Sens vs Blackhawks

Tonight was a very memorable night for Lucas. He finally got to see one of his two favorite teams, the Chicago Blackhawks, live against the Senators. Marilu brought him, and based on what I saw of the score, it was an exciting game, with the Blackhawks winning in overtime in the shootout.

In case you're wondering how a kid in Ottawa becomes a fan of a city he's never been to, here's my theory. My favorite player for many, many years was Jeremy Roenick, who started out in Chicago. I must have mentioned that to Lucas at some point and he ran with it. Now he has a Blackhawks poster on his wall and names Jonathan Toews as his favorite player.

His other favorite team is the LA Kings. While Lucas really liked goalie Jonathan Quick's play in the Olympics, I'm pretty sure his fondness for the Kings is more bandwagon than anything else, given that the Kings won the Stanley Cup last year. He doesn't know it yet, but I'll be bringing him to see the Kings when they come to Ottawa later this year.

In the meantime, here's a picture of the goof celebrating in his brand new Blackhawks t-shirt that I hunted down in west Ottawa earlier today.

All I Want for Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth

...and maybe one on the bottom as well.

In my last post, I mentioned Lucas lost one of his bottom teeth last week. It was his first baby tooth to come out in several months. Apparently, that started a domino effect as one of his top front teeth came out yesterday, followed by the second one today. Here's a picture of our little hockey player/MMA fighter lookalike.

As far as I know, none of the other ones are loose, but given the fact that 3 have come out in two weeks, I wouldn't be surprised if the tooth fairy will be visiting our house again soon.

Adventures with Eggy

Earlier in the week, I posted Lucas's hockey pictures, one of them being with his classroom's mascot Eggy. Here's the rest of the photos chronicling Eggy's week in the Deal household.

Apparently, Eggy is a big music buff.

Outside the rec center where Lucas has his swim lessons.

Getting some gaming in.

Finally, at Zak's Diner, after his first hockey game.

One bit of news before I wrap this up. Lucas lost his third baby tooth while at school on Tuesday. At this rate, they should all be out by the time he is 20.

Ottawa Shooting

In case anyone is wondering, we're fine here in Ottawa. We live on the west side in the community of Kanata, which is about 25 minutes from downtown. I know Lucas's school was in a lockdown mode for a while, but that was just a precaution, and he should be home on the bus any minute now.

First Game Photos

As promised, here are some pictures from Lucas's first hockey game. We have 2 iPhones and a point-and-shoot Nikon so don't expect any masterpieces here.

This was taken before the game. I'd like to point out that Lucas doesn't regularly walk around with that stuffed thing. It's named Eggy. and it's from his 2nd grade class. Each week, one of the kids gets to bring it home and then they take pictures with it during the week and fill out a journal at the end of the week to show what kind of adventures they got up to. As it happened, Eggy got to go to Lucas's' hockey game so lucky him, I guess.

The rest of the pictures are from the game. Enjoy!

First Game for the Coyotes

As mentioned in my last post, Lucas had his first "real" hockey game this past Saturday morning. By "real," I mean that they had refs, kept score, called offsides/icing, and keep track of the results in the standings. Last year, they played games, but those were just for fun.

Despite the fact the Coyotes (Lucas's team, in case I haven't mention it before) lost 5-2, Lucas played well and had a good time. He was on the same line throughout the game, and they scored once and were scored on once. Not bad considering one of the Chinese kids on his line didn't appear to realize he was at a hockey game, as he skated around in circles and generally ignored the puck. Note that I said "one of" above. Lucas had two Chinese kids on his line, plus there is at least one other Chinese boy and an Indian girl on his team. So much for the stereotype of just white people in hockey, eh?

Lucas chose to play defense, and he did a decent job. He also had a shot on goal, which he narrowly missed. All in all, it was a fun time, and we're looking forward to seeing many more games this season. I haven't uploaded any pictures yet, but I plan to do that tomorrow and have another post up shortly afterwards.

Break the wall down

Not much new to report on since my last post on October 1. Lucas has a couple of weeks of hockey practice under his belt, and last week was his first week of winter soccer. The latter has its practices at 5 and 6 PM so you can probably guess which one I prefer going to more. Lucas's first real hockey game will be this Saturday morning so we're looking forward to that. I expect we should get a picture or two from that so maybe I'll have an update up on Sunday.

I can't think of anything else new so let's look at some random pictures from earlier in the year. Much like the last blog update was pictures primarily for my dad, these pictures are going to be for Marilu's family. Back in April, she met up with her two brothers in Toronto for a weekend. Here they are, out and about.

And here's your daily (or more like bi-weekly) dose of Lucas...in video form. Back in the spring, while repairing our basement from the toilet flood, we found a crack in our foundation, which meant we had to open up the wall. This led to what Lucas would probably rate as a top 5 moment of his life.

