Off to Colorado

So today, I have gotten a start to go to Colorado. I went with PJ and we are doing our yearly jaunt to Denver to watch RSL play. We drove this time instead of flew, to save a little bit of money. This is our sweet rental car.

We got to Parachute tonight, and spent the night here, before finishing on to Denver tomorrow. We stopped at a place called Mama’s Café, and I got a chicken fried chicken.

It was literally the best one I’ve ever had, and then I finished off with desserts. We ordered a peanut butter cheesecake and a peach cobbler, and shared them.

Yum. Can’t wait to see my boys in red play!

It’s Down to the Wire

Tonight was the Western Conference Final for MLS. Real Salt Lake was in this final, with Portland as the other team. We had already played one round at home, and came away victorious in a 4-2 victory. Basically, we just had to play 90 minutes, hold onto the score (or even score more, I’m not picky) and come away the Western Conference Champions. The game kicked off, and it was a hard battle. The other team scored twice, but both goals were taken away, as they were offsides on both of them. What luck! We ended up scoring a goal in the 29^th minute, and for me, that clinched our victory. After a well fought and hard played 90 minutes, RSL is the victor!

Now, there is one more game in the season. The final final final. Since they’ve won, we’ll play Sporting Kansas City (seriously, worst name ever) in Kansas on December 7. I’ll be glued to my TV, and hopefully, RSL will come away with another trophy. Think positive thoughts, friends!

Foto Friday

Last night was an RSL playoff game, and sadly, we lost. Against Seattle. Seattle scored in the last 20 minutes, and even though we had a hundred billion (it seemed) chances, we just couldn't finish. The beginning of the game held so much promise, though. After the first whistle blew, people all over the stadium released streamers, so it was an awesome colorful sky for a few minutes.

 The season is over. The reason I'm glad for this is that when the weather is too cold, the games aren't as fun, and now, the games are cold. Lets hope the team has a good off-season, and we come back stronger than ever.

Today, I'm thankful for socks. Plain ol' socks, that can get your feet warm.

Thoughtful Thursday

There’s an RSL game tonight. They’re in the first round of the playoffs.  Home game, against Seattle tonight, and I hope it won’t be freezing. The first time we played them, last Friday, ended in a 0-0 tie. That’s ok with me. Goals are counted in an aggregate system, so basically we still have tonight’s game as the winner. I really hope we win. Obviously, but Seattle is one of our “rivals” so I just want to kick the crap out of them. They have a team full of jerks, one of whom is a (possibly convicted, but definitely accused) rapist, so every time I see him (on TV or in real life at games) I just have to remind him he’s a rapist. Because that’s gross. If we win, we’ll advance. But if we lose…we’re out. I hope we stay in. I’d like for RSL to win another cup. 

I don’t know if you caught it, but recently, there was an election in this great country of ours. I like elections as much as the next person, but I’m not someone that’s obsessed with them. I don’t follow polls, or really even watch the news, but boy howdy am I sick of this. It’s been nothing but this election for months now. And now it’s over, and people are STILL talking about it! It’s all over my Twitter feed, it’s in my Facebook feed, and I just can’t get away from it. I get that it’s an important part of our country; I’d just like to be done talking about it.   

There’s a storm a-brewing. That’s what I hear, anyway. I hear it’s supposed to just dump snow on us this weekend. This is both pretty cool and really awful. We didn’t have much snow last year, so I actually would like to have some this season. I’d like Christmas to feel like Christmas. But I don’t want to drive in it, or walk in it, or have it be that freezing cold. It’s a double edged sword, really. 

 

I was thinking today, if I’m ever in the woods and need to kill animals to eat, I’m not sure that I could do it. I have no problem eating meat, I love meat. But I don’t know if I would be able to kill my animal while looking at its face, and then have to skin it and eat it. I’m sure after long enough of being in the wilderness I’d be able to, but I think it would take a long time.

 

I put in a new pair of contacts today. Even though it’s probably bad, I like to make my contacts last as long as possible. So even though they are only supposed to last for 2 weeks, I make them last for at least a month. The pair that I threw out last night I had been using for probably 6-7 weeks. I never notice how bad they get. Last night, I was like, man am I having a hard time seeing out of these, so I tossed them in the garbage. Putting on my new ones this morning was like I had been given new eyes. Everything is so CLEAR and I can see EVERYTHING! It’s amazing. Its times like these that make me want to change them more often, but contacts are so expensive. I like to stretch my money out. 

