Seattle Sounders FC

Tim knows just what he wants for his birthday...you can try and suprise him, but he always guesses his gift. This year he decided to treat himself and us and bought several tickets to the Mariner's baseball games this summer and two tickets to a Seattle Sounders FC soccer game. So far he's taken Becky, Audrey, and I to a Mariner's game. That leaves 2 more games for Celeste and Sophia. I was lucky enough to go to my first professional soccer game which was like nothing I had imagined. It was so different than any other professional sporting event I'd been to. I sort of felt like I was watching a Harry Potter's Quidich game (the fan attire of choice were scarves...even before the game started the recently retired Seattle Seahawks coach walked the red carpet to recieve his special award...a golden scarf.) But then it sort of felt like a college football game (rowdy fan section which chanted all sorts of special cheers only they could understand. Then, I heard a live band and sure enough, the Sounders have their own band...kind of strange.) But the food wasn't quite college hot dogs and popcorn. We enjoyed a great international buffet right before the game. Here's the band with the space needle looking kind of tiny in this shot.

What a fun time we had! The game was so fast moving and exciting...yellow cards, red cards. I left realizing I didn't know what half of the referee calls meant. Next time I'll bring my little portable AM radio so I can listen to the "play by play"...oh wait that's baseball :-)