2008 Seattle Seahawks Scrimmage Game

The Seahawks start the season 1-0!! Today at Qwest Field, under a blue sky and perfect football conditions, the Seahawk offense battled the Seahawk defense...and you guessed it...the Seahawks won!! :)

Heather and I found out about this scrimmage game a while ago, looked into the cost of it, and decided it would be something super fun to take Evan and Hollyn's cousin, Alexis, to. We got permission to have Alexis join the Andersons for a few days, so we drove up to Seattle on Friday night and stayed with a friend of Heather's in Kirkland. They were super hospitable and we enjoyed our time with them very much!

Next morning we were up early and off to Qwest field in time for the gates to open at 9:00am. As we arrived there was a decent sized line and I feared for the worst, but as we entered the stadium we found that a number of sections still had seats in the lower rows! We grabbed some great ones in the 4th row up, just off the 50 yard line. Seats I will never again see if I have to pay for them, as they would typically cost a fortune!

We were also joined by the Baylisses...whom some of you will remember as one of the other co-founders of Edge Gear Clothing. Jack and I were also roommates during that time, and it was great to get to see my old friend and his family.

We spent a ton of money on food, souvenirs, and more food...but it was well worth it. We got to spoil cousin Alexis, we got to spend time with old friends, and we got to cheer for our beloved Seahawks who appear ready for another Super Bowl run despite the shake-up at the running back position this offseason.

Here are some pics of the event.

Cousin Alexis with Hollyn and Evan. Ready to cheer on the Seahawks!

Qwest Field. Plenty of GOOD seats available for us!

4th row on the 50-yard line. I would never be able to afford these seats for a real game!

Now that's a fan club.

Go Seahawks!

Evan got a fan mask and thought it was funny when we'd slip a garlic fry in the mouth hole!

Deion Branch doing some rehab work. I yelled to him "Be ready by week one or you're on the bench and I'm coming in, baby!" He doesn't look to happy about that, huh? (ok, that was a joke!)

I think our cousin was having a great time!

Seahawk cheerleader in the making.

I don't share my garlic fries with anyone! OK, maybe I do!

Girl power!

The kids down in front cheering on the Hawks.

Yes, Evan...they really are that big and fast!

S-E-A-H-A-W-K-S!

They are just too dang cute.

Happy times with my baby!

Player stretch time. Heather wanted a pic of the players' butts, so...here you go!

Coach Holmgren overheard chatting with this assistant coach about a wirey looking fan presumed to have blazing speed and quick hands! I was so ready to jump in if called upon!

There's the man. #8 - Matt Hasselbeck! (walking with backup QB Seneca Wallace) After the scrimmage Matt was the first one to round the field and give greet the fans. Evan and I BOTH got high 5's from him!!

My buddy Jack snapping pics too.

#22 is our new RB, Julius Jones. Lots of other big names walking just yards away from us.

THE Seahawk...getting a pet from the kids.

Hawkie hairdo!

Lofa Tatupu - the heart of the defense!

This was our first time in Qwest Field. Awesome. Great football weather day!

Cutest football fan EVER!

Our friends' twin boys were adorable in their Seahawk gear with fauxhawks.

One of the twins pokes Evan in the rear with his new foam cheer finger.

New best friends...Hunter and Alexis.

After a while a few people in the front row left, so Evan and I got as close to the action as a fan could get.

Blue eyes and blue skies.

Really BLUE eyes!

Evan's never really liked football so here's hoping the scrimmage makes it more tangible for him.

The kids watch a train going by after the game.

Good thing Evan had the mask on backwards or he might'a got a surprise nose pick.

The Blue Thunder band was rockin' all through the game.

We ran into the Seahawk again as we left, so the kids got a better chance to pet it.

Newest member of the "12th Man"

BFF and new 12th Man members

This cool wall plaque is made up of all the helmets of high schools in Washington State.

The game is over and we're headed home. What a fun time!

Two years later...where am I?

OK. So tonight I got a swift kick in the twig and berries with the realization that I've had this blog for over two years and I'm only marginally ahead of where I was back then and nowhere near where I wanted to be with my scriptwriting by this point.

For starters...there's the glaring elephant in the corner that this blog has morphed into more of a journal of our family adventures than anything that has to do with writing. Uggg.

But I love my family. And the truth is, aside from work, it's where I put the majority of my free time because I love it. Maybe it's just part of the drill when you have little ones. I mean, it's not like a 6 and 3 year old are hiding out in their room all night listening to goth music and hating on their parents like I think they'll do ten years from now!

