Seattle Seahawks vs. Buffalo Bills

I've always wanted to see Josh Allen in person play football.  The Buffalo Bills should have already had two Super Bowl rings, but here we are.

Ben's friend Sven was given his parents Seahawk season tickets a few years back and he wanted to give us a wedding gift. He and his wife, Cheri, decided to gift us a pair of their season tickets.  It came with a parking pass too.  He told us we could choose whatever home game we wanted.  Ben and I sat down and looked through the schedule and saw we were playing the Buffalo Bills at home.  Ben and I both agreed that is the game we wanted to go to that season

Ben got a hold of Sven and told him which game we chose.  He told us great choice, and he will send over the tickets and parking pass as the game got closer. We thanked him for his generosity.  Now, we gotta hope that we chose a game where both teams played well and that it's actually a good game.  I was also hoping the weather was decent for us because you never know what kind of weather you'll get at the end of October.

As it got closer to game time, Sven sent Ben the tickets and parking pass.  We made sure they went into Ben's digital wallet so we could access them quickly once we got to the stadium.

Ben and I got up, got ready and made sure we had all of our game, rain gear and clear plastic bag.  I even grabbed a couple of hand warmers just in case we got cold.  We both wore layers, brought our hats and scarfs.  I wore my waterproof shoes.  We ate a quick breakfast, and we were out the door by 10:15.  Ben drove. 

We didn't have any issues on I-5 which was nice.  It slowed down a little bit as we got into Seattle and to our exit. We made our way to the T-Mobile parking garage and found a place near one of the stairwells, grabbed what we would need and headed down that stairwell.  We made our way over to the field house to hang out there for a bit before the game. We went through security and had our tickets scanned. We kicked field goals and got a couple prizes, we got mini-Seahawk candy buckets because Halloween is a few days away and I got my face painted. We watched some of the other games that were being played on the big screens and checking our teams on Fantasy Football. By the time we did all of that, it was time to head upstairs into the stadium.

Sven sent us a view from our seats, but it did not compare to where our seats actually were in real life.  We made our way over to our seats and the best part of them they were by themselves along the first level concourse, they were squishy seats (they had padding and backs), and we didn't have to sit next to anyone.  The view was also amazing!  I can't believe those were our seats!

We got comfortable and hoped the rain would stay away.  We took a bunch of pictures and then both teams came out to warm up.  It's always exciting being at the game even though you miss a lot because you don't get the announcers tidbits, replays and other info that the TV provides.  We watched the teams go through their warm-up routines while we kept track of our Fantasy Football teams.  They cleared out, did the starting line-up and then the national anthem.  They raised the 12th Man flag, and the game promptly started at 1:05.  I was really hoping the rain would stay away from our mild 57-degree afternoon.  Fingers crossed.

The game was going to be interesting because we were playing one of the better AFC teams, their quarterback was clearly better than our quarterback and Metcalf had a knee injury and wasn't going to play.  I didn't see this going very well but we were happy to be there together anyway.

The first quarter began, and it was awful.  I've watched and have been to many games since 2002 (when we were more competitive) and I've never seen such a bad quarter of football (by my local team).  The Bills looked fantastic though.  On their first attempt with the football, they went on a 14 play, 90-yard drive that ended in a 2-yard touchdown by Keon Coleman thrown by Allen. Tyler Bass made the kick.  The quarter ended with the Bills up by 7.  The first quarter stats were horrendous.  We had a total of 3 yards while they had 122.  We had the ball for two and a half minutes while they possessed the ball for a little over nine. It could be worse. 

I thought, well...they are only up by a touchdown.  We might be able to turn this around.  Haha, nope!  When we had the ball, we slowly marched down the field somehow. We were literally on the 2-yard line and managed to go backwards and Geno's foot was stepped on, causing a fumble and out of touchdown range.  We had to settle for a field goal. On the Bills' next scoring opportunity, they made a 93-yard drive look easy.  It ended in a 12-yard pass from Allen to Dalton Kincaid and the a made field goal to take a 14-3 lead into half time. The score really didn't reflect how we were actually playing but the stats sure did.