I would like to take a polygraph someday. I have no reason to, but I’d still like to. Especially because I’d like to see if I could beat it. Wouldn’t that be a great skill, beating a polygraph? I’d be like a spy or a secret agent! 

Today, I am thankful for books. So amazing to jump into a novel and lose yourself in adventures.

A Slight Delay

I forgot, the other day, to blog about the RSL game that we went to on Saturday night. It was, as usual, a good time, but an interesting game to go to. It was a chilly time, which is weird for August, but to be honest, it was a nice break from the scorching temperatures we usually have, and I just sit in the stands, sweating, drinking copious amounts of water, but not getting any cooler. So it was nice, for a bit. As we were walking into the game, it was sprinkling ever so slightly. The game started, and it was still sprinkling. We got 3 minutes and 15 seconds into the game, and all of a sudden, the referee blew the whistle, and stopped the game. Due to the proximity of the lightning, they stopped the game for the safety of the players. They made an announcement, saying that the players would be leaving the field, and for our safety, we should leave our seats, and go stand up in the concession areas. I’m a rebel, so we hung out in our seats, waiting for the players to return. I took a picture of the sky after they left, the sky looked so dark and foreboding.

80 MINUTES LATER the players returned to the field. We sat there, playing games, chatting, and I live-tweeted the event, so that those at home knew what was going on, the inside scoop. Then, through the storm clouds, and the lightning, and all that, a rainbow emerged, and we thought the game might start soon.

Finally, about 15 minutes after the rainbow was seen, they returned, and warmed up for about 10 minutes or so. Then they started, and we were chilly. PJ & I had to go to the team store during the first half, to get a jacket, she had left hers in the car, because on the way in, it didn’t actually seem like it was going to be cold. Husband left his too, so I bought him a long-sleeved shirt out of the kindness of my heart. Then we stayed and watched the game for the remainder, and we won! It was awesome. At the end of the day, we had stayed at the stadium for about 4 hours. That’s not a super long amount of time, but oh man did it seem like it a little. Thankfully, we all lived, we had fun, and the best news of all, we made it to Baskin Robbins 7 minutes before they closed, which was the miracle of the night.

Colorado: Day 2

Ok, sports fans, here we go. Started this lovely Saturday with a run on a Colorado running trail that I didn’t really care for. But it was fun in that there were a hundred million prairie dogs on the trail, all hiding in holes. That helped distract from the distance and sun. After finishing, we got ready, watched some Men’s volleyball (sorry, team USA) and went to breakfast at a place called Sam’s No 3. It was pretty good. When I ordered a banana, they served it to me sliced up!

It tasted better this way, I swear. After eating, we headed over to the Denver Botanical Gardens. It was really pretty, and oh-so-hot. The weather forecast we saw gave us lower temperatures than we had. I thought it would be lovely weather, but it was hot. Here are some of the flowers:

They were pretty. As we walked by a tree, there was a squirrel eating nuts. I tried to take a picture, but I couldn’t get it focused close enough. This is me, sitting under a tree. Lookin’ good.

After the Gardens, we went to dinner at a bar (we didn’t know it was a bar, it was recommended to us from a friend) and onto the RSL game. Sadly, sadly, sadly, we lost. It wasn’t a fun game either, the RSL drummers showed up, so they drowned out any singing we did, and it was just loud and I didn’t care for it. After the game, we grabbed our customary ice cream. I got a large, I thought I was hungry.

I only ate until the cone, then had to throw it away, I was SO full. That made me sad. But after everything, and the long drive back to the hotel, yet another crashing commenced. Being on vacation makes me tired!

Colorado: Day 1

This year, our (mine and PJ’s) yearly trip to Colorado came a little early. Usually, RSL plays Colorado in October, so we go then. This time, the beginning of August. Weird, right? So we got to plan all sorts of different activities, since it was going to be warm, not a freezing-cold-lets-stay-in-the-hotel-all-day kind of trip. We flew out of Provo, which I really love. That airport is tiny! I like how easy it is to go through security there. So, we get into Colorado, and immediately picked up our rental car:

A Fiat! I’ve never even driven one of these, and I gotta say, I’m not that impressed with it. We stopped for breakfast at a place called Snooze, here’s my breakfast:

The one on the left is a pineapple upside down pancake, the middle is a donut pancake, and the right is a carrot cake pancake with cream cheese frosting. SO GOOD. Then, up to the top of Mount Evans – the highest paved road in North America. Here’s a pic from the top:

It was so nice up there. It was cold though, so I’m glad that we remembered to bring our jackets.

