Christmas 2010 in Newfoundland: Part 1

Hello again, everybody! We're all back safe and sound in Ottawa. Marilu and Lucas flew in early yesterday afternoon whereas I got in at 1:30 AM last night (Sun night/Mon morning). That would explain why I didn't post last night. I finally got to sleep at 3, and then Lucas decided he would make this morning one of his "early" mornings and got up around the same time as Marilu (5 something) so that made for a bleary-eyed morning for yours truly. I napped a bit later so all was not lost.

Anyway, we took a little over 60 photos during our week in Newfoundland, and I'm going to post the highlights over the next 2-3 blog entries. I'll warn you in advance that you are not going to see a lot of beautiful Newfoundland scenery (of which there is much). Unfortunately, the main theme of our trip was being sick--all 3 of us--so we didn't do a whole lot while we were there. It's too bad since the weather was unseasonably warm. Heck, there wasn't even any snow!

Onwards to the photos!

We had a stopover in Halifax on the way to St John's. Between the scheduled wait and delays, we were stuck there for well over 4 hours. We started to get a little stir crazy, especially since Lucas refused to be in any gear other than "high energy." That led to this photo, where we wanted to make sure Lucas met the requirements for carry on luggage.


Pretty much the first thing we did when we arrived at Marilu's parents' house was to let Lucas open all the presents they and other family members had bought for him. As you can see in the picture below, it was like Christmas all over again as he attacked wrapping paper like it was a mortal enemy.


Cute picture from breakfast the next morning with his Nanny. I should point out that Marilu took any photos from before 11 AM throughout the trip. Thanks to my cold, I slept in big time the first few days, and by the time I was getting over it, I had screwed up my sleep schedule so much that I wasn't able to get to sleep before 3-4 AM each night.


Playing around with one of his new presents, Plastic-Man and some bad guy.


The next day, Lucas was rooting around some of their older toys and he ran across this light gun from the old Nintendo game Duck Hunt. Although he has no idea what its original purpose is, he sure had a fun time running around the yard with it.


I think this was the first time I left the house since we had arrived 2 days before. A stuffed up head and sore throat will do that to you.


"Take that, you evil puddle of DOOM!"


Another old "toy" Lucas found was something called Crazy Bones. I have no idea what they were supposed to be--besides the purported insane bits of calcium--but they kept Lucas occupied for a long time in the days to follow.


Getting a good picture of Lucas with other people in the shot tends to be a very difficult task nowadays. That's why I was amazed at just how fantastic this picture with his Uncle Steve and his girlfriend Jen came out. Side note: I can't emphasize how much Lucas enjoyed their presence and playing with them. We asked him earlier tonight what his favorite part of the trip was and he responded with "Jen and Steve."


This group shot wasn't quite as good, but for a Lucas photo, it still turned out relatively well. Three generations...


That's all for now. I'll probably be able to wrap the trip up with one more entry, hopefully tomorrow. Until then, have a good one!

Update

Greetings, all! I just wanted to send out a quick update to let you know that despite what I said in my last entry, there will be no picture updates until we get back to Ottawa. Although Marilu's parents do have internet access, they don't have a wireless router so I can't easily get my laptop connected to upload pictures. That said, we are taking plenty of pictures so once we return (Jan 2), I will do my best to get all of them online as soon as possible.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas, and here's wishing you a happy New Year!

Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas, for those of you reading this in the hour we have left before the 26th. For the rest of you, hope you had a great Christmas. I'm going to make this quick since I took some night time cold medicine not too long ago and may be slipping toward unconsciousness soon.

The day Lucas has been waiting in excited anticipation for finally arrived, and he was raring to go as soon as he woke up at 7 something this morning. Considering the number of adult beverages I enjoyed at last night's Christmas Eve party, I would preferred a later wake-up call, but such is the price of being a parent.

It was a Herculean task getting him to pose as he opened up presents since he wanted to keep the unwrapping going strong, but I did manage a few good ones, as evidenced below.






We saved the best for last: the coveted Batman Cave. He has been wanting this for months, and as Christmas approached, it was a perfect tool for blackmail. "If you don't do , Santa will know and might not bring you the Batman Cave!" Ah, blackmail, a necessary tool of parenting. Here he is with his prize.


Playing with the Cave. Surprisingly, he played with just about every gift he got today. However, this took up the vast majority of his time, with the bucket of Play-Doh being a distant second.