We did a little better, but it was still terrible.  We managed to get to 95 total yards and possessed the ball for almost 10 minutes.  Sadly, it also started raining but thankfully I brought our rain ponchos. I was happy the rain didn't last a long time but made everything wet and cold. Ben got up to go find something to snack on.  He brought back some gluten free chili, popcorn and two Budweiser seltzers.  Those actually weren't bad. 

The third quarter started, and it was more of the same except we threw an unfortunate interception on a favorable drive.  The Bills only got a field goal out of that, but we basically did nothing else during the third quarter.  The Bills managed to get a rushing touchdown from James Cook.  The score was now 24-3.  The game was now getting away from us. 

With the Bills' final touchdown in the 4th sealed the game for them.  They were up 31-3 at this point and anything else after that was garbage time. To make it look less bad, the Seahawks did manage to score a touchdown by Zach Charbonnet.  It livened the crowd a little bit, but the game was pretty much over.  The Bills were clearly the better team, and we all knew it.  I was hoping the Bills would finally make it to the Super Bowl and win it. 

We lost 31-10 in front of 68,704 people and a lot of them were Bills fans.  We had a 233 total yards, 2 turnovers and 17 first downs and the Bills had 445 total yards, one turnover and 29 first downs.  Buffalo held Seattle to 1 yard rushing in the first half, the second-fewest rushing yards the Bills had given up in a half this century and the Bills controlled the game for 38 minutes while the Seahawks did for 22 minutes.  If we would have had a better first half this may have been closer, and the game would have been more exciting.  We will never know.

We stayed until the end, gathered up our stuff and then made our way back to the parking garage through the sea of people.  It didn't take us long to get back to the parking garage and out onto I-5 to start our way south towards home. The traffic was heavy but started to thin out as we got to Tukwila.  We got home just after 6:00.  We washed some laundry, relaxed and got ready for the busy work week.

Next Adventure:  Val's Birthday Week!

Halloween Party with Friends

A few months ago, Ben and I were trying to decide what we were going to be for Halloween this year.  As you all know, this year was super busy with wedding planning, the arrival of my nephew and the actual wedding in July.  Those events pretty much took up most of our time.  

The summer Olympics were also this year and were held in Paris, France. There were some memorable games, matches and athletes.  Break dancing was officially included in the 2024 Olympic games, marking the first time a dance sport has been included in the summer games. The competition included 16 males and 16 females, each representing their country in one-on-one battles.  Five judges assessed the break dancers on criteria such as technique, vocabulary, execution, musicality and originality according to Olympics.com.  

Well, one of the female Australian break dancers competed and received a score of zero in one of her rounds.  Her performance, particularly her "kangaroo bounce" move, went viral, leading to both positive and negative reactions around the world.  I didn't actually watch the Olympics this year because we were busy, but it was all over social media.  It was hard not to see the memes and jokes.

Despite the excitement surrounding the debut, the inclusion of break dancing in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics is uncertain, raising questions about the sport's long term Olympic future.

There was another well-known athlete participating in the games, and he was one of France's top pole vaulters.  He failed to advance to the finals because a video of one of his attempts where he knocked down the crossbar with his wiener went viral.  Following that, he was offered $250,000 by the Vice President of the porno website to create a webcam show.

Ben suggested that we be the failed Olympic athletes this year and I couldn't say no.  We looked into my costume, which could be purchased in its entirety for about $25 on Amazon, and Ben's costume, which could be purchased in pieces off of Amazon and created.  We thought our costumes were going to be hilarious.

I also thought it would be funny to post hints on Facebook for people to guess what my costume was going to be.  I had quite a few people follow and had no idea what the hints were until almost the last day. I had fun with it. Ben spent most of October getting his costume perfected but was having trouble with the pole.  He could not get it to stay where he wanted it.  We tried many different things, but it was just too heavy and did not give it the illusion he envisioned. 

The last few years after Covid, Celeste and Isaac have been hosting Halloween at their new house. We all planned a game night with costumes and food.  I was excited to see what everyone was going to dress up as.  Ben and I drove over early because we had the extra table and chairs.  We also got to park in the driveway.  Their neighborhood has crappy street parking and there are never enough spaces for everyone.  We brought everything inside including our dish and my gluten free pumpkin cookies we made for the party.  We helped set up the extra table and chairs.

