What a Night!

Our nephew, Jeffrey, arrived Monday night from Cleveland. He just finished his freshman year at Ohio State and is visiting us for a couple weeks. We are all very excited to have him here!

Jeffrey spent the afternoon sightseeing with Thomas - who finished finals at 11am today and is done with school for the year. We ended up forming a last-minute plan for the evening that turned out to be great fun...

The US Men's soccer team was hosting Panama tonight in a World Cup qualifying match at Century Link Field in downtown Seattle. I had been invited a few days ago to go with a couple friends. As the day progressed, Karri and I thought Jeffrey and our kids might enjoy the game too. Long story short - we were able to find some last-minute tickets and I took the kids with me.

After some light rain earlier in the day, we had a beautiful night. Decided to take the water taxi from West Seattle to downtown. We just barely caught the 5:30 boat.

Happy cousins - heading to the game

Our seats were on opposite sides of the stadium - very close to the action. The kids were about 10 rows up. I was in the front row!

The kids seats were on the right side of this photo - about 10 rows up.

Moments before the 2nd US goal

A raucous crowd - 7th largest in US World Cup Qualifier history!

It was an exciting game. The US dominated most of the action and came out with a 2-0 win! The fans were awesome - most on their feet from start to finish. The crazies in the above photo sang songs/chants the entire game... seriously!

We reunited after the game and hustled back to Pier 50 to catch the water taxi. Once again - running to just barely catch the boat!

Showing off our (free giveaway) scarves on the ride home. A gorgeous night!

It was great listening to the kids rave about how much fun they had! Hopefully not a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The Jig is Up

Matthew and my bonding weekend is coming to a close. No better way to cap it than with a greasy spoon breakfast...

Sitting down to eat

We had some leftover home fries from our Greek feast last night. I diced them, browned them, then scrambled them with eggs, sausage, ham and cheese. Matthew loves breakfast like this. Me too.

Karri and Victoria just pulled in the drive - just as we were cleaning up the last of the breakfast dishes. It's like Christmas here as they are showing off and passing out some of the purchases from the Nike outlet store. Not only were things heavily discounted (most were 50+% off), there's no sales tax in Oregon. We should be stocked up on sports gear/attire for a while (hopefully)!

Mathew just got invited by a friend to go to the Mariners' game today. Victoria's got a soccer game at 1. Thomas should be home soon after (they are playing their last game as I type - hope they are doing well).

Divide and Conquer

Kids activities pulled us in separate directions this weekend...

Karri, Thomas and Victoria headed 3 hours south on I-5 to Portland, OR, where Thomas is playing in the Rose City Showcase - a basketball tournament sponsored by Nike. They left mid-day Friday, spent the night and had 2 games today - a win and a loss. They'll have 1 more game (possibly 2) tomorrow. Karri and Victoria need to head back early for Victoria's soccer game at 1pm Sunday. Thomas will catch a ride home with friends.

Matthew played in a lacrosse tournament today (Saturday) in Snohomish - about an hour north of Seattle on I-5 (near where the bridge collapsed a couple weeks ago). 4 games and 4 losses. A tough day for the kids. It seems we didn't have much business being in the tournament in the first place. Our team was a combination of kids from 2 squads who expressed interest in playing in tournaments after the season ended 2 weeks ago. We haven't practiced in those 2 weeks. We played in a 7th/8th grade bracket with mostly 7th graders against select teams that were much bigger and faster, and more skilled. But we still had fun...

A few of the parents organized a 'tailgate' for between games. Each family brought something to contribute - burgers, dogs, salad, fruit, chips, desserts, beverages, etc. It worked out great and made for a fun way to pass the time between games.

Big tournament with dozens of teams and lots of tailgating!

Team Wolfpack relaxing between games

The tournament took place in a large, open field next to a regional airport. They must have a skydiving school there, because skydivers were circling overhead all day and landing about 100 yards from the lacrosse fields. It felt like the pre-game festivities at the Rose Bowl! Made for good entertainment.

Plane taking off in the background

Matthew and I stopped on our way home at Kokoras Greek Grill, a great local spot here in West Seattle, and picked up a couple gyro platter dinners. We brought them home and enjoyed them on our patio.

Bachelor dinner on the patio (that's my Pacifico - not Mattew's)

After dinner, we watched a movie together. A great father-son bonding day - not something we get to do very often.

