Fall

It was really cold this morning!! The dog even looked chilled, so we threw a blanket in the dryer and made her into a burrito.


Morrie and I went for a walk last week while Maria warmed up for her game, and the trees were amazing! What is even more amazing is that we took pictures with our phones the whole time and looked like the nerdiest couple ever.

EVER!

Maria runs into fall like you wouldn't believe.

There is no way I would look this stunning after running a race.

Can I have what they're drinking??




Turns out, if you hold your phone up to a kaleidoscope, and take a picture, it really works!

Turns out, if you miss 9/10 of your daughter's 9th grade soccer season, you will curl up in a ball and cry every night (she's in the back row on the right).

She really wanted her goalie to have the opportunity to play on the field for once. So before the last game, Izzy asked her coach if she could be in goal so her goalie could start the final game as forward.

Can someone get me a kleenex?

Sud Su Ming

Maria thought long and hard about what to name her cat. Names were listed, voting was done, names were eliminated, lists were reconstructed. It was a lengthy process. She finally settled on Sud Su Ming. It means Ghost of a Tiger. She read about it in a book.

Her cat is all grey, so the ghost part fits nicely. I was thinking that it would mean we would hardly notice the cat. She would slink around the house and just when you thought you saw her, you would turn your head, and she wouldn't be there.

Unfortunately, that's isn't the case. She loves to cuddle and she demands it by meowing rather loudly that she needs attention.

It's kind of cute. Kind of.


Until she starts climbing into every nook and cranny. She sits in the sink, runs across the kitchen table no matter how many times we yell at her, jumps up on the edge of the washing machine as soon as I turn on the water (and immediately throws her arm under the water), jumps into the dryer as soon as it opens (even if I am putting wet clothes IN), and basically gets on my nerves.

After a few hours of chasing her around as if we have a rogue toddler, her energy wanes and

napping commences.
I thought cats were supposed to be easy. I want a new ghost!

Part Two: Road Trip

I saved my favorite photos for you today. In between belting out this song over and over:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2j279pZxTY we took loads of pictures.

We listen to Adele, because of course, my 11 year old is well versed in heartache.

NOT.

We managed to stare at the sky in awe. Maria is tired of me saying "Oh Oh, get that- but try to block this, and don't get that there, tilt it just so..." while I was cruising down the highway.

I think I am going to quit my job, pull Maria out of school and travel cross country so we can do more of this!

Road Trip!

I like road trips.

I like to sit in the passenger seat and enjoy the scenery. This trip though, I had to be the driver and my 11 year old side kick got to relax and be the photographer most of the time.



We saw lots of clouds, and took lots of pictures of them. They were awesome.

After a long day of driving and playing soccer and driving some more, we rolled into our next town about 9:00pm and jumped right into bed.

The next day we drove some more, played soccer some more and enjoyed the scenery...and cleaned the windshield 7 times because I couldn't see through the 3,000 bugs that left their guts all over it. We had to resort to rolling down the window and one point just to get a clear picture.

We also sang Adele at the top of our lungs. Music can really make a road trip!

Having a good side kick doesn't hurt either.

Did I mention that we were loving the clouds?

Giving the clouds a run for their money were the wind turbines. Simply put, they were amazing and we might have a hundred pictures of them. Maybe more.

We actually stopped to get the last light of the day here:

I told her not to get to close to the edge, but this girl like to push the envelope.

Oops...looks like we might have pushed the envelope a little too much!

Why does she insist on giving me these heart attacks??

Dog Contest

Morrie had a Pet Photo Contest at work last week. He of course wanted a picture of Annie for it. I hate that dog. She is sooo much work, and I never take pictures of her. This was all he could find to choose from...that were recent.

She only won second place!!! I demand a RECOUNT!!!

While the kids are away...Mom will play

I have had some cardboard letters hanging out in a closet for over a year.



A YEAR people! I finally found some time to do something with them one weekend while Morrie and the girls were gone. I think this was when Morrie spent 4 days on a boat at Seafair, and the girls went camping. I found myself working and doing chores the first few days and then realized I was nuts, and had better find something fun to do.





Letters + craft supplies = a really happy Andrea

Throw in some white paint

Nope, not good enough, lets throw in some COLOR!

Sigh...I love color.

Hmmm...I wonder how I end of thinking of them even when they aren't around?

Funny how this sappy mom works.

Tournaments = Vacation

When we have 4 tournaments over the course of one summer, two of which require hotel stays for all 4 of us, and they eat up our time off from work...that kind of leads to them replacing what might have been a normal summer vacation. That doesn't mean we don't have fun!

I know I failed to document these occurrences this summer. They were sandwiched around family visits from out of towners, and one day I said to myself, "WHERE DID AUGUST GO???". It was just gone. I went to bed and it was July 31st and when I woke up, the kids headed out the door for school.

Here is a little peak into one of those tournaments. It was the least stressful for me because we only had 5 games (all for Maria) where the previous 3 tournaments had anywhere from 6-8 games each between both girls. Five seemed like a walk in the park!

Here is my girl running like the wind blows. I love it when she does that.





Here she just outsmarted someone and ended up taking the ball down to the corner where the other girl kicked it out. Maria loves to earn her team some corner kicks.

This may have been between games. Maria might be holding a giant machine gun and be shooting at the arcade game.

She is so sweet.

We brought some serious fire to the tournament with us:

I saw some very interesting things at this tournament. One of which was this train, carrying a plane.

If you look very closely, just to the left of the plane, there is a guy just standing on the train. I guess he is guarding the plane? Like someone is going to jump up on the train and steal the plane? Or maybe HE just jumped up there and he is going to steal it? Shoot. I should have called someone about that.

It looks kind of fun.

Now, the Sounders (whom I refer to as "my boys") like to have my presence at practice. I don't ask them why, I just do it.

You may think I am randomly bringing this up. I left Maria warming up on one field, and just walked over to this one and here is what I saw:

In this shot, Mike, Fucito, who had new stitches under his eye, is retelling the story of how he got them. He was elbowed in the face. The outrageous part is that the foul wasn't called. He was bleeding all over the place and NOTHIN'. You can bet we spent some time gesturing at the ref over that one.

This is Patrick Ianni doing a wicked slide tackle against Erik Friberg.

I love it when they do that.

I also love it when certain 11 year olds turn all pro NFL player on me and put black under their eyes. It makes them look intimidating, doesn't it?

This is actually (I swear it!) during one of Maria's games. Morrie is on the phone. My brother in law is on the phone, and Morrie's brother is on the phone. If I remember correctly, Loren was buying high, Ryan was selling low and Morrie was fixing an overheated server room.

Or Ryan was making fun of the brothers.

Yup, I am pretty sure that is what really happened.