Celeste had great Halloween and spooky decorations all over the house and the table was very festive as well. It was fun to see what everyone dressed up as once everyone showed up to the party.  Everyone thought our costumes were hilarious.   We ate food first, then got a bunch of group photos, individual photos and then dove into the games.  

We played a couple different ones but one of our favorite ones from the night was Poetry for Neanderthals. We also played a game to where we had to shout out songs to a word.  It got pretty competitive at times. A few people had to go home early but the rest of us stayed for other games until Celeste and Isaac were tired of guests and wanted to go to bed, lol.  Ben and I left before midnight because we had a Seahawk game to go to the next day.  I am excited to see next year's costumes.

Next Adventure:  Seattle Seahawks vs. Buffalo Bills

Pumpkin Carving and Mom's Birthday Party

Mom's birthday was quickly approaching, and she hasn't told anyone what she wanted to do.  We were running out of time to plan something. I asked Mom what she wanted to do for her birthday and of course, she said she didn't know.  I gave her a couple ideas to ponder.  I told her we could carve pumpkins after her party, and she said we could do that.  I asked her what kind of food she wanted to have at her party, and she said she didn't know.  I threw some suggestions at her and she agreed to have chili and corn bread.  She added that I get her an Oreo ice cream cake.  I noted that as well.  I let everyone know when we were going to celebrate Mom's party and that we were carving pumpkins.  Because most of the weekends were busy, we had to have this one on a Friday night later on in the month.  Her birthday was on a Wednesday this year and those are hard to have in the middle of the week.

A few days before her party, I went shopping for all the stuff I needed to make her birthday dinner and dessert.  I'm glad she picked chili and corn bread because that was relatively easy to make, and I didn't have to dirty up a bunch of dishes. I found a couple birthday presents months ago that I made sure were wrapped and her card was signed.

The day before and most of Friday afternoon I spent getting the house ready.  I already had pumpkins from when we went to the pumpkin patch a few weekends prior, so I didn't have to get any more.  Plus, Mom and Dad, both left me with theirs, so they were already at the house.  I got the house vacuumed, put up the tables and chairs, made sure I got some big bowls out and the pumpkin carving tools out, cleaned the kitchen and waited to log off of work on Friday afternoon so I could start the food.  I did the corn bread first and then the chili second.  I was hoping I had enough food for everyone and pretty sure I did.

Ben came home, changed his clothes and helped finish setting up the tables.  The cornbread was done, so I took that out and let it cool.  People started to arrive and making themselves at home. I finished up the chili and let that cool for a few minutes.  I told everyone to come in and grab some chili and cornbread.  There was cheese, sour cream and Fritos if people wanted that along with their chili.  I took a couple handfuls of Fritos, poured some chili on top and added some cheese.  That is my go to.

We ate our food around the table and chatted about the latest and greatest things that have happened since the last time we hung out.  I told everyone how my DJA was going and what kinds of things I was learning. I was excited to see where it went in the future.  Doug told us about the status on his job he's been doing since June and the hope to stay with them beyond his internship and Brian was almost 5 months old.  Time sure flies.

We finished up our food, cleared out our bowls and I got out Mom's Oreo cake.  Ben was sad he couldn't have any with his recent gluten free diagnosis.  We had to learn how to eat food without gluten in it and so far, it's been an interesting journey.  I put two candles, a 6 and a 4 in it and brought it out to Mom.  We sang her happy birthday, she blew out the candles, I gave out ice cream cake to those who wanted it and then she opened her gifts. The weirdest gift she got was from Doug.  He painted her a sloth pumpkin, lol.

We cleared off the table from the presents and ice cream cake and got it set up to carve pumpkins.  I grabbed the large bowls, knives, spoons and the pumpkin carving tools from those little kits they sell at the Dollar Tree.  I couldn't decide what I wanted my pumpkin to look like.  I went through some of the stencils and decided to just free hand a face to carve. It was fun.  Then Mom told me to carve out another pumpkin so we could get a picture of Brian inside of it with the outfit Mom bought him a few weeks ago.  I wasn't sure if the pumpkin was going to be big enough but surprisingly, it was.  Erika got his outfit on, and we plopped him into the pumpkin.  He was not happy, but we got one good one of him.

Everyone had a great time carving pumpkins and we got some creative ones.  We plopped some candles inside of them and got a few pictures of them on the front porch area.  