Sounds like Karri, Thomas and Victoria are having fun together too. After the games today, they met up with a college friend of Karri's who lives in Portland, whom she hadn't seen in over a decade. After a stop at the Nike outlet store and a team dinner, Thomas went to watch more tournament games with the team while Karri and Victoria had a girls night. Good stuff.

San Francisco

I flew to San Francisco this morning (Monday) for a quick work trip. I had a couple meetings today and am attending a conference tomorrow. Flying back to Seattle tomorrow night.

It was a beautiful day in the city so I walked around for a bit between my meetings. My hotel is a few blocks from the Embarcadero, so I headed there and walked along the waterfront - enjoying the amazing views of the Bay and the skyline. Such a beautiful city.

Bay Bridge

I travel to the Bay area at least a few times each year but rarely as a tourist. Need to remedy that. Karri and I agreed we need to plan a trip down here with the kids and take in some of the great things San Francisco has to offer.

Sunflower Sunday

Each year in 7th grade, the kids grow sunflowers from seed. They have a competition of sorts to help them figure out which growing conditions are optimal. After a couple weeks of nurturing, the tallest seedling plant gets declared the winner and the plants get sent home for planting. Turns out sunflowers do very well in our yard, so Victoria and I have had a tradition of planting seeds the last few Springs.

After 2 weekends of working in the yard and getting our beds (mostly) back under control, Victoria and I decided to plant the seeds on Sunday. Here are a couple shots from our successful planting 2 years ago...

Almost twice her size!

Great colors 

And here's Victoria planting this year's crop...

 

Sunflower girl!

I don't have much of a green thumb. Karri deserves most of the credit for keeping our yard colorful. 

Of course, we've got nothing on my cousin Ellen (who, by the way, helped provide the inspiration for me to start this blog nearly 9 months ago).

Final CYO Track Meet

A beautiful day for the last meet of the year. Matthew and Victoria both ran the 800m - a race they've rarely run. Matthew also anchored a 4x100m relay team. No medals, but both ran great races. Very proud of them. I think everybody is glad to be done with track though.

Start of the 4th-5th girls 800 - Victoria is 3rd from right

Getting squeezed on the inside

Strong finish!

Start of 7th & 8th boys 800 - Matthew at far left

Battling off a challenge in the home stretch 

Finish of the 4x100

And So It Begins

Hard to believe it's June 1st. Even though the kids still have a week+ of school - and summer never (really) starts in Seattle until July 5th (after inevitable rain on the 4th) - it feels like our 'summer' starts this week. I told Karri last night over dinner (another impromptu 'date night') that it feels like we've been slowly click-clacking our way to the highest point on the roller coaster. This weekend is the crest where you catch your breath, stick your hands up in the air, and get ready for the ride that will be Summer 2013.

It's a relatively uneventful weekend for us. No lacrosse, no basketball tournaments, no entertaining. Just a track meet (last one!) and a soccer game on Sunday.

Last night felt very similar to last Friday. Thomas had a buddy over after school, then basketball practice, then back here for a sleepover. Matthew had a CYO dance - last one of the school year. Victoria and a friend spent the evening at the pool with a gaggle of their classmates. In between shuttling kids around, Karri and I were able to sneak in another quiet, though quick, dinner together.

As for 'shuttling' kids around... I drove six 7th grade boys - and one brave 7th grade girl - to the dance last night. We've apparently become the go-to family for driving kids to the dances. Matthew said it felt like every boy in his class asked him at school if they could have a ride to the dance (about 15 minutes away). For many of the dances this year, he's had a handful of boys come over right after school. They play basketball, jump on the trampoline and do general, goofy, 7th-grade-boy stuff. Then we feed them pizza and drive them to the dance. We are happy to have the boys congregate at our house. The nice part is, somebody else gets to pick them up at 10pm and drop 6 or 7 kids at their respective homes.

About 20 minutes before we were planning to leave, Matthew (somewhat sheepishly) asked if we could take 1 more person to the dance - a girl from a nearby school, who the boys know from the pool, who apparently couldn't find a ride. Emma showed up a few minutes later with her dad who, understandably, wanted to check out the situation. Soon after, we were piled in the car. We had to drive with all the windows down to avoid asphyxiation from all the 'AXE' deodorant body spray each of the boys had generously applied moments earlier! I don't remember having the same obsession with how I smelled when I was 13.

Need to get on with the day here. I'll be sure to include some pictures in my next post.