So for now I'll keep hanging out with my little ones, watching Spy Kids 2 for the four thousand'th time...and I'll take a little solace in those few days a month where everyone is off doing something else and it's just me and my laptop for an extended period of time!

But the truth is...I have been feeling the itch to write again lately. And not just to write, but to MAKE time to write. And that itch sometimes grows into a such a pester that it forces me to dig into the uncomfortable times, the early morning hours or the "write through my lunch break" times, to keep that juice a'flowin' and build a little momentum again.

"Inside" was my first script. I completed it and pitched it to a few execs. A rep for TNT said she thought it needed an adjustment through an overhaul of one of a major character. I agreed and a rewrite is about 60% completed.

"Like Brothers" was my second script. It, too, was completed and then found to have a flaw too fundamental to gloss over. In it's first form it got a read from Warner Brothers, and the review told me many things I already knew. Some good, some bad.

What's frustrating is when you feel like you are either A. Talented enough, B. Driven enough, or C. A combination of A. and B. and you know if you could dedicate your full efforts to something then you could succeed! But there's this little thing called a DAY JOB standing in the way.

But I started this blog in July 2006 with a post about Mike Rich, a talk-radio DJ here in the Portland, OR area that worked during the day and wrote at night only to craft a fantastic little script called "Finding Forrester" which lead to a number of other scripts and I'm sure the retirement from talk-radio.

I guess this is just a time for me to reflect on how quickly time passes and realize it isn't going to stop itself and wait for me to get on board! I gotta grab it by the ears and wrestle it into submission. And get a few more scripts done!!

Here's to the next two years and to being in a different spot...much different!

Score One for Lawn Owners Everywhere

I'm not usually a fan of killing animals, but there's one particular critter that causes me more grief than others. The lawn mole! So imagine my surprise the other day when Evan starts shouting for me to come outside cause there's "two of those black animals with brown hands." I was like "what is he talking about" so when I got out where he was imagine my surprise to see two moles either fighting or mating on top of the lawn. I hated to do it, but I love our lawn, so I told the kids to run inside and I went and got a shovel. By the time I got back the moles had separated and both were attempting to head back underground. In the middle of the day I couldn't lose my chance to rid myself of one of these pests that have tormented our nice green lawn. A few whaps later and one of the moles was dead.

I've never seen one before, so the kids and I took a close look. I had to give quite the explanation to the kids how we don't normally kill animals, but...

What can you do? Here is the mole.

Grandpa Don in Town & Evan's Soccer Team's Pool Party

With so many members of our family in the "teaching" profession, summertime often brings family visits. This time it was Grandpa Don coming down from Yakima to hang out with Evan and Hollyn for a few days. Man did he spoil them rotten. He took them to see WALL-E at the movie theater, took them putt-putt golfing a couple times, took them out for dinner one night, bought them a ton of toys and candy, and loved on them both like a good Grandpa would. It was great to have him down for a couple days!




Today it got up to 100 degrees in Vancouver, which happens maybe a couple times a summer, so it was the PERFECT day to have a pool party at the coach's house of Evan's new soccer team. Usually we have a party at the end of the season but Coach Chris felt like a party at the beginning would help the kids get to know each other better and I couldn't agree more. We had a great time playing in his pool. Hollyn, especially, loved jumping from the edge of the pool over and over again.








OK...I had to throw this pic in too. Evan was getting ready for bed and apparently feeling a little feisty. He put on his black thermal jammies and then modified a pair of underoos for his Ninja mask.

The Mt. Hood Scramble!

Where to begin?! Earlier this year I participated in a "diet contest" at work. One of my co-workers and I would often egg each other on to put in greater and greater effort. It was all in good nature and I guess it worked, as each of us lost over 20 pounds in 12 weeks. When the contest stopped though our desire to maintain a new active lifestyle did not.

Meanwhile, back at home one night, Heather and I were watching a reality show that covered an adventure run at Camp Pendleton called the "Mud Run." It looked like a freaking blast, so I showed the website to my co-worker and we both thought it would be an awesome thing to do.

Flash-forward about a month and my co-worker found another adventure run here in Portland and DARED me to do it. She wanter to enter too, but would be out of town on the date of the event. I had about a month and a half to prepare and I had been running quite a bit to lose weight in my diet contest, so I figured "why not."

Unfortunately, as I began running more frequently...AND...began running on different types of terrain, a ligament along side my left knee (known as an ITB or Iliotibial Band) became inflamed regularly and never allowed me to run more than two miles at a time. Even the week before the run the issue had not been remedied and I visited the doctor to see if there was anything that could be done. He said take a lot of Ibuprofen and hope for the best.