Everyone helped clean up the pumpkin messes on the tables before they gathered up their stuff and headed home.  I made people take their pumpkins with them.  I didn't need 10 pumpkins on my front porch.

Happy Birthday Momma!

Next Adventure:  Halloween Party with Friends

Brian's First Visit to the Pumpkin Patch

Mom had mentioned a few weeks ago that we should find a weekend in October to take Brian to the pumpkin patch. I told her that we needed to talk to Erika first, but we should totally push for early October since the weather is most likely going to be nice.

They had a conversation, and we came up with sometime in early October at Rutledge Farm around 1 p.m. We invited everyone because Brian going to the pumpkin patch for the first time was a big deal.  We finalized the day, and everyone wrote it on their calendar.  Mom found Brian a cute outfit to wear to the pumpkin patch too. 

I invited Ed, Amy and Trish to come down since this visit to the pumpkin patch was a special one.  They agreed to come down.  Sadly, Ben couldn't come with us because he was on shift that day until 7 p.m.  I told him I would pick out a pumpkin for him. He said he was okay with that.

I got up late that morning, got ready and had time to make a scarf down a breakfast sandwich.  I made sure to wear my pumpkin shirt I bought a couple weeks ago for $5. I hopped into the Escape and made my way to Rutledge over on 93rd.  Trish had texted me that they were already there and I told her that I was almost there.  When I finally did get to the farm, I saw that it was insane.  Finding parking was going to be challenging.  I've been there several times over the years and had never seen it that busy before.  I think it was because it was a nice day, the Seahawks game wasn't on, and it was right after church.

I finally found a parking spot.  Mom, Dad and Grandma showed up and Doug and Sonya pulled up in his little blue car.  Everyone was there and accounted for.  We grabbed a couple of wheelbarrows and set off to the pumpkins.  

Before we picked any out, we started with the photos of Brian.  It was really hard to get him to look at the camera because he was so fascinated by the pumpkins themselves.  We did eventually get a couple good ones of him and the family.  We wandered around for a bit looking at the fall flowers and picking out the perfect pumpkin.  It was quite a warm day for mid-October.  I kinda over dressed and was getting sweaty.

I found a couple good ones and ended up having to pick between them.  I sent Ben a couple pictures of the ones I found for him, and he picked the one he wanted.  I put mine and his into the wheelbarrow and tried keeping them separate from everyone else's.  We all headed towards the building so we could get into the giant line to pay for our pumpkins.  It was really hard standing in line for that long, but we prevailed!

We wheeled our pumpkins over to the vehicles and Trish, Amy and Ed paid for the corn maze.  Nobody else seemed to be interested in the corn maze.  They thanked us for inviting them to the pumpkin patch and walked back to the building to head into the corn maze.  This year's corn maze was Marshawn Lynch with a Kraken hat and hockey stick.  We got together in the parking lot and decided to go have lunch together somewhere in Tumwater.  Mom wanted pizza so we found out Inferno's on the corner of 99 and Tumwater Blvd turned into a Farrelli's. 

We all got into our vehicles and drove into Tumwater.  We all got seated in the far side of the restaurant and our server took our orders immediately.  I just got a drink since I ate breakfast not too long before that.  We had fun hanging out with Brian even though he was only 5 months old.  He did a bunch of laughing and smiling while everyone ate their pizza and calzones.  It was a fun family outing.

After pizza and saying goodbye to everyone, I decided, since I was in that part of town, to go grocery shopping.  I hit up Walmart, Costco, Fred Meyer and the Dollar Tree for a few things.  It was nice to get that chore out of the way.  I headed back home, unloaded the Escape, put everything away, ate some salad for dinner, did some laundry, worked on my blog (since I was way behind) and watched some football.  Our game was the Thursday night game, and we lost to the stupid 49ers.

Ben came home after 7 p.m. that night and he told me about his day on shift.  I showed him his pumpkin I got him and told him about my day.  We finished up our chores and got ready for the upcoming work week.  It was a big one for me since I was starting my Developmental Job Assignment (DJA) with Employment Standards the next day.  I was excited yet nervous to see how it was going to go.  I haven't done anything new at work in almost 7 years. I was looking forward to the opportunity.

Next Adventure:  Pumpkin Carving and Mom's Birthday Party