Football Redux

As promised, here are the last of the summer sports pictures. I know I posted a few of them around the time his football camp happened (end of August), but here's the rest as well as some videos. These were all taken on the last day when they had an open practice/scrimmage for the parents to come out and watch. (for a refresher, you can see the previous pictures here)

Here you can see the size differential between Lucas (just to the right of center) and most of the other kids. I'm pretty sure he was one of the youngest kids there, if not the youngest.

Push the other person drill!

Huddling up. The size thing just plain amuses me.

It was hard to get action shots of him, due to the number of the people on the field, but directly in the center of this one, you can see him trying to tackle the runner, who has the stiff arm out.

Resting between plays.

That's him in the backfield, on the far right, ready to go!

I think it may have been a run for a loss, but he did have a rushing play. That's him with the ball on the ground.

More lining up.

In today's edition of Where's Waldo/Lucas, see if you can find him!

In case you're tired of looking, he's in the last kneeling row, on the left side, and he's yelling so you can see his open mouth. I know I posted one of him posing for the camera in the other blog entry, but here's another one since why not?

The videos are going to take a while to process in YouTube so I'll wrap this up here, and add them to a second entry tomorrow or this weekend. See you then!

The agony of...

On Saturday, the Zombies lost their first game, 3-1. I'm not really sure what was up with them since pretty much the whole team played at half speed. The team they were playing against weren't anything special so maybe this was just a fluke. I know the coach is still letting kids try different positions, and some of the kids didn't seem to know their positions (particularly defense) that well so that can probably be resolved in a practice or two.

Since it's been a while, here are some pictures. These are the last of his soccer ones, taken at the end-of-the-season tournament at the end of August. If I want to post any more sport-related ones, I guess that means I need to start taking hockey pictures, right?

(I just realized that Windows 10 makes it pretty easy to crop photos quickly so from now on, I'll try and edit the photos beforehand to center or zoom them on the subject--usually Lucas--better.)

Believe it or not, I did crop this first picture to focus more on Lucas. Suffice to say, the original was not so good.

Fighting for the ball. Lucas and the kid in the next few photos were the most physical players on their team so they had fun scrapping with each other.

You can tell he's winded here.

Soccer Boy!

I just noticed I have a folder full of all his football camp photos so I guess I'm not done with the athletic stuff just yet. I PROMISE I will post those this week. And on the near horizon, I'm going to start working on the summer vacation stuff (Newfoundland and Massachusetts).

Game 2

It's been a great start to the season for the Zombies. They followed up their 5-2 win last week with a 5-0 shutout Sunday morning. Lucas didn't have any points, but he still had a great game with 5 or 6 good chances.

It's amazing to watch the difference between the Zombies and the Coyotes (last year's team). The kids are already playing very well as a team. In particular, they pass a lot when on offense, and almost all of them are aware that they need to play defense. Last year, his team got caught by breakaways ALL THE TIME since all of the kids would be in the opponent's zone. Contrast that to yesterday's game where the other team was only able to get one shot on goal, and the Zombies controlled the puck for nearly 3/4 of the game.

It's possible that we lucked out and played two of the worst teams in the division, but based on what I've seen so far, I think it's going to be a bright season for Lucas and the rest of the Zombies. Pictures soon!

Game On!

The first official game of hockey season is in the books. Although they started off slow, giving up 2 goals, the Zombies than scored 5 straight to take the game 5-2. In even more exciting news, Lucas had both a goal and an assist. His goal was pretty too, lifting it over the goalie on a breakaway. Considering he had a total of 3-4 goals with the Coyotes, this is a nice change of pace over last year.

We were too focused on the game today so we didn't take any pictures, but I'll be sure to get some as the season continues. In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures from a completely different sport that were taken over the summer to tide you over.

Halloween 2015

For Halloween this year, Lucas was going to go as WWE wrestler John Cena. Then about two weeks ago, he announced that he wanted to go as Ra, a mummy on one of his favorite TV shows, Casper's Scare School. If you haven't heard of it, you're probably not alone. It only had 2 seasons and wrapped up in 2012 (haha, "wrapped." See what I did there?). The only reason Lucas knows about it is that it's currently on Netflix. Anyway, here's a picture of what Ra looks like.

And here's a couple of photos of Lucas in costume (designed by Marilu). You can probably guess which one is the Nikon and which was taken on the iPhone.

