to get his hair cut. Well, speaking of his hair, I found this photo from February of his hair in a style more to his liking.
Also from around that time, a dance party with Lucas and his friend Liam. Words fail me.
Later today, Lucas has his sort-outs for year 2 of Novice hockey. He was in B last year, and I expect he'll fall into that category again this year. I know he hasn't improved enough to make A, and I'm pretty sure he hasn't regressed. I don't really care where he ends up as long as there aren't too many 6 and 7 AM practices/games. I may have finally got my sleep schedule on track, but that's just crazy early for a weekend.
In keeping with the theme of this post...speaking of hockey, here are some photos from last winter of Lucas practicing in the driveway with his new net.
Before anyone asks, here's Lucas's official "First Day of 3rd Grade" photos. I should point out that he hates his hair this long and wants a haircut badly. However, we're waiting until class photos to get it cut since the longer hair looks so much better than his preferred buzzcut.
Click here for a comparison to his "first day of school" look for previous grades.
We're back! Ok, I wasn't gone that much longer than normal, but it felt that way, especially with all the data managing between the two laptops and other assorted logistical issues. However, now all the photos have been moved over and are ready for primetime.
BORING TECHNICAL EXPLANATION FOLLOWS...FEEL FREE TO SKIP
One of the first things I did was rearrange my To Do folder. In the past, I've had several subfolders in it, based on how the photos were taken (Nikon, Marilu's iPhone, etc). The problem with this is that I would have to search multiple folders if both of us took photos of the same event. So I took all the photos and dumped them together in the To Do folder itself. Then I arranged it by date so all related photos, no matter what device took them, will be grouped near each other. Theoretically, it should make things easier in the long run.
To give you an idea of the work ahead of me, there are currently 869 photos in the To Do folder. Many of those won't make the blog, but it takes time to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, so I'm going to start my way from the oldest to the newest. I will update with newer stuff from time to time (especially when it is time sensitive--for example, a hockey game), but if I ever want to get through the backlog, oldest first is the way to go.
BORING TECHNICAL EXPLANATION CONCLUDES
Now that that boring explanation is out of the way, on to the pictures. This first batch is from January, during a visit by my mom and Kevin. These were also among the first photos I took with the Nikon. What I like about many of them is that they are more candid (vs posed), which is not something I take very often, excepting sports stuff.
Goofing off for the camera.
Far be it for me to be left out.
They can't all be winners.
Kevin and Lucas on their respective iPads. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?
I have no idea what this pose is for, but in my head, I can't help but hear Lucas yelling, "Fabulous!"
Playing Head's Up on the iPhone at Big Rig.
I don't normally care for many of the photos taken of me, but I thought this one came out relatively well.
Lucas took a break from a basement game of hockey with my mom to "pose."
Some much better poses with my mom. The facial expression in the first one cracks me up, and I have no idea whose glasses he's wearing in the third one.
Here, Lucas poses with the best named beer of 2015.
No beer was consumed in the production of this photograph.
More photos soon! Oh, and on the news front, Lucas starts 3rd grade on Tuesday. Where has the time gone?
Whoops, almost forgot I have a video for you too. From sometime in January, here's Lucas channeling his inner rock star as he "sings" Iron Maiden's "Aces High" on Rock Band 2.
We just bought a new laptop this past weekend, and I'm still in the process of moving important files from the old one to the new one. Once that's done, more updates will be on their way.
In the meantime, I've uploaded all of my photos from 2002 to Flickr so you can check that out if you really need to see "new" (albeit very old) pictures. (here's the link in case you forgot: Flickr)
For years, I've been wanting to store all of our photos online, on the off-chance something happens to our computer or the two external hard drives that have backups of most of the photos. I stored quite a few of the pictures on Picasa Web Albums a few years back, but it wasn't a very user friendly experience, and I decided to move on from it.
Tonight, I started the very long process of putting the photos on Flickr. It may not be the best option, but it's definitely one of the most popular. I've decided to work my way from the oldest to the newest so right now, all that's on there are some photos from 2001 and 2002, but I will be adding more periodically until (hopefully) I am all caught up.
Anyway, if you're interested in seeing what's up so far, click here. I've made all the photos public so you shouldn't need to have a Flickr/Yahoo account to view them. Also, it's not immediately obvious since it shows up as a photo album, but I've been adding captions to the photos so if you click on an individual one, most of them will have more details about the photo. I may stop doing this in the future if no one cares about captions.
One last thing, I do plan on keeping the blog going. Flickr is primarily a backup for me with the added benefit of giving you access to the 1000s of photos that didn't make the cut for the blog. Think of it as "deleted scenes."