Sunday, June 15th, was a gorgeous day up on Mount Hood! Sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-60s greeted the 400'ish other crazy runners. The race started at 10:00am, with a course that stretched out 6.8 miles criss-crossing along White River and working up and down the surrounding sno-park. Terrain was mostly snow, but also included trail, gravel, boulder, thick brush, and rushing river. What had I gotten myself into!?

As the race began I took a slow pace to try and not go out of the gate all amped up and flare my knee right away. With the narrow trail winding throughout the landscape I often found I could only run as fast as the person in front of me, sometimes coming to a walk when the masses would bottleneck at a tricky area such as the river crossings or rock drop or such. I was actually really enjoying the run, the atmosphere, and attitudes of the other runners as they would yell out whenever danger was near, such as 2-3 foot holes in the snow that were barely visible and could easily been stepped in as you ran along the trail.

As expected though...about two miles into the run my ITB flared up and the fun run quickly turned into an agonizing walk. It was at this point that we looped back by the start/finish line and I was cheered on by Heather and the kids, who also came up and entertained themselves while I was running. It was a nice encouragement to see them.

The next two miles were the toughest from a mental perspective, as every step was uphill (sometimes STEEP) and moving further away from the finish line was annoying. Many, many times I thought "Man, my knee is killing me. I can't keep going. How much further up this mountain do I have to limp!" I just had to keep telling myself that every little step I was making was one step closer to the finish line though, even if I was moving further away.

Then came that glorious turn-around. I had reached the top of our trail and it was all downhill from here...back towards the finish line, so the mental challenge was over but the physical challenge was just beginning. Every step I made, on slippery snow, downhill, was agonizing on my left knee. I was so bummed not to be able to run! I know I had more gas left in the tank! But the knee wouldn't allow it, so I tried to keep it stiff, like a peg-legged pirate, to alleviate the rubbing of my ITB. It was useless on the snow though! Matter of fact, I actually started overcompensating so much that my right ITB started hurting. I was like "oh great!" But I just kept going. One step, slide, stumble, whatever, at a time!

And then...FINALLY...there it was...the finish line! With Heather and the kids waiting, cheering, happy to see Daddy make it alive! What a fun and challenging day. I'm still sore three days later, but I'm glad I took my co-workers challenge (and 1400mg of Ibuprofen) and conquered the Mt. Hood Scramble. The race took me 2 hours and 20 minutes, and I swear when I crossed the finish line a guy told me I was 199th, but tonight the results have been posted and I'm 277th. Oh well, I knew I was slow as molasses, and I'm still just glad I did it. You can bet there will be other races once I get my knees all figured out!

You can view all the pics from the Scramble here. If you want to search for me, I was racer #6, but most of those pics are cheesy and lame. The one that we thought was cool is posted below, as are the other pics we took.

When we arrived cars and runners were everywhere.

That's me at registration. Wait, am I crying ALREADY!?

Such a gorgeous day up on Mt. Hood!

The participants are lining up behind me. Better take one last pic with the kids in case I don't make it back alive!

You know you're old when even the stretching hurts!

Here goes nothing!

Off we go! I wish I had a camera out on the course to show you more of the trail!

This picture was taken by the official race photographer, Brian Conaghan. One of the many times we criss-crossed over White River. It was usually thigh deep and you had to be VERY careful of your footing or you were gonna fall face-first into the river!

Here's me looping back at about the 2 mile mark.

That there is PAIN as I kept trying to run on a bum knee.

6.8 miles later I get a high-5 from Evan as I near the finish line.

At least I wasn't last...barely!

The group was very laid back and fun. The organizers had free soup, beer, gatorade, watermelon, and plenty of prizes.

BTW...many runners brought their dogs who also ran the route. Nothing like getting passed by a dog.

While I was running the kids played and entertained themselves.

No...Evan is NOT peeing!

What good kiddos!

A little well-deserved post-race rest.

Wait a second...shouldn't "I" be getting the back rub???

Father's Day Present - A Portland Timbers Game

For Father's Day this year Heather and the kids surprised me with tickets to a Portland Timbers game. It was a gorgeous Saturday night and we and 8,000 other local soccer fanatics took in an international exhibition with the Timbers downing an Italian squad called Juventus Primevara by a score of 1-0. It was an extremely fun night filled with good food, exciting soccer, and family smiles.

F-U-T-B-O-L... S-M-I-L-E-S!

A very happy Father's Day present!

