Newfoundland 2012 - Part 3 (Around the House)

Although we did do a bit of sightseeing, a large portion of our Newfoundland trip was spent in Holyrood at Marilu's parents' house. As such, the theme of this post is "Hangin' around the house."

These first few photos were taken during the week I wasn't there so I'm not totally sure what's going on in some of them. Obviously, Lucas is playing in the backyard, and he apparently had a bucket to collect stuff with. I'm a true master of the obvious, folks.

Bored? Go down to the basement and play ball!

Bingo time with Marilu and Lucas!

What a cute smile on Lucas in this one.

Sometimes we can be serious for a photo.

Other times? Less so.

And finally, a video of Lucas playing soccer with his Poppy in the front yard. Based on Marilu's comments in the background, this is a decidedly rare occurrence for her dad.

Newfoundland 2012 - Part 2 (Signal Hill)

Since I haven't really had a chance to do the tourist thing much in my previous trips to Newfoundland, we made more of an effort this time. Of course, no trip to St John's is complete without seeing Signal Hill, which overlooks the harbor.

One of the things they do at Signal Hill is re-enact an attack by the dirty French soldiers. Below you can see some pictures of the Canadian soldiers in uniform as well as their encampment.

Rather than be lazy and drive to the top, we decided to make the short hike up the trail. You can get an idea of how much we walked via the previous picture. That's the tower up at the top of the picture.

We were able to get several nice pictures on the trail, and as you can see, there is quite a scenic view of downtown St. John's.

Finally, a couple of close pictures of the main draw, Cabot Tower.

If you look real closely at the last picture, you can see Marilu and Lucas at the top of the tower. This was our second visit to Signal Hill, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting St John's.

Newfoundland 2012 - Part 1 (The Family Photos)

This past July, Marilu and Lucas headed out to Newfoundland for their annual summer visit. What made this trip a little different is that I joined them a week or so later. Overall, we had a good time as we were able to mix relaxing around the house with some touristy stuff. I'll get to the scenic photos shortly, but I want to start off with family photos. We took some great pictures of Lucas with various members of Marilu's family, and we may as well show them off.

Not much to say here. I like to think of this entry as a mini family portrait album so feel free to download and forward these to other family members who don't check out the blog regularly.

Up next, hangin' at the house!

About time

For those of you who have been anticipating the Newfoundland photos, I've started organizing them for upload tonight and should have the first post up sometime tomorrow. 

That is all.

Best. Picture. Ever.

In the five years of Lucas's existence, this is likely my favorite picture of him. It's from a while back, March actually, and it was taken while we waited in the examination room at the doctor's office for some malady or another. None of this is staged--it was all his doing--which is what makes it so great. Rather than talk any more about it, I'll step back and let you revel in its majesty.

Halloween 2012

The fates were conspiring to prevent Halloween this year. First, Hurricane Sandy was supposed to drop a bunch of rain on us today, but all we ended up getting was a light sprinkle early in the day. Then Lucas came home from school with a fever, and it looked like trick or treating was a no go. However, some children's Advil and what I suspect was a fair amount of adrenaline gave him the push to get out there and collect chocolate bars and chips from nearly every house on our street.

Here he is costume, right before Marilu took him trick or treating. I've taken him every other year so we figured she deserved to go this time.

He did end up vomiting in bed around 10:30 PM, and I'm sure the candy he ate when he got home had something to do with it, but for now, I'm going to mainly blame his fever.

Happy Halloween!

Saunders Farm with the Grandparents

Here are the rest of the pictures from my mom and Kevin's visit last week. On Saturday, they took advantage of this unseasonably good weather (please no snow this winter, ok, Canada?) and brought Lucas to Saunders Farm.

At the gas station on the way to Saunders Farm. Gotta love the crazy new 'do.

According to this, he is now two and a half gourds tall.

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but for quite a while now (4-5 months?), Lucas has had a strong interest in jewels, stones, and anything else that could be described as "treasure." He even has a box in his room where he stores any shiny objects that he finds or that someone gives him.

At Saunders Farm, they have a water trough that emulates panning for gold (or minerals, in this case). You can buy various-sized bags of sand and then use a sifter to discover what lies within. We've never done it in past visits, but I guess it was far and away Lucas's favorite thing during this latest trip. He didn't even bother doing the bouncy pillows, which is a must do when I go.