Unfortunately, we didn't think to get a picture of Lucas and his friend Zach until they had already started tearing off their costumes so that's all I can post on that front.

In closing, here's a picture of our pumpkins this year. As you can see, we went with a Minions theme. Incidentally, the painted one is a white pumpkin. In retrospect, I probably didn't need to spend the extra $1 on a white pumpkin if it just ended up painted, but hindsight is 20/20. Whatever the case, lots of kids complimented them so that's all I care about.

Another before and after

About 15 minutes ago, Lucas got one of his most drastic "before and after" haircuts yet. He wanted to get it cut short toward the beginning of the school year in early September, but we made him keep it longer for his school picture, which was today. We said if he did that, he could get it cut however he wanted (within reason...no stupid mohawks, for instance). Lucas decided on a John Cena haircut, and if you're not familiar with the WWE wrestler, he wears it in a very short, military cut. Here's an example:

So without any further adieu, here's the before photo of Lucas with his wavy locks...

...and here he is with virtually no locks of any type.

I'm not a big fan of it since I like longer hair, but he's loving it. So I guess that's what matters. At least he won't be complaining about hair getting in his eyes when he puts on his hockey helmet anymore.

Hockey's Going Great!

No pictures in this post, but I wanted to give an update on Lucas's hockey season. I gotta say, this year's almost like watching a completely different kid from last year. He's been a much more confident and aggressive player thus far, so much so that in his first exhibition game, Marilu said, "I can't believe that's our kid!"

He's not the fastest player on the ice, and he probably will never lead the team in scoring, but what he does have going for him is awareness. Last year, there was a kid on his team named Noah, and every time he was on the ice, I felt more confident for the Coyotes since he was always in the right position, whether it was for an offensive or defensive play. I told Marilu that that's exactly who Lucas has reminded me of so far this year.

The icing on the cake was this past Sunday, after Lucas's second exhibition game. His coach gave out post game "awards" for the first time, which went to the hardest working player and the smartest player, and Lucas was awarded the latter. Now I realize throughout the season, just about every kid will be named one or the other at some point, but he legitimately did earn it in that game. Hell, he probably had a shot at the former since he was backchecking like a madman, breaking up all kinds of scoring chances for the other team.

Anyway, the point of this post is just to say that I'm proud of Lucas and how far he's come in just a little over two years. This season ought to be a fun one, and I'll be sure to get lots of pictures!

It's the little things

While I am not a big fan of the cooling fall weather, Lucas has been looking forward to making a pile of leaves that he can jump in. Yesterday, he got his wish.

Team Name

I'm sure everyone is waiting with bated breath for this announcement so without any further adieu, Lucas's hockey team named themselves the Zombies. The coach had asked for suggestions from the kids during the week, and there were 4 variations on zombies (Lucas being one of them with Zombie Squad) so rather than a drawn out voting process, that's what they are. You can now return to your holiday weekend, be it Thanksgivibg or Colombus Day.

More Random Stuff from the Summer

Some random pictures from the iPhone taken this summer.

Lucas chugging down a root beer at what I believe is Jack Astor's restaurant. They have their own brand of root beer and bring it to you in a bottle so that narrows the choices down. (I was just looking at the blog to make sure I hadn't posted the next picture, and I realize I already posted this one since it was from his birthday lunch. Oh well, double the pleasure and all that.)

Showing off the street hockey gear he got for his birthday. It's actually seen a lot of use this summer since the kids have been playing outside a lot, particularly since school started.

Lucas shows off his photography skills with this shot of Marilu.

The three of us in a paddleboat on Dow's Lake. I don't know if we got a defective boat, or if they are just naturally hard to navigate, but man, that thing was a serious pain in the butt. Beautiful day though.

These last three photos are from a short hike we did at Fitzroy Provincial Park. It's quite a step down from going to Gatineau Park, but it's a bit closer plus there was a beach where we spent an hour or two so all in all, it was a good time.

Since taking these photos, I've lost over 20 lbs and Marilu is down quite a bit too. Woohoo for healthy living!

Let's Play!

And so it begins again. Lucas's third year of hockey, second in Novice. After his first weekend of practices, he's more excited about hockey than he's ever been in the past. It probably doesn't hurt that he knows several kids on his team (to be named next week...the team, not the kids).

The kids posed for pictures after practice today since the team gets $500 from Dodge for showing off their nameplate. That's why the jerseys are on backwards. 

If you haven't figured it out yet, Lucas is #5 on the left.