Hockey Finally Starts and Pictures for Dad

I'm sure you're waiting with bated breath for this information, so here it is. Lucas ended up on the Novice B-3 team. Since that's a bit unwieldy, the kids re-named their team the Coyotes (after a brief flirtation with Coyote Lightning). The first weekend's practices were at the chipper time of 7 AM on both Saturday and Sunday so that was fun. This coming weekend, they are on Friday and Saturday at 5:30 PM. Now that's what I'm talking about! The Coyotes's first game will be on October 18 so that's something to look forward to. We haven't taken any pictures yet this season, but I'm sure we'll have some soon.

Actually, I do have one hockey-related picture ready for uploading. Last year, we dumped all of Lucas's hockey equipment over the floor in the basement after each practice to let it air out (if you don't, it can really stink). This year, Marilu bought this scarecrow looking thing, which has made organizing his gear much easier. It would also be useful if Kevin McAllister is ever home alone in our house and needs to ward off would-be burglars.

These next few pictures are from my dad's visit this past Spring. This is probably the easiest way to get pictures to him since email attachments may be troublesome. Hope you like em, Dad!

The Continuing Saga of Sort Outs (plus Marathon Photos)

With any luck, this will be the last post concerning hockey sort outs. For this year, anyway. Week 3 finished last night, and it looks like Lucas did end up back in the middle division, B. I guess his play last weekend helped offset his lackadaisical effort in Week 1.

Here's the kicker though. After running around and jumping through hoops these past 3 weeks, we got an email last night that the B division is short a coach, and they won't officially assign kids to teams until they get that last coach. It blows my mind that they can throw together this overly complex sort out system but they don't think of something as simple as thinking, "Hey, maybe we should make sure we have coaches before we start." Marilu had a good point when she said that they should figure out how many coaches they have first and then allow a set number of kids to sign up.

I'm sure someone will volunteer for that last position, but I'm guessing it's not going to be the most organized team, considering they are coming in at the last minute and probably took the job out of guilt. (Before anyone asks why I didn't volunteer, I can barely even stand on ice skates so I'm probably not the best candidate).

In other sporting news, Marilu ran her first 1/2 marathon yesterday morning. She's been training for it for months now, and it was great to see her achieve her goal.

Here's Marilu on our front lawn prior to the race.

The race was associated with the Army, and they had a bunch of military vehicles and weapons on display. Lucas was a little shy of getting in the vehicles at first, but then he saw this thing.

Oh, and did I mention the weapons?

To kill time after that, I took Lucas to Elgin Street Diner, a downtown restaurant known for its poutine. I told Lucas he could order whatever he wanted. So, he went with the four cheese poutine with extra cheese curds. I think it might have weighed more than him.

I helped him with it a little, but this is what he looked like when he was finished.

Afterwards, Lucas and I stood in a downpour under a tree near the finish line to cheer Marilu on. After 45 minutes of waiting, I turned to Lucas to ask him if he was dry. While I was talking to him, Marilu ran by and didn't see either of us. Lucas yelled, "There's mommy!" and by the time I turned around, she was already well past us. Not one of my happier moments.

For the record, she finished the race in 2 hours and 21 minutes. She was hoping to get in under 2 1/2 hours so goal achieved!

Week 2 Sortouts wrap-up

For those of you enthralled with the ongoing hockey sortouts for 7-year-old in Kanata, here's the latest. On Saturday afternoon, Lucas has his third session in the sortouts. Unlike last week, which was simply 4 drills, they scrimmaged this week so the evaluators could see how the kids played in an actual game scenario. It was pretty obvious from the start that his group was at or near the bottom in skill level. There were at least a couple of 8-year-olds (Novice level is 7-8) who were likely on skates for the first time, given their slow shuffling around the ice, concentrating less on the puck and more on staying upright. In addition, many of the other kids had limited skating and hockey skills. The plus side of all this is that Lucas looked great out there. Every shift he was on, he had at least one end-to-end skate with the puck while other kids tried to catch up to him.

Due to his play on Saturday, I expected him to bumped up a little for Sunday's session, but as far as I could tell, it was almost the exact same group of kids. This makes me wonder what the point is to the evaluations. But whatever, who am I to judge their pretentious, overly complicated system? Lucas hurt his knee during warmups and missed a couple of shifts, but once he got out there, it was pretty close to a copy of Saturday's session.

He'll have one more weekend of sortouts next weekend. According to the email, it's optional so once again, I'm not sure how accurate the evaluations are. As far as I can tell, kids get placed on how well they skated to a pylon and back last week. That said, considering how well Lucas did play this past weekend, it might not be a bad thing to be placed in the lower level. He's likely to be much more involved than he was last year, and it'll be pretty good for his self-esteem if he's one of the better kids on the ice.