Here’s us at the top, thank you random stranger for taking our picture for us. We returned the favor, and took a pic of him and his son. On the way down, we ran into a giant group of these, and tried to get close to take a pic. Here’s an action shot:

There were so many mountain goats, it was awesome. Then we made the trip all the way down the mountain, and our car pinged, telling me it was overheating. I pull over, and hung out by the side of the road for 5 minutes, then got back in. When we were farther down the mountain, it pinged again. So we parked, and walked up and down Main Street, Idaho Springs. Fancy! It was like a mini Park City, full of expensive places, but with a mountainy look. We ate at this hole in the wall restaurant, but it was delicious. I had the meatloaf.

By the end of dinner and a gelato, the car was fine. After finding the hotel, we crashed. A pretty good first day, I’d say.

Twitter. My Fun Collossal Waste of Time

I'm on Twitter. There, I said it. I love it. It's fun. It's a fun way of communicating with people that you know, or even people that you don't know. That being said, I know Twitter is stupid. It is, it's a stupid waste of time, following people, most of whom I don't know in real life, and wouldn't know who I was if we passed in the street. It's dumb, sending out messages to people who honestly could probably care less, and would most likely not need to know most of what I tweet out. I tweet out ridiculous nonsense, and I know this. I even blogged about Twitter on here, like, forever ago. But I still love it, so there it is.
Anyhoo, this evening, I was sitting here eating dinner, reading my book. (Sometimes I like to read when I eat alone, it makes me feel like I'm doing something). Anyway, I got a text from a friend who told me that she's friends with Chris Wingert on Facebook. In case someone doesn't know who Chris Wingert is:

Anyway, she was telling me that he recently uploaded some fan pics onto his FB page, and one of the pics was the one that he had taken with me and PJ like, 2 years ago. I immediately got on there, and saw it, and of course, it made me smile. Here it is, in case you wanted to see:

So, for funsies, I tweeted about it, and mentioned Chris by his twitter name (which in case you wondered, alerts him to the tweet talking about him.) In my tweet, I said that he had posted a pic of the three of us, and said that because of this, we must be best friends. After 20 minutes or so, after a chuckle, I got a reply tweet from him saying "You know it! :)" and I squealed a little in happiness. I know that he doesn't know who I am. I know that he could care less of what some fan says, but that he took just a few minutes to joke and reply back just made me happy.
Now, will this change anything in my life? No. But is it something cool that happened on an otherwise boring Wednesday? Heck yes.

Thoughtful Thursday

I don’t really have a blog entry per se, but I have a few random thoughts going around in my head, so now you’ll get to enjoy them too,

I am sick of the freeway. I’m sick of construction, I’m sick of it taking forever to get anywhere. Last night, on the way to the RSL game, it took us 35 minutes to get onto the freeway. Technically, 45 minutes, but 10 of those minutes were spent driving from the house to the freeway exit, and then the 35 were spent just trying to get on there. We were almost late to the game.

At the RSL game, there was a point where we all stood up, to cheer. I was cheering, and happened to look down, and the lady in front of me was nursing her child. I got to see her boob.
:( I didn’t care for that very much.

Also at the game (what is this, RSL edition night?), one of the players wasn’t playing, so he got to sit in the stands and watch with the rest of us. I so badly wanted to get my picture taken with him, and a handshake, but I tried to work my courage up all night and it never came. I never got to say hello. :(

I did, however, get to be on the jumbotron, which was fun. I was singing ‘Sweet Caroline’ when I was shown.

This morning, a few minutes into my shower, I got a bloody nose. Well, I couldn’t just stop showering and get some tissues, so I just let it flow as I hurried to shave my legs. (It’s skirt Thursday, after all) It looked like the shower scene from Psycho, I was afraid for my health.

My scouts are warming up to me. Unfortunately, the ones that are warming up to me are the ones that leave Webelos in a month. Dang it, I can never win!

I’m 80% sure they gave me a child’s Scout shirt for my shirt. This was made even more certain when the leaders asked me the other day if that really was the shirt they gave me. Uh…yes. And it barely fits, I feel like I should get one that fits adults. I’m looking into it.

