My Uncontrollable Obsession

After reading Audrey's post on Prost Amerika about her obsession with the Seattle Sounders, I decided to write a piece of my own. Ladies out there, if you feel you have something to say about your love for soccer, write about it and email steve@prostamerika.com. They want to hear the women's voice and perspective on this beautiful game!

Allow me to indulge you for a moment into my out-of-control addiction: Soccer! I have always loved soccer, playing since I was very young. I remember being on co-ed teams and driving by high school girls fields and thinking "I can't wait to play like that!" I played in high school and helped lead soccer clinics in our town with Portuguese guys. I played soccer all four years of college, even captain of the team for three of those four years. I was named MVP of the league one year and our team was undefeated in every tournament. I even went to Ireland for a summer to play against other women's teams and to lead soccer clinics for young kids in Ireland. These days I would play every day of the week if it were possible, but for now I play only about 4 days (since I should spend time with my family).

You could say I've always had a soccer addiction. But the thing that is now getting out of control for me is my obsession with the MLS and the Seattle Sounders. Seattle is in the middle of their inaugural season in Major League Soccer. Apart from the World Cup and the Olympics, I have never watched much soccer because there was nothing on TV and no close team to cheer for. I'm excited that Toronto also has an MLS team, and I hope they win every game they play, except against Seattle. Aside from the Sounders being exciting, fast-paced soccer and having the best goalkeeper in the league, we have the largest and loudest crowds in the MLS, which helps to draw you into an unnatural obsession.

My passion for this team gives Dave easy ideas for gifts. My birthday a couple weeks ago was spent at the Xbox Pitch in Seattle watching the Sounders win 2-0. Yesterday was Mother's Day and again we got to spend it at the Sounders game. Dave's brother got season tickets three rows back from the field near where the players come out of the locker room. The crowd is electric and is making the rest of the league envious of our sold-out stadium with 30,000 in attendance. I'm so excited for this team. The players are super fit and they play exciting football!

Audrey's article about her love for the Sounders made me feel somewhat normal. When I am sad that they only play once per week and I'm counting down the minutes in between matches, watching the games that I've saved on DVR more than once after watching them live, and reading every blog and news article out there on the Sounders, I think I am a little too into this team! I had no idea I would get so passionate about this, and I think it has surprised Dave too. I have always loved soccer, but didn't realize a Seattle MLS team was missing from my life!

Easter

I know I'm really late with this post, but I still wanted to post it for my family back in Ontario. Micah had a fun Easter. There is a video at the end of Micah opening his Easter present from his Grandma and Grandpa that had come in the mail.

Easter Egg Hunt at Nana and Papa's:

Checking near Uncle Dane

Found one in the shoe!

Micah got a new alarm clock that projects the time up on the ceiling with the hopes of keeping him in bed until at least the 7th hour!

Micah with his cousins Joe and Jack

Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa! Happy Easter!

My Spirtual Child

Dave has been making use of his electric guitar a lot lately in our worship services on Sundays. I'm really proud of him because he's doing an amazing job learning the songs and making them sound really good and also doing it in a worshipful way. With him practicing so much at home and listening to the songs in the car when we drive, Micah has learned all the songs as well. It's adorable how he loves to sing all these worship songs. He has his own name for each of them . His favorites are: "Then Sings My Soul" (How Great Thou Art by Paul Baloche), "Hojanna" (Hosanna by Hillsong), "Halleluia" (Holy is our God by Starfield), "Oh Praise the One Who" (Jesus Paid it All by Kristian Stanfill), and "At the Cross" (Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle).

I've also been listening to a CD in my car with hymns that have been redone and Micah loves some of the songs. It took me little while to figure out which ones he was meaning. He especially loves "Hoorise" (Arise my soul arise). The other one that I just figured out yesterday was "That thumb my got chew" which is .... can you guess? No? And Can It Be! Of course! You know the line that says "That Thou my God shoulds't die for me"? He took the first 5 words of that line and that's what he calls the song.

He loves to read his Toddler Bible at night and always asks to read the "Light" (In the beginning), the story of the Rainbow (Noah and the Flood) and then the "Owwies" which is Moses and the Plagues. Also, his prayers at night are SO cute. Dave is usually the one to put Micah to bed and he's been telling me everything Micah is thankful for, but I've gotten to experience it first hand lately because Dave's been out a couple nights in a row. Micah is still always first and foremost thankful for his 2 best buddies Ty Ty and Brady, but then he goes into being thankful for Mario kitty cat, grandma and grandpa, mommy and daddy, Daddy's computer, Mommy's computer, the TV Remote and the TV, the headboard for his bed, etc, etc. I wish I could remember everything, but at least there's a few.

The Grocery Game

One of my friends talked me into trying out "The Grocery Game". I was a little reluctant at first because 1. You have to clip coupons; 2. You have to pay attention to prices; and 3. To have it work the best for me I'd probably have to switch grocery stores. I hate switching stores. I have 2 stores that I most often buy my groceries from and I am used to them, I know where to find things, and I mostly like the selections they have. Albertsons is the store I should switch to because they have the best coupon policy - they accept coupons from every other store as well as their own. It's right next to the other store I normally shop at, so it's not out of my way, but I don't like the store as well.