From one sport to the next! Last time it was football camp. This time: soccer!
As you may know, Lucas played soccer for the first time this year. Well, "real" soccer anyway. When he was 4, he did some sort of soccer playgroup type thing, but that doesn't count. Anyway, he's had a fairly good time although he's missed quite a few practices and games due to vacations, but I guess that's just summer being summer.
This past Tuesday, several of the West Ottawa Soccer Club teams got a chance to meet the players of the Ottawa Fury, our professional soccer team. They're in the NASL, which is one level below the MSL. I thought it was just going to be us watching their practice, but it ended up being about 45 minutes of the kids scrimmaging with the players and then another 20-30 minutes of doing autographs. As a result, the kids had an absolute blast.
Prior to the Fury players arriving, the WOSC coaches combined all the kids, regardless of age or gender, and let them scrimmage. It was pretty cool since Lucas was able to play with kids the were 2-3 years older than him and he hung in there.
Once the players did arrive, they formed a game that was mostly U8 Boys vs U8 Girls. It's the first time I can recall that I've seen boys against girls in any sport, and I was honestly a little surprised at just how much the boys dominated the girls. I mean, I know males are generally stronger/faster/etc than females, but I didn't expect such a big difference at this age. It also didn't help the girls that the boys were much more aggressive when going for the ball. Suffice to say, the Fury players helped the girls out quite a bit more than the boys, in order to keep it close.
As I mentioned above, the last part of the event was an autograph session. Lucas initially had the players sign a little booklet that they had given out, but by the end he was having them sign his shoes. Here, he points out the perfect placement for a signature.
You can't have a meet the players event without getting a picture with the mascot. In this case, it's Sparky. Incidentally, Lucas had Sparky sign his name on the back of both of his shoes.
Since I haven't posted many videos lately, here are a few from the event.
First up, a bit from the scrimmage with the Fury.
This second one is a shorter clip from the game and was about the closest Lucas got to getting the ball from a Fury player.
Finally, Lucas taking a shot at one of the Fury goalies.
I don't expect anyone from the Fury will see this, but I did want to mention that the whole event was a class act. The players were both friendly and accessible, and the kids were kept entertained throughout the full session. I definitely hope they do something like this again next year.
Since we're out of town again this coming week (Massachusetts again), I wanted to get a few pictures uploaded before we leave. I'll also try and update via my phone at least once while we are gone.
As you may know, Lucas had a football camp this week. He's been interested in playing it for several years, but you can't start until 8 in Ottawa. Since playing in a league is a pretty big time commitment, we wanted to let him try this first. Then, if he's still interested, he can play next year since his plate is full this year with soccer and hockey (and probably swim lessons).
Since the clock just passed 1 AM, I'm just going to post a few highlights from the open scrimmage they had today on the last day of camp. When I get back, I'll post any others that seem worthy (plus a video or two). If you're having trouble locating Lucas in any of the pictures, he's #64 and he is one of the shortest kids on the field. He was in the 8-10 age group, and I think the majority of kids were 9 or 10.
The first photo is from one of the running drills they did at the beginning. Nothing too special, but since none of the other photos are "active" ones, I wanted to show that he did move.
He saw me taking photos so of course that meant to cover his face.
This was one of the biggest kids in the camp. I get a kick out of the size disparity between him and Lucas. That said, it was cool to see Lucas hang out and hang with the older kids.
Setting up in the backfield as a running back.
I thought this photo was amusing since it looks like he's giving the team a pep talk. It probably wasn't anything of the sort, but that's what I choose to believe.
I can't remember what restaurant we were at here, but Lucas asked to borrow my glasses so he could pretend to be a nerd.
From the Women's World Cup games that Marilu and Lucas attended. (after posting this, I realized the 2nd picture below is a repost, but oh well...it's cute and you can never have too much cute)
And we'll close out with Lucas showing off his new street hockey goalie gear.
I received some sad news out of Newfoundland this morning. Marilu's Uncle Colin passed away during the night. He had been in a coma this past week and wasn't expected to survive, but that doesn't really lessen the impact on those lives he had touched. Unfortunately, I never got to know him well since I didn't visit Newfoundland often, but he was a big part of Marilu's family's life and Lucas really liked him.
Here are some photos of Colin that we took over the years.
It's been a while since my last post, due to equal parts vacation and procrastination. So to get back on track, here's a photo from our trip to Massachusetts, while I sit at the park watching Lucas and his friend Zach. This was taken on our first night there. As you can see, my mom set up a tent for him inside the house. Suffice to say, he loved this sleeping arrangement.
On a related note, Zach slept over last night, making that Lucas's first time hosting a sleepover. I'm sure it's the beginning of many to come.