Joey Webber was introduced as the Timbers new official team mascot, following the retirement of long-time team icon “Timber” Jim Serrill earlier this year.

Evan lent the Timbers some good luck by rubbing and holding a slice of timber.

We had the first row of the back section so we had a pretty good view.

Hollyn really took to the cheers the fans did. She was solid on the clapping parts!

I'm not sure if Evan is more excited about the cotton candy vendor or the game?

Of course I was pretty excited about my pretzel and nacho cheese too!

Great Wolf Lodge

A few years back we were looking for a central location to hold a reunion of friends from college scattered on both coasts, and we had looked into waterparks in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. One of the ones we liked best was the Great Wolf Lodge, so imagine our surprise a few years later when GWL built a new Lodge in Grand Mound, WA (about 80 miles north of Vancouver). Introductory pricing only made the deal more attractive, so we booked a room for last week and here are the pictures. Sorry they aren't in the best order!

The Great Wolf Lodge

What a beautiful entry! The kids were very impressed.

The suites off the side of the waterpark.

We tried to snap a shot of the big Typhoon slide and other tube rides that come out of the building.

We got started in the kiddie pool.

Watch out brother!

Back at you sister!

Evan wasn't too impressed with the kiddie slides.

Pose for a picture. One of the coolest parts of the parks was that every little thing seemed to control something. If you pulled on the blue/white ropes (like Hollyn is holding) water squirted six feet in the air out of holes nearby.

Thank God the tubes were lifted to the top for us. I can't imagine carrying them up all those stairs.

Blacklight arcade...cool.

Evan loved skee ball almost as much as Hollyn.

But not quite!

Mommy hit the jackpot on a game and won the kids a ton of tickets!

Back to the waterparks for day two!

The kids catch a little night-time story time from a GWL employee.

The wave pool was Evan's favorite part.

What a fun trip so far!

Wally the Wolf gives Evan a hug.

Happy kids...

make for a happy family!

Goodnight kisses from Hollyn.

and from Evan.

Relaxing after a fun first day.

Evan watches Spy Kids during a little rest time.

She's a pretty tired girl from all the fun.

Day two starts with the Wolf Walk, where we learn all about wolves including how to howl!

Evan needs a little help with is origami wolf.

Crawling like wolves to scare the Lodge's reception staff.

The clock tower.

The kiddie pool.

This fortress had a huge bucket on top that filled with water...

and dumped it every few minutes...

on the people below. We must have done this a half dozen times.

Evan was thrilled to run into a classmate at the Lodge. They played together a lot of the second day.

Daddy was on kiddie pool patrol.

She's not a fan of paparazzi.

Evan LOVED punching the waves as they crashed into him.

The tubular twosome!

Midday snack brought cotton candy ice cream.

Evan took in an "edutainment" class called Bouncing Bullfrogs.

His origami frog gets some swirly eyes.

Evan got to scoop soil, plant a plant, throw in some rocks and a fake frog to complete his first terrarium.

Evan's crayon pressing of a bullfrog.

We had so much fun.

Kisses for Daddy!

Evan had a hard time keeping one of his swimsuits up!

Our little mermaid.

We finalized the trip with fake tattoos for everyone.

Evan got a shark.

Hollyn's took some special colors and glitter.

Pretty green and purple mermaid.

Mommy got a green frog and Daddy got the Chinese character for Happiness.

The Lodge has a program called MagiQuest where kids earn points by exploring the Lodge for magical treasures. In one of the rooms laid a slumbering dragon that thrilled Evan!

Kindergarten Graduation!

We can hardly believe that Evan's first year is already over. Man did it fly by! And we are SO proud of Evan. He learned so much and had so many great adventures. His Graduation ceremony was the other night and it was very special. We were so glad Grandpa Gary and Grandma Jeanie could come, as well as our neighbors. Evan had a blast and I think he's super ready for 1st grade!

Hollyn waiting for the ceremony to get started.

Evan sporting his official Kindy grad shirt!

The ceremony gets underway with a handful of patriotic songs.

Martin Luther King Jr., Abe Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson

Statue of Liberty, George Washington, and ?

Each kid got a collage in a PowerPoint presentation. Top left, crazy hair day. Bottom left, Thanksgiving. Top right, on the playground. Bottom right, being cheesy. Center, the handsome graduate.

The Graduates (Evan is top right)

Evan with his teacher Mrs. Gaines

Evan with his neighbor friend, Madison

The kids were so tired by the time the ceremony ended.

Evan gets some awesome Transformers from Grandma/Grandpa

Grandpa Gary and Evan

Didn't take long to open those presents!