Christmas dinner with Marilu and Lucas. If you look closely, you can see a scratch on Marilu's face where Lucas "accidentally" scratched her last night.


This is what I get nowadays when I ask for a cheese. In its own way, it's more amusing than the cheeseface.


We finish up with the bathtub. One of his new gifts was a Spiderman shaving kit with a plastic razor and real shaving cream. As you can see here, he doesn't totally understand the concept (unless he is metrosexual), but he sure had fun with it.


Just a reminder that we will be flying to St John's, Newfoundland, tomorrow morning. I'll be taking my laptop so I should be able to continue updating. We'll be there for a week, getting back next Sunday. In the meantime, I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday week. Take care!

Oktoberfest

October started off well. We went to an Oktoberfest celebration, hosted by Beau's Brewery, about an hour east of Ottawa. I haven't been to any form of Oktoberfest since my first year in Atlanta (1998) so this was a welcome outing. There was a large selection of beers (for a fest), and I ended up passed out in the car on the drive home, so I would call the day a success!

Showing off the spiffy hats that came with the admission fee.


Lucas posing with Gracie, the daughter of the people we went with. Well, I'm not so sure it was posing as yelling at the camera, but six of one, half dozen of another...


Playing around in the children's area.


You can't really see it well (other than the stem), but I think he was trying to show off the painted pumpkin he made in the children's area.

Temptation

We put up our Christmas tree a couple of weeks ago, but we've been hesitant to put any presents under the tree since we weren't sure how Lucas was going to react. About a week ago, we received a wrapped present in the mail (from cousin Elise), and Marilu and I decided to put it under the tree after he went to bed that night to see what he would do the next day.

As with most weekday mornings, I'm the one that gets up with Lucas since Marilu is usually off to work at some unearthly hour. The two of us came downstairs, and I believe it took him a grand total of about 10 seconds to notice the new present. He immediately rushed over to it and asked questions ranging from "where did this come from?" to "can I open it?" The latter outnumbered the former about 20 to 1.

I found the whole thing really amusing since the temptation of Lucas to just tear the wrapping paper off in a frenzy, despite my warnings not to, was thick in the air. In the end, he did manage to control himself, but I got these pictures of him to record the proceedings.

From Let's Make a Deal!

Pride of Ownership

Last night, Lucas came into bed with us since he wasn't feeling well. He lay down, and we were about a foot apart, face-to-face. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing somewhat heavily. I lay there looking at him for several minutes when suddenly, he opened his eyes. He saw me watching him and immediately a huge smile appeared on his face. A couple of moments passed and then he leaned forward and gave me a kiss.

At that moment, all the trials and tribulations of being a parent flew out the window. At that moment, I was just so happy to be his dad.

The Hair: Before and After

If you've been paying even the slightest bit of attention to Lucas's more recent pictures, you've probably noticed that his hair was getting, well, big. Depending on how you view curly hair, genetics has either cursed or blessed him with my hair type. I try to keep mine on the short side since once it grows out a bit, it gets crazy. The same goes for Lucas.

We already realized it, but it wasn't until I took this picture of him as he woke up one morning last week that it really kicked in that he needed a haircut.


As a result, we finally made an appointment for a haircut, which lucky us, was yesterday morning in the freezing rain and hail. Marilu was kind enough to take a "before" picture (notwithstanding the stellar photo above).


And I took one of him as we had a post-haircut KFC lunch. Still a little wacky but under much more control.


Now we're good for another 6 months. :)

September Summarized

Whew, it's been a busy week. I spent the last few days working on an offer on a townhouse for some clients, but that fell through last night so we'll be back looking on Friday afternoon. I've also managed to get sick yet again as I've been dealing with a sore throat and stuffed-up head since yesterday morning. Ah, the joys of winter. Speaking of winter, or rather a time that WASN'T winter, let's see what was going on in Lucas's life back in September.

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but Lucas's hair is long. Really long. I don't think we've had it cut since March or April. It doesn't seem quite as long as a kid with straight hair, but the curls are getting more bouncy by the day. We really do need to get him a haircut soon, but I'd be lying if I didn't say the long, curly hair is cute. What does all of this have to do with September? Glad you asked! Although his hair wasn't as long as it is now, it was still getting pretty bouffant-ish, and I decided to comb his hair straight back and see what kind of volume I could get with it. The results follow:



Who knows what transpires in the minds of children? One evening, Lucas got it in his head that he wanted to make a trail of towels through the first floor. I'm not sure what the point of it was, but he seemed to enjoy it.


