Seattle

What a freakin' weekend.

Like I said in my las post- I went to see New Moon Friday night- loved it (for the most part) Then 7:00am Saturday morning Jon & I plus his friends, Courtney & Michael were off to VanCouver. Why VanCouver you ask?? Because that is where Josh & Nikki are now and we sort of just invited ourselves to crash at their place Saturday night and then continue on to Seattle Sunday for the ReAL game. I've got to say the drive up was not bad at all. We traded off although Jon put in the most hours behind the wheel that day. The last part of Oregon before Portland was beautiful and we made it in I believe 12 hours, I think we got to Josh & NIkki's just before 6, which is 7 o'clock SLC time. So however you figure that- 12 or 11 hours driving.

Anyway, Sunday afternoon we drove into Seattle (another very pretty drive) for the big game.

Jon, Court-ree (as Keegan dubbed him) and Micael outside the stadium. Just ask Jon why he isn't wearing his RSL hoody....see how upset he gets!!
Outside the stadium there were tons of booths and tents to do all sorts of things, we saw Jeff Cunningham, which I'm sure 95% of you that read this have no idea who that is, but none the less, we saw him but he was never my fav so I skipped on getting a picture. Then I saw one of the hotties from the league, Stuart Holden. There was a huge line to get an autograph or picture with him so I just snapped a few as I walked by.

PS- he would not hold still!

Stuart Holden (Houston & US National Team) Chirs Pontius (DC United)

Then into the stadium we went. It was in the Qwest Stadium, which is where the Seahawks (the NFL team) play and for the soccer games they never open the upper deck seating, but for this game they did, which is where Jon and I sat. A little high, but still good- we had a great view of the whole field.

We were surrounded by so many RSL fans, which made it that much more fun to be there.

The game was great. Quick recap for those that didn't happen to see the game (and care to know how it end down)
One of our key mid-fielders (Javier Morales) sprained his knee in like the 15th min and had to be subbed out- it was so sad, he was SO upset. I'm sure to have to come out in a huge game like this was so heartbreaking. And then after half time another one of our mid-fielders (Will Johnson) did not return to the game, come to find out that he'd had food poisoning the day before and had even been in the hospital but really wanted to play, but after the first half could no continue.
Galaxy scored first but once we tied it back up we flat out- out played them. Especially when it went to the 2 -15 mins overtimes, we simply played better than them and should have scored. But alas it went to PK's, it was crazy. I have mixed feelings on shoot-outs, they're intense and exciting but nearly give me a heart attack at the same time. I (like Nikki) have to remind myself to continue to breathe. Both goalies did great, making 2 saves but Landon Donovan's miss allowed RSL to take it and our last 2 kickers burried their shots. It was amazing. It was so fun to be there and celebrate with so many other fans!

We decided to drive straight home after the game. We figured it was almost 3 hours back to VanCouver and rather than get there around 1 am and try to sleep just to wake up early and get on the road again, that we'd just go the whole way home. With 4 drivers we figured we could take turns driving and made the rule that whoever was sitting in the front passenger seat was responsible to keep the driver awake and alert. Jon and I took the last 2 legs of the drive home. I don't know who had the harder shift- Michael? 3 am-6am or Jon and I in the morning after not being able to sleep more than probably an hour, but we made it- all the signing to Newsies tunes, yahtzee games, potty stories, etc kept us pretty entertained. It was a little hard and I'll admit that even after napping for about 2 hours when we got home I felt crappy the rest of the day, just out of sheer exhaustion- but since RSL won it made it all worth it!



PS. Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!!