Sports

Tonight was Lucas's first rugby practice. There was a good turnout, and he appeared to have a great time. Smiles from start to finish. In related news, I volunteered to be the manager for his team, which basically means I'll be sending some emails out from time to time. Woohoo.

Soccer starts on Monday so hopefully that will go well too. They sent out the list of kids on his team, and of 11 kids, he knows 3 of them so we're off to a good start.

No pictures taken tonight so no pictures to post. I'm sure we'll get plenty as the season progresses.

Catching Up, Part 4

This is technically the last of the catching up photos. However, I have one more entry that will be devoted to the remaining videos from last year. Also, I found a bunch of photos on our iPhones (particularly Marilu's) that had never been uploaded. I'm not sure how many of them are any good, but if they are, I'll just use them for filler going forward since we don't tend to take that many photos of Lucas (or us) as we used to.

Once again, my apologies if any of these are repeats. I tried to make sure they weren't, but you never know when you're dealing with so many different photos.

First off, just a goofy looking face from Lucas. Or maybe I should call him Cheeks, which is what he named his character in a video game we play. If you are assuming that is a reference to butt cheeks, you are correct. Ah, 6-year-old humor. I suppose I can't say much since I named my guy Barf Bag. I suppose there's a quote about apples falling from trees that could be inserted here.

I know I already did an entry from our trip to Toronto to see the NFL game back in December, but I wanted to include two more photos since they feature a couple of local highlights: the CN Tower and Gretzky's, a decent restaurant we ate at one of the nights. (Side note: I'm so glad we're back to t-shirt and shorts weather.)

Here are some random photos taken over the holidays.

And we couldn't leave 2013 without a couple more hockey photos. The first was taken at a rink here in the neighborhood. That's Marilu taking the shot at Lucas.

This second one is one of the rare semi-clear ones our camera decided to take. Based on all the kids standing around, I suspect this is the start of the practice as his coach gives him instructions on what they will be doing. If you can't read the names, Lucas is #7 and his good buddy Zach is #16.

Speaking of hockey, this was a hockey team event at a Sens game. I'll let the picture do all the talking.

And finally, what better way to kiss 2013 good-bye than by looking at the crazy amount of snow we received (though still not as bad as 2008). Good riddance, winter!

Catching Up, Part 3

I haven't forgotten about the whole "catching up" thing. I just got distracted. A common event in my life, apparently. There's not many left after this one so hopefully 2013 will be a thing of the past sooner rather than later.

There's a small chance that some of these photos may be repeats of ones I've already posted. If so, my apologies. I'm lucky if I can remember what I did yesterday let alone 6 months ago.

Let's start off with more hockey photos. The first 3 are from the week-long skating and hockey camp he did in September. Prior to that point, he had been on skates maybe 3-4 times. Afterwards, he may not have been the best, but he definitely looked like he belonged on the ice. For those of you not familiar with hockey, that's Ottawa Senator Chris Neil in the first picture and the third is with the Sens coach Paul MacLean.

And here he is in his Zombie Minions uniform. With appropriate game face, of course.

I went in to check on him after he had fallen asleep and noticed the Spider-Man glove on for some reason. I thought it was funny enough that it deserved a picture.

Tubing down the Rideau River. That's Lucas on the right.

And finally, a bunch of photos from Saunders Farm. Based on Lucas's pants, it looks like these are from three separate visits. It's quite the fun place.

Haircut

It's kind of funny that this post follows the big hair one. Today, I brought Lucas for a haircut, and it was probably the most drastic haircut he's had yet. He's been telling us he wanted it very short--like John Cena or Wayne Rooney--so I said, what the hell, and let him do it. Rather than spew out any more words, I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Before:

During:

After:

He's very happy with it so that's all that matters. It'll be interesting to see what he goes with next time.

Hair

Before getting back to the "Catching Up" posts, here's a photo I took last night. Lucas had just gotten out of the bath, and I wanted to show him just how wild his hair could get (thanks to my genes). So after a quick session with the hair dryer, I combed his hair straight back, as well as mine, and the results are below.