This was about a month and a half early, but Lucas tested out his Halloween costume. On Halloween night, he decided to go with a different mask since this one kept getting sucked into his mouth as he breathed.


If I recall correctly, I had him alone that night as Marilu had something or another she had to attend. As part of his bedtime bargaining (a.k.a. how can I stay up as late as possible), he asked if he could sleep in the hallway upstairs. I was skeptical about how well this would work, but not an hour later, voila!


Here are a few pictures from his friend Genevieve's birthday party. I wasn't able to make it so this will have to be one of those times where a picture will be worth a thousand words. All I know is that he wouldn't go on the pony ride, which is odd since he rode on a full-grown horse in Massachusetts this summer.




Finally, here are a couple of crappy photos (brought to you by the Apple iPhone) from our day at the Carp Fair as well as dinner at the fantastic Cheshire Cat.



And that's it for September, probably our most photo-phobic month since Lucas was born. Things have picked back up since then so expect lots of great photos in the weeks ahead. Night all!

Closing out August

A week after the trip to Massachusetts, we were off again. This time, a weekend trip to Niagara Falls and then the Toronto Zoo. We didn't really do much at the Falls since we were basically just there since it was conveniently located near our friends Wes and Kelly, who we were visiting the next day. As such, this is the only photo I took of the Falls themselves.

That's right. A crappy iPhone shot taken at night from about 6,000 miles away. You wouldn't even know what it was if I didn't tell you. Ah, the memories.


Here, Lucas and I pose in our hotel room. We stayed at the Hilton, which was pretty cool since the pool had a full-sized water slide. Though like everything else in Niagara, anything you bought there was ridiculously overpriced. Lunch for the 3 of us at a freakin' Macaroni Grill cost us nearly $80. What the hell?


I wish I could show you the pictures of Lucas checking himself out in the hotel room mirror when he was naked since they were funny as hell, but it's probably not wise to post that in a public location.

The next day, we went to see Wes and Kelly, who live in nearby Hamilton. Lucas had a good time playing with their sons, Brody and Carson.



On our last day, we went to the Toronto Zoo. It's a very nice zoo, but it's so humongous. This was our second time there, and both times, I felt physically exhausted by the end of the day.

Trying to catch the elephant in the background without cutting Marilu and Lucas out of the photo entirely.


Let's hear it for rhinos!


Cute picture of Lucas.


I'm not sure why, but I really like how this picture came out.


On the drive home, Lucas got a hold of the hotel parking pass and put it on the inside of his soother, thus leading to the situation below. I thought it was neat that he came up with that on his own.


And that ends August. Since there are only about 10 pictures from all of September, we should be at October in no time. And you were worried we were falling behind. Ha!

Onward to August

Ok, I really need to get my butt in gear here. I've finally caught up to August, but it's now December. You do the math. Granted, I've already posted the majority of the August photos after our trip to Massachusetts, and then we barely took any in September, but it's the principle of the whole thing. So I'm going to do my best to update at least 3 times a week from now until Christmas. Feel free to call me on this if I am failing in my endeavor (I say this knowing full well that my mom will).

No better place to start than on August 1. Between the Newfoundland and Massachusetts trips, we took time off one weekend to spend a couple days at our friends' cottage on a river northwest of Ottawa. It was a nice, very relaxing time, made all the better by the fact that they had an 11 or 12 year old daughter who helped watch the kids.





After we got back from Massachusetts, I gave Marilu a break from the little guy and brought him to the local sci/tech museum. Not the world's greatest museum (or even Ottawa's), but it kept him entertained for a couple of hours, which is all that really matters. Unfortunately, I don't have any quality pictures from that trip since I was using my iPhone, and unless you have more light than 100 blazing suns in a room, it tends to take crappy shots. However, you do get this decent one from home right before we left. :)


A few days later, Lucas played dress-up with his Batman costume. The picture is kind of blurry, but I had to post it so I could then have context for the next one, featuring his arch-nemesis, Batmom.



After a long day of battling the evil villains, a superhero doesn't care how he sleeps on the bed.


This seems as good a place to wrap the post up for today. Hopefully, I'll get another one up tomorrow since Saturday is going to be busy: a kids Christmas party in the morning, showing houses in the afternoon, and housewarming party at night for my first buyer clients.