Hockey news aside, here's a couple of pictures from earlier in the year.

This is from Lucas's first visit to Five Guys Burgers. The reason this is special is that he wasn't able to go there until his peanut allergy went away since they use peanut oil in their fries. I doubt we'll be back anytime soon though. The burgers ARE tasty, but I think they are ridiculously overpriced.

March Break 2014

No major news to speak of today. School is still going well for Lucas. Almost two weeks complete, and he hasn't gotten in trouble yet so that's a good thing. Based on the timing of his next hockey sortouts, we suspect he's in the bottom third. Oh well. Speaking of sports, we already had him signed up for a winter soccer session, and now we're thinking of adding a second one. Although Lucas likes hockey, it's obvious he has a lot more interest in soccer so we may as well feed that passion. Plus, unlike the insane hockey hours, all of the soccer will be in the late afternoon. Huzzah!

For March break earlier this year, we took a 3-day weekend trip down to Syracuse. A few years ago, the big mall down there, the Carousel Center, underwent a massive renovation and rebranded itself Destiny USA. In addition to the mall, there is now a wing that is geared toward entertainment and restaurants. It's actually quite impressive. So basically we spent our mini-vacation at a mall. :)

It should come as no surprise, if you know me and Marilu, that one of our first stops was at a bar/restaurant called World of Beer. They have a fantastic selection of beers available (especially compared to the woeful state of beer-serving establishments in Ontario), but rather than bore you with pictures of beers, we just have this goofy photo of Lucas drinking beer of the root variety.

Apparently, happiness is eating Cheesecake Factory cheesecake in a hotel bed.

On the second day, while Marilu shopped, I took Lucas to a place called Wonderworks. It was a really fun place, which might explain why I only have a single photo from it. I guess I was having too much fun with Lucas to remember to use the camera.

After Wonderworks (and lunch at Gordon Biersch), Marilu and Lucas tried their hand (or is it feet?) at the ropes course. I have an almost paralyzing fear of heights so I sat this one out. Lucas did okay though he did get pretty scared a few times. I think he may have inherited my genes in regards to acrophobia. First, some pictures...

...and then terror in video form!







I don't know if you can tell how high they are in the videos, but it's located on the third floor of the mall so it's quite a ways up there. According to the website, it's the world's largest indoor ropes course and is over 70 feet high. So even if he got scared, good for Lucas for trying it. On a related note, Marilu has no such fears and flew through the thing.

On the way back to Ottawa, we stopped at Target in Watertown to do some last minute shopping. Lucas decided to pick up this ensemble.

Sort outs

This past weekend's sort outs were so-so. Lucas really half-assed it on a couple of the drills. For instance, the first one involved skating as fast as you could to a cone, stopping quickly, and then skating backwards to the start point. When Lucas got to the cone, he elected to fall down to stop even though he is perfectly capable of stopping normally. On other drills, instead of skating with a purpose, he just glided along. As I've said before, I don't really care what level of team he ends up on. What I do care about is him trying his best, and he definitely didn't on Saturday.

By the way, I was corrected by Tracey (and later Marilu) regarding how long sort outs are. They go on for 3 weeks, not 2. So yeah, that's kind of insane, given that they are 7-year-olds. I'm not quite sure why hockey has to be so friggin' complicated, considering no other recreational sport I can think of even does sort outs, let alone 3 weeks of them, but I guess they have their reasons. At least this weekend's sort out involves a scrimmage. Plus, it's at 12:15, which is much better than this past Saturday, which required waking up at 5:50 AM.

And now for something completely different...

Back in June, we bought a new couch from IKEA for our basement. IKEA being IKEA, we obviously had to put it together ourselves so we brought it home in 4 large boxes. I'm sure you've all heard about how kids enjoy playing with boxes more than they like the stuff that comes in the boxes? Well, as you'll see in the next few pictures, Lucas proved that beyond any shadow of a doubt.

Yep, he's definitely half-American. :)

One week down...

Lucas's first week of school is almost in the books, and thus far, it's gone well. After his first day, we asked him how it went, and his one word reply was "awesome." He likes his new teacher, and he also has a different French teacher, which is good since he didn't have the greatest relationship with the one last year. Completely understandable since the French ARE pretty insufferable.

Also, he won the lottery when it came to his classmates. The night before school started, I asked him if he could have one kid in class with him, who would it be? His answer was Hayden, his best friend from first grade. Sure enough, Hayden's in his class this year along with Liam, a friend of his who lives just around the corner. Probably just as important is the fact that there are no kids in his class who he didn't get along with in past years. So on paper, it looks like it'll be a good year.

