Category Archives: Soccer

Catching Up…

Saturday was a great day of catching up and getting things done. We started the day hoisting our U.S. and Marine Flags in honor of Armed Forces Day here in the states.

Right after raising the flags we jumped in the car to head to Cabella’s for Dear to find some good walking shoes. We were there when it opened and back on the road for home by 10 a.m. We switched vehicles and headed to the Home Depot for some shrubs. We wanted to add some privacy to our patio area that the shrubs should provide. After some clean up work in the shop we got ready to meet Josh and Laura downtown for a bite to eat before the Seattle Sounders game against Dallas.

This was our postponed celebration of Mother’s Day. We cancelled Mother’s day celebrations last weekend because of a soccer injury Josh got that grounded him with pain and because Laura had an overtime week of work, events and care for Josh. We had a great time catching up over some small bites. Even though we didn’t get together last Sunday I was treated royally with flowers from all three of my kids.

There were 3 sweet little birds tucked into this floral arrangement because of the 3 babies that gave me the title of Mom.

After eating Dear headed home and I joined Josh and Laura to head to the stadium. Josh is still suffering from deep tissue and bone bruising in his lower leg from his injury so we walked slowly to our seats. There were some special pre-game festivities to honor all branches of the Military for Armed Forces Day. The Sounders club is great in honoring our military and our country.

Of course it’s pretty evident that I’m a wee bit partial to one particular branch of the military.

The Marines!

I’m happy to report the evening ended beautifully with a huge win for the Sounders over Dallas. It’s fun when your team wins.

Sunday is quiet compared to our Saturday. We had a challenging church service. We are in a series called The Big Picture. Today we talked about God’s Mission. We were challenged to open our mouth, to have the courage to use words in sharing what Christ has done for us and the saving grace he offers all. Lord, open my heart, open a door and open my mouth.

For our friends to the North a very happy Victoria Day to you! For all of you I hope you have a very good week ending with our long Memorial Weekend here in the States.  As you flit away here’s one more little birdie to see you off…

Bye Bye Birdie!

The Season Begins…

Although we didn’t win it was nice to get rolling again. It was especially nice to enjoy the game with 3 of our 5!

For those of you who aren’t major league soccer fans this was the Seattle Sounders opener against Toronto. It was nice that Katie could join us while she is in town.

We’ve gotten to be friends with the season ticket holders around us. It comes in handy when you want them to take a photo, too!

I love that we always begin with National anthems and that the military in our area is so well represented. I’m a little partial to the Marines!

Since we were playing a Canadian team, their flag was represented, too. We listened to a beautiful rendition of “O Canada” in English with some French thrown in. They could have been better guests, though, and let us win. Aye!

 

 

 

Another fun season of “raising our scarves”…and wearing our rave green!

Our Emerald City Supporters really go the extra mile. The other Major League Soccer clubs have learned a lot from our Seattle Sounders supporters. This next photo does not represent most of the fans.

I don’t know how they were able to fall asleep but I’m glad I was able to catch them in the act! Speaking of sleep, I’m going to be sleeping at our son’s home in Eastern Washington for the next couple of nights so you probably won’t be hearing from me.

Have a great week!

It’s 10-11-12!

I wonder when the next time that will happen!?

…I need to back track to document what a fun Sunday night we had in downtown Seattle at the Sounders Soccer game against our Cascadia rivals the Portland Timbers.

We always start with our local military representatives holding the flag while we sing The Star Spangled Banner. This night there were over 50,000 voices strong singing. That is really cool. Total attendance for the night was 66, 452.

…and the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air!

Our Emerald City Supporters went all out with a banner depicting the Sounders coach Sigi Schmid going all in.

An all time favorite player on our Sounders team retired earlier this year and he was honored this night with the golden scarf. He really is beloved by the fans and the stadium went electric when he was honored!

As the sun set in the West the sun set on Portland, too. We sent them back to Portland defeated 3-0.

So I’m still going around and around on my theme and I’m not finished yet. Double Oye!

What do you have planned for 10-11-12??

A Golden Moment!

Congratulations to the U.S. Women’s Soccer team and their gold medal in the 2012 Olympics! It was a beautiful thing for me a huge soccer fan to watch. Congratulations, too, to the Canadian Women beating France to earn the bronze medal and to Japan for receiving the silver medal. It’s great to watch the medal ceremony and see the women all lined up with those huge smiles!