I guess that's all I'm thinking for today. Not a whole lot, but thrilling thoughts indeed.

Tickets, of a different nature

You guys, it’s almost here. We are just inches away from it happening. I’m referring, of course, to the season beginning of RSL. The first game is on March 10th, so we’re so close. Of course, it’s an away game (I hate when the first game is an away game!) but I’ll be watching nonetheless. This past weekend on Saturday, RSL had their annual ticket pick up, where you go to the stadium and get your ticket and your season ticket holder gift. Last year the gift was a panoramic picture of the stadium, but we only got one, regardless of having 2 season tickets, but whatevs. This year, the gift was a scarf – and one for each seat, yay! The line was pretty bad when we got there at 2:30, but we still hopped into the giant line. It was outside, which was unfortunate, because holy cow it was cold. Thankfully it wasn’t snowing or anything, but it was quite windy, and that was making me freezing. Of course I was in flip flops, but that’s because I didn’t expect us to be waiting a long time outside. After we’d been there about 10 minutes, they re-routed the line so that instead of waiting outside, we waited inside. We snaked through the press room, a stairwell, and a few hallways. When we got into the press room, where they have the RSL wallpaper, I took a picture there, to commemorate the occasion.

Finally, finally, (Ok, only an hour and fifteen minutes later) we got to the front. I picked up my tickets and scarves, and picked up PJ’s tickets as well (She’s out of town, and I’m a good friend.). And in case you wanted to see the scarves we got this year:

So huzzah for all! I have my tickets, I have my scarves, and now I’m ready for this season to start. On the way home, we were pulled over by the police, Husband’s car hadn’t been registered (since August!) and the kind policemen was just telling us of this fact, and also letting us know that Husband had a warrant for his arrest, over a speeding ticket that happened a year ago! So the officer let us have a choice, either he could take Husband right then, and let me come bail him out later, or he could follow us to an ATM where we could just post his bail right now. We picked the latter choice (surprise!) and got it all straightened out. I don’t even want to think of what would have happened, if he had just taken him. I can’t drive a stick shift! What would I have done, just sat on the side of the freeway, waiting for someone to come get me? And then leave the car? Oh man. Luckily it all turned out ok, and everyone is safe and sound for now. I’m thinking that in the future, we should all avoid having warrants, just in case.

And that's the end.

Well, tonight, RSL had the Western Conference final. They played against the LA Galaxy to see who would be going onto the MLS Cup. The game was at LA, sadly, and I just couldn't afford to go, but that would have been amazing. But I set the TiVo for the game, and settled in to watch.

The teams were pretty evenly matched. LA scored first, and we scored within 5 minutes. We stayed 1-1 until the end of the first half. When the game resumed, everyone was playing really well, and I actually didn't know who would win. After about 20 minutes, LA scored-dang it! Then a few minutes later, they score again- the score was now 3-1. RSL fought and fought and sadly, never came back. The game ended, LA 3. RSL 1.

It sucks that we lost, but at least we played well in the last game. I would have loved to go onto the final again, but this year it just wasn't meant to be. And now, the season is over. There are no more games - which is actually ok, because now its getting too cold to sit at games. But hopefully, we'll regroup in the off-season, and come back better than ever. And next year, we'll win the Cup!

Skirt Thursday…and Other Musings

I wear a skirt every Thursday. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, I just do. It mixes up what I wear, so that I don’t wear the same thing all the time, plus its just fun. In the summer, a skirt provides a nice breeze when its warm, but in the winter, its really fun to jazz up a skirt with some colorful tights. I enjoy Skirt Thursday, I’ll keep the tradition alive.

Last night, my tenants moved out of my house. I know, they’ve only lived with us for a short time, since October 8th, but they decided to leave us before the before-agreed upon time, to move in with others, to spend time with them. Its nice to have our house back to ourselves (not that they took up that much room, mind you) and not worry about affecting anyone else around. This morning, when I went downstairs to see what conditions things were left in, I noticed that they had taken our towels. I’m not entirely sure why they did this…maybe they wanted to be nice and launder them before they gave them back? I’m hoping this is the case. I’m really not looking forward to making the call that asks to return my linens.