I'm going to try and keep the rest of this post short with just a couple of random pictures from earlier in the year. You can definitely tell this first one came from a while ago, given the length of Lucas's hair. It hasn't looked like that since January. This was taken at a 67s game, the minor league hockey team here in Ottawa. They were playing in the Senators' arena for the last year or two while their arena downtown was refurbished so we went to several games. However, now that their arena is finished, we probably won't see them much. It's a lot easier going to a game that is 10 minutes away versus a half hour drive followed by godawful parking.

For those of you that haven't been around kids lately, here are a couple of pictures to let you know what you aren't missing.

And a couple more pictures for good measure.

In case I don't post again before the weekend, Saturday morning are Lucas's sort-outs for Novice hockey. For those of you not familiar with the hockey system here (like me this time last year), it's a multi-day affair where they gauge the skill levels of all the kids and assign them to teams with kids that have similar skill levels.

I suppose it can be a stressful situation if you're the kind of parent who thinks your kid is going to be in the NHL (haha, he's not, you moron). However, we're just there to have fun so wherever he ends up, we're cool with it. Having said that, based on his past play last season and his recent hockey camp, I would expect him to end up somewhere in the middle. Whatever the case, we'll know after next weekend. Yes, it takes 2 weekends. Hockey is really quite full of itself up here in Canada. :)

First Day of School - Second Grade

In keeping with tradition, here's a photo of Lucas from his first day of second grade. I took this about 20 minutes ago so this is about as fresh as a photo gets (on this blog, anyway).

I should note he wasn't THAT happy about going back to school. He was giving me a half-assed smile so Marilu got behind me and made faces or something to give him a cheerier disposition. It seemed to work.

If you're interested in seeing the evolution of "first day of school," rather than make you search through the archives, I've included pictures from the past below.

1st grade

Senior Kindergarten

Junior Kindergarten

Nickname

Apparently, Lucas has his first nickname. While signing him out from his hockey camp yesterday, one of the instructors mentioned they were calling him "Vegas." Deal ---> Dealer --> Vegas. Get it?

It's not just the instructors either. On the way back to the car, he was saying bye to some of his fellow campers, and they were responding with "Bye, Vegas!" and "See you tomorrow, Vegas!" Suffice to say, he likes the new nickname. It'll be interesting to see if he tries to use it when he returns to school next week. As nicknames go, there are far worse ones.

Winter Sports

With Lucas due to start a week of hockey camp this Monday, followed by sort-outs in a couple of weeks for this year's hockey season (Novice!), I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at the last of the hockey photos from last season.

At the IP level, each kid gets a chance to be goalie at least once during the season. Lucas was really looking forward to it and had a great time playing goalie. That said, he wasn't very good at it. Most of the pucks he stopped were due to them hitting him as opposed to him actively stopping them. We're not too upset about that since based on everything we've heard, having a kid play goalie is a painful experience (particularly on the wallet).

Here's a video of our Brodeur wannabe in net.



A few more photos from the season that was.

If I'm not mistaken, this photo was taken at his very last practice. What a veteran!

I believe this next video is the biggest video I've ever uploaded to YouTube. It's 310 MB and over 2 minutes long. During one of the hockey tournaments at the Sensplex, I recorded Lucas for an entire shift. He doesn't do anything spectacular like score in this clip, but he does get involved a couple of times. He's #7 so keep an eye out for him. His good friend Zach is #16, and he scores a goal right off the opposing goalie's helmet at about the 1:23 mark.



That's all I have for hockey, but in keeping with the theme, I have a few other winter sports-related pictures for your enjoyment. It's much easier to appreciate them now, when it's still warm and sunny out.

As you may recall, we signed him up for skating lessons. His skating level was at the upper end of what they were teaching, but he still got a few things from it, most notably a lot of experience doing crossovers. Here he is doing some backwards skating (video of the same to follow).

While waiting for other kids in his group to finish, he had plenty of chances to be not so serious.

Here's the backwards skating video I spoke of.



One of the highlights of the skating class was a visit from Spartacat, the mascot for the Ottawa Senators. I think I may have posted a picture of Lucas getting a certificate from him in an earlier post, but here's a video of Sparty skating with the kids.



Finally, we go to the slopes. Well, "slopes" may be pushing it for a sled hill in the neighborhood, but technically, it's correct. Ever since Lucas started ski lessons, he's wanted to try snowboarding. We told him that if he learned to ski, he could start taking snowboard lessons when he turned 7. Since he's got skiing down, he'll be trying snowboards out this winter.

Why am I mentioning all this? Last winter, I bought Lucas a "kiddie" snowboard that could be used at the sled hill. As you'll see in the following video, he's already got some decent skills so I think he'll be set come January.



Hope that was worth the wait! I've got all the backlogged photos organized so I have no more excuses. Expect at least weekly updates of photos from here on out.