We saw a poster at a travel agency of Sagrada Familia yesterday. Since we were there last year, I wanted to see if the kid remembered. He was like yeah!! That's where there was suppose to be a Pikachu nest, but there weren't any Pikachus! I'm convinced he does. :D
Took the family to "real" skiing today... the kid has been training diligently at the local hill the past two years, cumulating in a step 3+ and tiger badge. We got go MSL late morning. The weather was perfect, and snow wasn't bad considering the rain from the past few days. We started with some early green runs as a group. The Sundance chairlift had a conveyer belt to easy the loading! First time I've seen anything like this... what a great idea. The kid didn't have any problems, so we decided to tackle one of the blue hills (Snowbowl, ironically also Kid's favourite hill at Uplands). As we took the express lift up, I showed him the two black diamond trails at the top of the lift. We even ventured up to the edge to see how steep it was... but before we put the kart before the horse, we needed to try out blue trails. I led the way with kid in tow, and to my amazement, he was managing to keep pace with me and "follow my tracks". He had to revert to pizza turns for the most part, but great control, balance and edge work!
After lunch, we went up as a group on the express lift. There was a short blue trail back over to the greens, which petrified mommy. Mommy decided to take a break, while we did a few more blue runs. We ended up going over to the Moonstone cross-over trail. Ironically, kid managed to survive all the steep parts, but then took a tumble on the flat section.... ski off and everything too! After an eternity for recovery, we made our way back over to MSL chalet.. much to a worried mom. To cheer the kid up, we decided to try the West Peak Black Diamond... kid wanted to do it.. Mommy was saying he should try it.... and me.. despite seeing his mastery of the blue slopes was quite petrified. I wasn't sure whether to lead or follow. Leading meant I would be useless if the kid fell, and Following meant the kid would be a bullet down the mountain. However, after getting the kid all hyped up, I wasn't one to disappoint, and gave him strict instructions to follow me. Bail out if you need to. We got to the edge, looked down, and went for it.
I made a few broad S turns, and every time I turned around, the kid was right there with his patented Pizza turns. He was struggling more to follow my tracks, but was still very much in control. Only one time did he yell for me to stop and wait for him to finish turning. CRAZY. At the bottom of that section, I asked him if it was hard, and got the classic: Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy. Damnit. The kid is surely going to surpass me soon.
Finished the day with a variety of runs. Mommy was doing awesome and managed to make it down the mountain a few times with much better control. Took the kid up for a final run on some Black Diamonds. He aced the top half, and fell on the second... but pulled himself back up quickly and skied the rest of the way down. I didn't even have a chance to start moving back up the hill. I'm so jealous of kids' flexibility. Finished the day at 6pm, and went to hunt some partychus afterwards. All in all, an eye opening day.
Lapras was one of two pokemons left in our Pokedex that we have yet to find (the other requires a trip down under). We haven't been too happy with the new tracker which only showed pokemons near pokestops... we were missing out a bunch of nearby pokemons. Also, with the corresponding migration, we lost our stream of Pikachus and Squirtles (replaced with Nidorans.. sigh).
Anyway, tonight, as we were stuck in traffic taking the kid to Chinese school, I happen to notice a LAPRAS on sightings. With the pokestop tracking (and my Ingress knowledge), I knew exactly where to go. After checking with the crew that it would be okay for the kid to be late for Chinese school, we made the 2 minute detour. Passed my phone back to the kid, and he got serious, and tossed Razzie and Ultra balls. Quickly nabbed the rare pokemon.
Wife, on the other hand, was having trouble. She spent like 10 pokeballs already, without luck. You run the risk of pokemon running away at this stage. Good thing kid came to the rescue. Another raspberry + curveball, the kid caught Lapras on his "FIRST TRY!".
Kid can't stop asking: "Can you believe we caught a LAPRAS?!?"
We made it to Chinese school on time too! :D
Earlier in the day, kid and I saw a nearby sighting of a Dodrio... one of the remaining 12 pokemons we needed to catch. In fact, we've been walking Doduo for the past day, trying to gain enough candy to evolve one. Of course, catching one would be even better. Unfortunately, the earlier hunt was unsuccessful. After an awesome late lunch at Pasteis de Belem, we were waiting for tram 15 to Lisboa, when I noticed a new pokemon on my scanner! The infamous Dodrio!!! Kid and I have an agreement on who gets to catch pokemons.. the person who hasn't caught one yet would get first dibs. This being a new one, we'd take turns throwing one ball at time. I handed the phone to the kid, and his eyes lit up! He turned super serious, and dictated his game plan... raspberry then ultra ball. With a "GREAT" execution, the Dodrio popped back out.....
... and ran away. After one throw. WTF!!
The kid was stunned. I was stunned. He was like.... HE RAN AWAY!! I replied, "It's okay.. we'll evolve.. but you should have thrown a curveball." Kid rebuked with, "I did throw a curveball!"
We got on the tram.... saw another shadow of dodrio later on... but no real sightings... such a tease.
It wasn't our day. Kid asked me if I was sad... he obviously was disappointed. :(
This was bound to happen one day. As we were checking into our apartment, I was busy with the landlady when kid comes up to me with a quiet panic in his voice.. Daddy Daddy, I'm sorry, I don't know what happened! What do we do now?!? Apparently he accidentally activated a lucky egg! Since I was still preoccupied with the landlady, I had to tell him to wait, and he began to pace nervously around the room! Needless to say, in the long (more like 5) minutes for me to finish the checkin, kid's anxiety level went through the roof! We then immediately went and evolved whatever we can, which was hard since we were aggressively transferring crappy pokemon to get the 2x candy during this Hallowe'en event. Finished off with about 40k experience. Kiddo was so apologetic and promised to never let this happen again. I magnanimously told him it was okay. Just a game! A good learning experience all around. Then we had a blast the rest of the day in Porto!