RSL won last night. Well, technically, Seattle beat RSL 2-0, but with the aggregate goal situation, we technically won, 3-2. It was a brutal game, and very nerve-wracking toward the end, but when the final whistle blew, we (Husband, PJ and I) all jumped up off the couch and screamed. It was awesome. I’m not sure when the next game is – there’s another playoff game tonight (between LA & NY) and the winner of that determines where/when we play next. Good luck to NY – I’d like them to win this one.

 

I don’t really like vanilla yogurt. I keep trying it once in a while, to see if maybe my feelings change (its happened before, on other things) but so far, they remain the same against the yogurt. I tried some the other morning, and there’s just a weird taste in the ‘Very Vanilla’ Yoplait yogurt. 

I tried some of Chelle’s ‘French Vanilla’ Yoplait, and it did taste better, so maybe in the future, I’ll switch to that one, and see how it goes. There’s something about the fruit flavors lately that I’m just sick of eating. But eating yogurt is healthy for you, and I’m trying to make healthier choices. Since I won’t give up eating cupcakes/cookies (despite my best efforts) I have to make different choices of healthiness. Because, I’m sorry, but giving up the sweets – its not really fun.

It’s Only Halftime

Last Saturday, RSL played Seattle in the first leg of the 2011 MLS Playoffs. It was a crisp evening (and by that, I mean, I was pretty dang cold) and the air was crackling with excitement. They’ve made the playoffs for the last 3 years, so you’d think at this point that we’d be sort of used to it, but not yet. The 2009 playoffs, which won RSL the championship, happened because of a series of fluke accidental games, but last year was all our talent. After a lot of bad luck this year (so many people getting injured, including Javier Morales’ broken ankle, and a lot of call-ups to the national teams) we ended up doing pretty well, and got into the playoffs in the third spot. But there’s still some work to be done.

Now back to last Saturday. The game was at 8, hence the chilliness. We got off to a good start, and scored before halftime, so thank goodness for that. The team seems to do better when they lead going into a half. After an exciting second half (in which 2 of our defenders got injured, and had to be substituted out) we ended the game with us winning 3-0. It was awesome – the screaming we all did was so loud.

But right now, its just halftime. We play at Seattle tonight, to finish the first round of playoffs. This round is based on aggregate goals – meaning, the end result is decided by who had the most goals when you add the 2 games together. So getting a 3-goal lead last week was the best thing we could do. If we win tonight, awesome! If we tie, that’s good. If we lose 2-0, or 3-1, that’s ok, too, because we’ll still have the most amount of points. I’m going to root for a victory, but I’ll settle for a tie.

Go RSL!

There are Better Ways to Spend the Game...

I used to never get headaches. Up until a few months ago, when I got a headache, it was super rare, and they only lasted for a few minutes, before they’d either go away by themselves, or I’d take some pills and they’d go away after a bit, no problem. But for the past few months, I usually get a headache on Monday, in the afternoon. I assume it’s because I don’t really look at a computer all weekend, then I come back on Monday, and look at one all day, so my head needs to get used to it. (Which is weird, because this never happened before) So now, every Monday, I just take a little extra precaution to see if I can prevent it. Make sure my eyes don’t get dry, drink lots of water, just in case, that sort of thing.

This past Saturday, I had a good 7-mile run. It was awesome – and my last long run before my half marathon this Saturday. So I came home, drank a little water, and got ready for the day. Throughout the day, I didn’t really pay attention to drinking anything else. During the week, at work, I have my water bottle right next to me, so I drink from it continuously because I can see it. On the weekends, when I’m pretty busy, I just never realize that I’m not drinking. Such was it this day. So onto the game I go, and when we’re leaving Joanna’s, where we ate dinner, I was getting a little bit of a dehydration headache, and that’s when I realized I hadn’t been drinking to compensate for all the running. We get to the stadium, I get myself some water, and settled in for some cheering.

There was a lot of screaming going on, of course, like every game. About halfway through the first half, my head started to hurt more with every scream/cheer that I did. By about the 40th minute, my little headache had grown into a full-blown migraine – complete with a little nausea, and an aversion to the sounds of the stadium. But this was the last game of the season! I wasn’t going to give up! So right at halftime, RSL scored, and we all went crazy. Husband picked me up, and hoisted me above everyone (like he usually does) but this time, the headache, combined with the movement and the screaming of 20,000 people, this was a goal celebration that I wished I hadn’t done.

