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.