You may notice his arms are a bit pink. Yesterday was our first warm day of the year (sad, really), and we took advantage of it by playing outside all day. Since it's been so long since we last felt heat, it slipped our minds to put sunscreen on him until it was too late. Oh well, next time.

Catching Up, Part 2

Today's adventure into the past consists of 11 photos from Marilu and Lucas's trip to Newfoundland last summer. You may think 11 sounds like a lot, considering I was just trying to get the highlights of the remaining photos, but there were over 120 photos taken during that trip so I think I did a pretty good job paring them down.

I really like this first photo even though I'm not sure where it was taken (I suspect Conche, where Marilu's dad is from), and I don't know any of the kids in it except Lucas (far left, obviously), but it's just a cool-looking picture. So it gets included.

Back in Holyrood, where Marilu's parents live now, they went berry picking on one of the days. I like how we can follow from the actual picking...

...to the tub of berries...

...to the muffins...

...to breakfast. And that, folks, is the life cycle of Blueberrius Newfoundlandis.

Now that I look at that picture, it looks like they are eating pie. But let's pretend they're muffins so I don't have to go back and edit anything, ok?

Lest I forget, here's the sexy fashion that goes with berry picking. Be still, my beating heart!

At some point during the trip, Lucas went to a birthday party that had this thing at it. He's already braver than me when it comes to heights (or spiders, for that matter).

And finally, pictures with various family members that I thought turned out well. The pictures, not the family members. Though I suppose all of them turned out well too.

I have no idea what is happening here. Or where Lucas's pants are.

That dog is the definition of letting it all hang out.

Next time, we'll be back to Ottawa. See you then!

Catching Up, Part 1

Day 1 of catching up begins! Out of 400+ photos, I was able to pare them down to 58 pictures plus a few videos. So this should only take 4-5 days to reach 2014. Of course, once we get there, Marilu and I need to start taking some new photos pronto. If you think the blog has been lax, you should see our camera use. Or lack thereof. Since the beginning of 2014, we maybe have 30 photos taken so far. And most of them are duplicates or not that great. So yeah, we need to get our butts in gear on that front.

But enough about that. Here's the first batch of photos. We'll start off with the oldest ones, taken during March break of last year. Lucas and Marilu spent the week in her hometown of Labrador City.

Snowmobiling near the mine with her brother Jonathan.

Lucas hanging with his cousin Colby.

Great shot of the moms and cousins.

Jumping forward to July, here are a couple photos from when my dad and brother visited. I'm not sure if Lucas is intending to look like an "Arrrr" pirate in the first one.

Cow is one of Lucas's oldest stuffies. If I remember right, my dad bought Cow for him during my dad's first visit after Lucas was born. To this day, he's still one of Lucas's favorites.

Later in July, we took a trip over to the east side of town to visit Little Ray's Reptile Zoo. Lucas was really interested in lizards at the time, and I think this was one step toward our eventual purchase of Spot.

You know that thing you see on rear view mirrors, "Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear." Well, this picture was just the opposite. I think I used the zoom feature on the camera since there is no way I was that close to the tarantula in Marilu's hand. More power to her, but my arachnophobia was kicking in hard.

Just feedin' the turtle. Or tortoise. I'm sure they told us the difference, but I'll be damned if I can remember which is which 9 months later.

Can't have a reptile zoo without a giant alligator lurking around. Or is it a crocodile? Bah, let's not get started on that again.

Despite my earlier statement, I was able to get close to this tarantula, but that's because of the thick glass. Otherwise, I'm sure he would leap straight at my jugular.

And last but not least (well, maybe least, who am I to judge?), another picture of Lucas and me. I believe this was taken at a restaurant in Montreal. We were there since Marilu and Lucas were flying out from the Montreal airport to visit her family in Newfoundland.

And that's a good way to end tonight's update, teasing the next post, which I believe contains over 10 photos from the Newfoundland trip. See you next time!