Here are some more beautiful things from my yard…

Before I watched the game I mowed the lawn, picked some apples and enjoyed some of the flowers growing in planters about the yard.

I’m trying to get motivated to peel and core these apples off the tree and make some applesauce…

My top hat blueberries are getting big and ripe.  This is a dwarf blueberry that grows well in pots.

My mom is being moved to a rehab center this afternoon. They are calling around to find one that has room. I’m hoping it isn’t too far from my parents apartment since my dad will be driving back and forth. Thank you so much for all your prayers and concern for my mom. It is really appreciated.

Look Ma…no Jacket!

We had our first evening Sounders Soccer game that I did not have to have several layers of warmth on my body this past Saturday! The sun was shining, the crowd was rowdy, but our team went down in defeat. The only downer on a very wonderful day!

All day in the sunshine. A 5K in the morning. Putting up deck structures in the afternoon. Dinner downtown before the game. We were all yawning during the 2nd half of the game! Absorbing vitamin D is hard work!

Going to the Dentist today so hopefully I can say “Look ma, no cavities, too!”

Can’t leave without showing you how thoughtful my kids are…

A basket full of treats that were personalized about things that bring me joy from Josh and Laura.

Flowers on my doorstep from Katie and Andrew all the way from North Carolina.

Daniel sent me a gift certificate for a local salon and I’ll be booking a massage real soon.

Dear pampered me all day beginning with home made eggs Benedict that were delicious!

Blessed to the brim and I don’t take it for granted…

Have a great week y’all.

U.S. Open Cup Title 2011

SEATTLE (Oct. 4, 2011) –” The Seattle Sounders won their third consecutive Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup title with a 2-0 win against the Chicago Fire in front of a record crowd this evening at CenturyLink Stadium in Seattle. Goals from Fredy Montero and Osvaldo Alonso helped the Sounders become the first team in 42 years to win the Open Cup three years in a row and ensured goalkeeping legend and team captain Kasey Keller ended his final season with at least one piece of silverware.”

It’s always great when the team you are cheering for wins. We were surrounded by a great group of friends last night at the game and we were not disappointed at the outcome. Here are some photos showing the highlights of the night for me.

The following sequence of photos are from the opening of the ceremonies with the Star Spangled Banner being sung and the men and women of all the military branches holding the U.S. Flag. I really enjoy this part of the night and I like to zoom in on “The few. The proud. The Marines!”

This is a retired Marine that we have season tickets by.

Our ECS section amazed the crowd with these banners that they unfurled before the first kick.

All this fun and celebration wore me out and I’m being a little slow this Wednesday. Hope you all are doing well!

Manchester United…

…came to Seattle and we greeted them with beautiful weather and a record breaking noisy crowd. What did they give us in return? A solid defeat scoring 7 beautiful goals. Sheesh…they could have let us score once!

I was very happy to see these players in person playing the beautiful game of soccer with lots of style. Wayne Rooney didn’t disappoint after he entered the game in the 2nd half. Our youngest fan at the game that night had a Rooney jersey on.

This game was played in July. Yesterday the girls and I went to another soccer game and this time we didn’t lose…

We didn’t win either. It was a 0-0 draw. It was a fun time out with the girls anyway…

I’ll leave you with this next photo of an interesting hairdo on one of the fans. That takes a lot of “product” to achieve.

Hope you had a nice weekend and are looking forward to this next week.

I’m linking up with Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday.

United We Serve ~

Ellen b. with Michael Tetteh who came to the Seattle Sounders from Ghana via College in Santa Barbara.

 

Today I joined many volunteers to work side by side Sounders Soccer players at Hopelink Food Bank in Redmond, Wa. The Sounders Soccer F.C. in partnership with Seattle Bank host United We Serve Events each month. At the March Event at Hopelink Food Bank in Redmond  – we joined Sounders FC players Mike Seamon, Michael Tetteh, Josh Ford and Servando Carrasco as they volunteered from 2:30-4:00pm.  All of us volunteers portioned out servings of rice and oats which will be distributed to hungry families in East King County and will supplement Hopelink’s Emergency Feeding Services program.

