Newfoundland in Pictures: Part 2

More pictures from Marilu and Lucas's trip to Newfoundland in July.

A rare picture of Lucas with Marilu's dad. Hopefully, with their move from Labrador, Lucas will get to see him more often.


Having fun down by the water.





I have no idea.


Hanging out by the water with his Nanny.

Newfoundland in Pictures: Part 1

As most of you probably know, Marilu and Lucas vacationed in Newfoundland for nearly 3 weeks in July. Not surprisingly, a lot of pictures were taken of Lucas during that time frame. Unfortunately, since I was not there and don't know the story about any of these pictures, I really don't have anything to add. As such, the next few entries are just going to contain pictures (and possibly videos) that Marilu took that I happened to like. I'll then put all of the pictures into their own album on my Picasa site so you can browse the rest at your leisure.

So without any further adieu, part 1 of the trip to Newfoundland.

Ok, I can comment on this first one since we took it at our front door. Here's Lucas in his traveling duds, getting ready for the drive to the airport in Montreal.


I can also comment on this one since it's from that night. Lucas with his Uncle Steve and Nanny (Marilu's mom) at the restaurant. My guess is Don Cherry's, but I could be wrong.


I didn't expect to say much, but note the shoe choices. A rain boot and what I believe is a woman's shoe. Really?


If you click on this picture, check out Lucas's expression. Priceless.


The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Or orange, as the case may be.



More tomorrow!

Short-term plans

This weekend was a long weekend in Ontario, and we took advantage of that to relax at the cottage of some friends of ours for a couple of days. Now we're back, and that means I'll be posting some more pictures very soon. I think I'm going to take a break from catching up on old photos for a few days and upload the pictures Marilu took while the two of them were on vacation in Newfoundland. Be on the lookout for that over the next week or so.

The Carnival

Back in May, we decided to go to Ottawa's Victoria Day Festival. It actually runs from May 13th to the 24th, so it's not really on a single day, but that's neither here nor there. Suffice to say there was a festival in Ottawa sometime in May and we went.

This marked Lucas's first trip to a carnival. We were going to go to the mega-huge Super EX carnival last fall, but for one reason or another, we decided not to. I know I was really looking forward to it since I was excited to see how he would like the rides. Marilu had brought him on a couple kiddie rides when they went to Marineland/Niagara Falls earlier this year, but this would be my first experience with him. So lots of firsts for everyone!

The first attraction he wanted to go on was a multi-level fun house type thing. Of course, he decides Dad has to go with him, which wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have an abject fear of heights. From three stories up, this thing looked and felt about as stable as you expect most midway rides and attractions to be, so my heart was hammering in my chest when I crossed the rope bridge. Lucas had a blast though so I guess that is all that matters. You can't see Lucas that well in the first picture below, but I wanted to give you an idea what the overall contraption looked like.


This was my favorite part. Taking the slide down and getting the hell off that deathtrap. For what it's worth, I think Marilu did a fantastic job taking these two pictures.



I think Lucas has been on a merry-go-round at some point in the past, but I can't for the life of me think of where. Maybe the pier in Santa Monica? I don't know. As a result, here's a picture of him on the carousel at the carnival, and we can all pretend it's his first time on one.


The one ride I did put my foot down as a "no way in hell" was the Ferris wheel. I'm sure they are as safe as can be, but I'll let others chance the odds, thank you very much. Here, we see Lucas and Marilu getting buckled in by the operator, no doubt an ex-biker gang member with a meth addiction who works the Ferris wheel in between week-long blackouts.


I'm pretty sure Lucas ended up in this pink dune buggy since it was one of the only cars remaining when he got on the ride. I don't believe it was an enthusiastic choice. Not that there's anything wrong with that.


More vehicle riding by the kid.


Self-portrait by the artists.

Mr. Rugged

What better way to experience the great outdoors--in this case, our fenced-in backyard--than in a pair of underwear? With one's t-shirt tucked into it, no less.


A real working man doesn't let a silly dress code keep him from shoveling.


For what it's worth, the area he is digging in is now the location of a brand new sandbox that I built for him while he was on vacation in Newfoundland. I'll have pictures of that up in a future post.

They're Back!

For those of you keeping track of such things, Marilu and Lucas are home safe and sound. Their flight was delayed nearly 2 hours, which made for a fun wait at the airport in Montreal, but since that's the worst thing that happened, it was a successful day.

Mother's Day

I already posted a Mother's Day picture of Lucas with my mom and Marilu way back in May, but there are some other good ones from that day that I wanted to let you see.

Looking out the window when I woke up on Mother's Day, I noticed we had been hit with an unexpected snowfall. Suffice to say I didn't wish Mother Nature a very happy Mother's Day. As you can see, though, Lucas was all over it.


A nice shot of the two moms.


We had a brunch buffet at Prime 360, a fantastic steak house located in downtown Ottawa. I would highly recommend the Mother's Day brunch to anyone in Ottawa since it isn't very pricey (relatively speaking), and the food is top-notch. I don't think Lucas was particularly angry in this photo; I just think the camera caught him in between expressions.


I'm not quite sure what the heck was going on here.


Lucas shows off his spiffy Spider-Man jacket.


Finally, exhibiting a trend that I figured wouldn't happen until he was in his teens, Lucas lets his pajama bottoms sag, showing off his Spider-Man underwear.

Follow-up to follow-up

I just realized that I explained the whole scooter vs pajamas thing back in this post: http://babydeal.blogspot.com/2010/05/musings-and-regrets.html. Oh well, redundancy makes you remember, or something like that.