Anyway, the idea behind The Grocery Game is that it combines sales/club member prices at your local grocery store with manufacturers coupons that you get in the Sunday paper in order to get the best use of the coupon and the biggest amount of savings. It works best if you can spend a lot at first to stock up on everything. I haven't completely stock-piled everything, but for the first three weeks of using the grocery game I have saved a ton of money!

The first time I went grocery shopping I saved $33 on my $101 bill - So I only spent $68! Another bill came to $140 before all the sales and coupons, and I ended up saving about $65. Just yesterday when I went shopping I saved $88 on about $200, so I spent $114. I think I'll keep using it. I just don't want to get sucked in to using coupons or buying things I wouldn't normally buy because it's such a good deal.

There's a $1 trial for 4 weeks - and even my Canadians friends can punch in your postal code to see which stores are available in your area. After the 4 week trial, it's $10 for every 8 weeks. You get a list with all the sales items and where to find the coupons you could use. I've never clipped coupons before, but I'm getting a system going and I am enjoying it so far because we can spend a lot on groceries each month and to cut down on the cost in any way helps! It's also helped me to figure out meals and make a plan based on what is on sale. If you are interested in trying it out you can refer to me (cheri at mplx dot com) when it asks for the email of the person who referred you.

Ontario Visit

Here are some pictures of our fun visit to my parent's house in Ontario. We had a great time playing in the snow and hanging out with friends and family. Micah loved seeing Grandma and Grandpa. He ran right up to his Grandpa at the airport and gave him a big hug. He helped Grandma in the kitchen and with the laundry. He only wanted them to help with washing his hands - Dave felt a little put out since he was the last one Micah wanted. :)

Micah with his Great-Grandpa and Great-Granny

I know this will be fun for Micah for many years to come - sending laundry down the laundry chute.

Of course, helping in the kitchen means eating more than actually "helping"but he did pour and stir and wash veggies for Grandma.

We went on a weekend retreat when we were there with some close family friends. The guys had made an extra tall snowman, so the girls had to come up with something better. We couldn't make anything taller but we could definitely make something more fancy! So we made a Snow Sphinx.

While we were working on our Sphinx, the guys made a pretty cool shark and stuck a poor unsuspecting child in the jaws!

It was a lot of fun with the snow piled higher than Micah. We made a clearing in the backyard so he could walk around a little since it was way too deep for him.

Sleeping like a baby

If he gets tired enough, he will fall asleep anywhere.

Within the last couple of weeks, Micah moved into a toddler bed, but he now understands he has some freedom to get up and move about. He knows enough not to come out of his room. There really aren't any toys except for a few books in his room for him to play with, but he will find something to do until he collapses. Nap time has been a bit of a challenge, trying to teach him to stay in bed and fall asleep, but sometimes it takes a good two hours for him to get tired enough to fall asleep. Sometimes I stress the issue of falling asleep and other times I just let him play quietly until he is REALLY quiet, at which time I go to check on him.

Here's what I find:

On the floor right behind his door, thankfully not close enough to be hit by the door opening.

Rocked himself to sleep.

Another episode of rocking himself to sleep, this time on the ottoman. I had been wondering if this would happen - he often lays like that, rocking back and forth but I didn't think he would actually fall asleep like that...

Wow, he actually made it to the bed (barely)!

Winter Wonderland!

It has been snowing non-stop for over a week here! I anticipate it actually staying until Christmas, since we just measured and it's over 8 inches already and still coming down. Micah has been having lots of fun in it, and so have we! I have always missed a white Christmas since moving here from Canada. Western Washington completely shuts down when snow hits, but this time I can't make too much fun. It actually is a lot of snow and it's freezing rain. Even church was cancelled this morning! The roads are thick sheets of ice. The thing about western Washington is that we don't have the equipment to handle the snow since it is such a rare occurrence. There are very few snow plows. We haven't ventured out too much, except to play in the snow. We made a gingerbread house last night.

Christmas 2008

We have been having a very fun December. Micah has been a big helper. He helped put up the Christmas lights outside, helped with the Christmas tree inside, and helped bake lots and lots of cookies all month long. This is going to have to be some quick photo posts because I need to go to bed soon.

Belated Halloween post

I really should be going to bed right now and not about to type a new blog post, especially since I'm so far behind as it is. So maybe I'll just make it short and sweet, trying to catch up again on a few events. Halloween came and went, American Thanksgiving came and went and I haven't even posted any photos. I apologize to my family, especially, who probably wait on pins and needles for my page to load and get disappointed every time there is nothing to show for it.

Micah was a lion for Halloween. We had fun - he did his first trick or treating over at our neighbor's house and then we went to our church for the Harvest Party. He LOVED the giant slide and he had fun with the bean bag toss. He even won a mug for me!

We carved a pumpkin and scooped out the seeds and toasted them. We ate lots of Halloween candy. Well, David and I did more so than Micah (he didn't know what he was missing!). We are now fully into the Christmas season and we'll probably be going out next weekend to pick out our tree. Where did November go?