Servando Carrasco, Michael Tetteh, Josh Ford, and Mike Seaman.

The 90 minutes flew by and there was a lot of friendly banter going back and forth. I ended up working with someone we have season tickets next to so it was fun to get to know him a little better.

I get to check one more thing off my 60 things to do in my 6oth year list! This was #30.

 

Just in Time…

…for the Major League Soccer season opener in Seattle my flagpole was ready to hoist it’s flags. We’re proud to wave the American flag and our Seattle Sounders flag, too. We also have our Marine Corp flag that will be waving proudly.

Dear mixed up the concrete base for the flagpole on Saturday. On Monday we were ready to set the telescoping flag pole in and to raise the flags. Josh and Dear did the honors. Long may they wave! We take them down at Sunset since we do not have a light to illuminate the Stars and Stripes.

 

Last night at the opening ceremonies they had representatives from all the Military Service Branches. They unrolled and held and waved huge flags on the pitch. The Few. The Proud. The Marines. They were the brightest and the best. They never flinched, slouched, or let go of the flag. I bumped into a few of them during halftime and complimented them. Of course they replied “Thank you Ma’am” , because they are very polite, too.

Our daughter is marrying a Marine and we are proud of him! OO-RAH!

The origin of OO-RAH ~

U.S. Marines were the word’s first proprietors, using it to express contentment or to set expectations. And although use-dependent, the word OO-RAH can take on a variety of meanings. Now after languishing in military jargon obscurity for decades, it has rapidly become much more commonly known as even civilians associate its use with Marines.

The spelling of the word has never been standardized, as is often the case with phonetic interpretations of a sound that can only be properly formed at the bottom of the lungs. Variant spellings include “OORAH,” “OOHRAH,” and “OOH-RAH.” However it is spelled, it is recognizable as distinctly Marine whether spoken or written, and it can easily be distinguished from the Army version, the venerable but significantly less motivating “HOO-AH.”

Hope your Wednesday is going well. I’m a wee bit tuckered out from all the partying and fun we’ve been having around here this week. I slept in and missed my Zumba class this morning. I’m enjoying a little sunshine but I hear it’s not suppose to last so for the time being I’ll bask in it. Tomorrow I’ll be making corned beef and cabbage to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

These things I warmly wish to you-
Someone to love
Some work to do
A bit o’ sun
A bit o’ cheer
And a guardian angel always near.

~

Dance as if no one were watching,
Sing as if no one were listening,
And live every day as if it were your last.

~

May your home always be too small to hold all your friends.
God is good, but never dance in a small boat.

 

Sunday was…

…as full as a bag of trick or treats!

Dear, Katie and I went to church and besides hearing a good sermon we were treated to a Violinist who was amazing. His name is Klinkenberg and he sometimes plays with the Celtic Women. He played a more classical piece and then at the closing of the service he fiddled a wonderful rendition of Jesus Loves Me. We bought his soon too be released CD called Fiddle-Levity! We had it on during lunch and really enjoyed it.

When we got home Josh and Laura had already arrived to enjoy a meal with us. I tried a recipe from The Pioneer Women Cooks ~ Tasty Kitchen blog called Sauerkraut and Pork that had been cooking away in the oven while we were at church. We all agreed it was very tasty!

Josh, Laura and I left Dear and Katie at home to handle the Trick or Treaters and we headed downtown to Qwest Field to see the Sounders play the L.A. Galaxy. Lots of the crowd dressed up for Halloween. These guys were one of our favorites!

Three Blind Refs! After the game we wondered it they were the refs that called our game.

Joshua’s red beard really made his leprechaun costume more authentic. :0)

It was a great night for a Sounders game and for Trick or Treaters with no rain drops falling on anyone’s heads. Too bad the Sounders didn’t win. That would have really capped off a wonderful day!

Today I headed out early for some physical therapy on my tennis elbow. It has been raining steadily and promises to keep raining all day and into the night. I’m glad to be home in my slippers enjoying the coziness of our gas insert fireplace…

I came across this verse in Ecclesiastes today and couldn’t help but chuckle and use it during this political season we find ourselves in! Out of context? Maybe, maybe not.

Ecclesiastes 10:2 (English Standard Version)

“A wise man’s heart inclines him to the right,
but a fool’s heart to the left.”