Follow-up to scooter post

I just remembered what it was that my mom and Kevin brought up in May that Lucas REALLY liked: Spider-Man pajamas. Even though he was anticipating the scooter for the better part of a month, once he got it, he spent 5-10 minutes with it. However, as soon as he saw the pajamas, he couldn't put them on fast enough. In fact, the outfit he is wearing in the first half of the last post (blue top, red shorts) are the PJs. We told him he couldn't wear them outside, but he absolutely insisted. So there you go.

Scooter Time

Way back at the beginning of May, my mom and Kevin came up to visit. We had told Lucas several weeks before that they were bringing him a Spider-Man scooter, and I'm (not) ashamed to admit that we used it as blackmail (i.e., "if you don't go to sleep, we're calling Grammy and telling her not to bring the scooter"). It worked mostly so you do what ya gotta do.

Unfortunately, we didn't get any good pictures of him on the scooter. After all that waiting, he spent about 5 minutes with it, before becoming enthralled with something else they brought. I can't recall what at the moment, but it was something very simple, as is usually the case with kids. We probably could have just handed him a box with a sketch of Spider-Man on the side, and he would have been just as thrilled. Anyway, regarding scooter pics, here's the best of the worst.


To make up for it, here's a real cute picture of him and Kevin on the couch.


In other news, while Marilu and Lucas were over in Newfoundland, I spent some time building him a brand-new sandbox (between sleeping in, drinking many adult beverages, and eating a ridiculous amount of meat). It's not going to win any construction awards, but it's the first thing I can remember building by myself in recent memory so I'm kinda proud of it. When Lucas gets back, I'll be sure to get some pictures of him playing in it. Later!

(Whoops, just found a couple good scooter pictures from the next day. Check 'em out!)

Cold face

In my opinion, this is the funniest picture I've taken of Lucas in a long time. He's done his "cold" face in the past, and we may even have photos or video of it, but in this instance, I caught it at the exact right moment. Great stuff.


In the following video, you can see the process of trying to get him to make the face. I think he is playing with us since he keeps looking at Marilu as she makes stupid faces.

Grizzly Adams

Those of you who know me know that I am not an outdoorsman by any stretch of the imagination. I can't fathom why anyone would want to sleep in a tent if they have air conditioning and a king-sized bed. That said, I do want Lucas to have those experiences so I plan to bring him out from time to time. So far, we've only gone on a couple of short hikes in the woods near our subdivision, but down the line, I'll try and do more.

The pictures below are from a hike we had in April. He really seemed to enjoy it though I made the mistake of mentioning that we might see deer so he was fixated on deer for the majority of the hike. Alas, no deer showed their faces that day.


Relaxing on the trail with a cool drink.



Posing on the car at the end of the hike.


Finally, a video from the hike. Lucas found a dead tree and had quite a fun time tearing the bark off of it. Really cute stuff.

Relaxing

Nothing says "cool" like this picture.

New look

Just used Blogger's template designer to set up a new look for the blog. I'll probably tweak it a bit when I get a chance, but for now, let me know if you have any issues viewing the blog as a result of the changes.

Also, in case you didn't notice, the blog entry immediately below this one is new.

Anatomy of a Craft

At Lucas's daycare, they make a staggering number of crafts. For someone who considers coloring, painting, and Play-Doh about the limit of my crafting knowledge, I am constantly amazed at some of the things he comes home with. Case in point? A pirate ship made from a box, a cardboard tube, and a few other materials. I was actually quite impressed.

As with most crafts Lucas brings home, this one didn't last a considerable amount of time. For whatever reason, he delights in the destruction of his creations as much, if not more, than the actual building process. A benevolent god, he is not.

Unfortunately, he wasn't in the mood for a picture the day he brought the ship home so this is the best shot I have of him and the craft.


Skip to a mere three days later...the pirate ship is long gone, and the box has been repurposed to Lucas's needs.

Our little thug

Back in April, Lucas received a long-sleeve Spider-Man shirt from the 6 year-old son of his daycare provider's neighbor. Lucas happens to really like her son, and as a result, this shirt rocketed to the top of his favorite shirt list. If he sees it, he HAS to wear it. There's been times where he has worn it all day, kept it on for bed, and then fought with me when I tried to take it off of him the following morning. Being long-sleeve, we pretty much had to hide it once the warm weather arrived since he would likely prefer heat stroke to removing it.

One of the things I haven't mentioned about it yet is that is has a hood, which Lucas refuses to put down while he is wearing the shirt. The result is that we have a 3-year-old kid running around the house looking like a hoodlum on "long-sleeve Spider-Man shirt" days. See the pictures below to get an idea of what I am talking about.

Of course, nothing says "thug" like eating pancakes.



"But mom, I'm trying to look tough!"


I think Marilu is mocking him here.


I stand corrected, nothing says "thug" like eating pancakes while your mommy reads a Caillou book to you.



I wrap this post up with an extremely rare shot of Hoodlumus Toddlerus with his hood down. I guess he felt the backwards hat would keep his street cred intact.

The Dynamic Duo

One afternoon, I showed Lucas how you could tie a blanket around your neck and make a cape. Of course, that led to us dressing up as the least threatening superhero duo of all time. Though he DOES have a pretty fierce face right there so I wouldn't mess with Lil Critter.


Incidentally, I like this picture so much, it's been my Facebook profile pic since the day I took it back in April.