Showing off the results of his hard work.

One of the biggest draws at Saunders Farm is their mazes. Off the top of my head, I'd say they have between 10 and 15 different types of mazes. Apparently, there is a new one this year, a music maze. I haven't been through it yet since I only went to Saunders once this year, but based on the pictures my mom took, it looks interesting. The highlight, though, is a video of Lucas playing the xylophone and singing his ABCs. You can't help but laugh toward the end where he gets overexcited and accidentally whacks himself in the head with the mallet.



The obligatory cute picture of Lucas with pumpkins. It's hard to believe that's the same kid you see here.

Grammy and Grampy Kevin's Visit

Hello again! For those of you unaware, my mom and Kevin flew up from Massachusetts last week, and Marilu and I were able to take a mini-vacation in Montreal this weekend. It was a complete relaxathon since our room had a huge jacuzzi tub (which I used no less than 4 times in 2 days), and we both slept in until after 11 on Saturday. Of course, Marilu only slept that long since she was wildly hung over, but that is neither here nor there. Whatever the case, I'm back, and it's time to do some more updating.

I should point out that we didn't take any pictures in Montreal. Well, we might have taken a drunken one of ourselves at Dieu du Ciel, a fantastic bar/brewery, but that's about it. We weren't there for sightseeing. On the plus side, my mom took plenty of photos of Lucas. I know I said I would get to the Newfoundland trip soon, but since these are new and show off Lucas's new look, I thought our summer trip could wait a couple more days. I hope you'll find it in your heart to forgive me. Of course, since virtually no one but my mom comments (and Tracey and Mary Jane), I don't think I'll hear a chorus of dissent. :P

As I've mentioned before (I think), Lucas is currently in Little Dragons, a martial arts for kids program done at a local studio. It's one of two after school programs we have him enrolled in, the other being swim lessons. Since he goes on Thursday night, my mom and Kevin were able to see one of his classes. We didn't take any of him at the class itself--I think that might be frowned upon--but we got some good shots of him when we got home.

Here he is showing off his white belt that has 7 stickers on it. Each session, they get a new sticker, and when they get 8 stickers, they move up to a new belt. That means he should get a new belt (yellow) this coming Thursday. You may also notice we've decorated for Halloween. And by "we," I almost entirely mean Marilu and Lucas.

Do you get the feeling he might be a class clown? Can't imagine where he is getting that from.

I prompted him to get into the fighting pose. Granted, they only spend about 5 minutes out of each class doing actual martial arts stuff, but I still thought this looked cool.

For some time now, Lucas has been saving money (from gifts and his new allowance) in order to purchase a Lego set that he really wanted. Its main attraction was the fact that one of the figures in it is a bear. Go figure. Since it's cheaper in the U.S., we had my mom buy it and bring it up with her. However, we were going to wait to give it to Lucas. However, in order to help keep him occupied while we were gone, we thought it might be a good idea to give it to him this weekend. Instead of just giving it to him from her suitcase, my mom "ordered" it with him early Friday, and it "arrived" later in the day. It sounds like he was proud to have used his own money to buy himself something. Here's the happy kid with his new Lego set.

File this under things you never thought you'd see: Kevin working on a Lego set.

Afterwards, Kevin and Lucas celebrate a job well done.

On Saturday, the three of them visited Saunders Farm. Since there are quite a few pictures from that trip, I'll give it its own entry tomorrow.

When we got back tonight, Lucas surprised Marilu with a present (from my mom and Kevin) and a cake that they had made for her birthday, which is coming up on Wednesday. Lucas asked if he could help blow out the candles, and honestly, how can you say no to that face?

I'm not sure why it looks like I am trying to blow the candles out as well. Hmm. Anyway, Saunders Farm tomorrow!

New look for Lucas!

It was that time of year again: a haircut for Lucas. As you can see below, his hair had been getting out of control.

So much so that Marilu braided it last week.

Well, this certainly wouldn't do so we brought him in for a haircut Sunday morning. In the past, we've been disappointed with some of his short haircuts, but this time I think it was perfect. He looks like a little boy again!

He wanted us to shave his head and get a mohawk, but I couldn't deal with that much white trash so a faux hawk was the compromise.