The rest of the game was pretty boring, for me. I no longer screamed, nor cheered, I just clapped when anything happened. When things got too noisy, either Husband or PJ would cover my ears with their hands so that I could clap, and they could cheer. It was a sad arrangement, but I stayed the whole game. Afterwards, as soon as I got to the car, I took a bunch of Tylenols and ibuprofens – a doctor recommended dosage, don’t worry – and drank almost another whole bottle of water. At the usual post-game ice cream (from Baskin Robbins) I also got a Mtn Dew – to see if caffeine helped. By the time we got home, the migraine had calmed down a little to just be a headache. My lesson here is that I really need to drink more during the weekends, especially if I had a long run that morning. But at least I got to see my team play their last regular season game – and good news, playoffs start this upcoming Saturday!

This picture is of the Portland fans – who were sitting across from us. At some point of the game, they all set off a billion smoke bombs, and a lot of flares, so all we could see of their section was smoke and fire. It looked a little like they had just set themselves on fire. Why would they do this? I’m not really sure.

I wish I could blame it on age, but…

We all know, I don’t really have that good of a memory. I can barely remember childhood fun, and now, I have to write every single thing that I need to buy from the grocery store, or I’ll forget it. If I need to remember something for later, I either have to send myself a text message, or put it on a post-it note, and attach that to my cell phone, so that I know I’ll look at it later. Its possible that many people are like this, but from my point of view, my memory is not very good.

This Saturday, RSL played Sporting Kansas City (yes, that is their full name, isn’t it awesome?) on the same day as The Holy War. I had spent most of the morning shopping, groceries, etc, and then went up to Sandy to go to Tai Pan. A group of us shopped up there for a while, and then went to eat at Simply Thai. The game started at 7:00, per usual, and we got to the parking lot at 6:30. When we got to the lot, I stepped out of the car, and as soon as I stood up, I realized, I didn’t bring the tickets with me. I left the tickets on my nightstand. I wanted to kick myself so hard!

We immediately got back in the car and went home, with me cursing myself the whole time. We thought about going to the box office, to see if we could just get the tickets there, but when we got near there, we saw the line there was insane, and since I wasn’t sure if they could do that anyway, we just drove home. I was calling the box office of RSL to see if there was anything they could do, but no one ever answered. After some serious speeding, we got to the house a little before 7:00, and grabbed the tickets, and immediately hit the road.

We got back up to Sandy at like, 7:20. Husband, being the nice guy that he is, dropped me off in front of the stadium, so that I could run in and watch the game while he parked the car. I got to my seat 25 minutes into the game, and thankfully had not missed much. RSL ended up winning the game, 1-0, and we’re now in 3rd place in the west. Huzzah! We took this picture while we were waiting for the concert after the game, OneRepublic to get started.

The concert was pretty good, but the sound quality was horrible, so we left early, maybe 15, 20 minutes into it, but that was plenty. I guess my whole story here could have been avoided had I just done one small thing – checked for the tickets. 5 years of games, 20 games a year…you’d think I’d have learned this. And believe you me, now, I have.

Ole Ole Ole Ole

Last night was the final CONCACAF game for my beloved RSL. They still do play in the regular MLS competitions, this was just an extra competition we’re in. It comprises of US/Mexico/Canada, the Caribbean and Central America. Up to last night, we were the only US team left in the tournament. I’m not sure when we started playing in this, maybe sometime in the summer? But we’ve been doing pretty well in it, obviously, since we were the last MLS team in it.

I had been super pumped up to get to this game. Every game has been great, and full of suspense, and then all of a sudden, we found ourselves in the final! Here it was! Thank goodness for me, the final was here in beautiful Sandy. I left work, got all decked out in my team colors, and off I went. The team had asked for a “Red Out”, they wanted us all in red, and we were happy to oblige. We got to the game pretty early, to get fully in the mood. The stadium was packed. It was sold out, including selling out of standing room. And everyone was in red. The stadium was loud, we all stood the whole game, it was amazing.

I’m setting the mood up for this, to let you know how great it was, what the atmosphere was like. We were pretty evenly matched the first half. We sadly were missing our captain, Kyle Beckerman, but we seemed to be surviving without him. Of course, 40 seconds before the first half was over, Monterrey scored. What an unfortunate way to start the second half, but I still had high hopes that we could come back from this. We either needed to beat them (duh) or be tied at zeros or ones to win.

Sadly, we never came back. We had a lot of amazing opportunities, but we just couldn’t seem to get any in the net. When the final whistle blew, there was stunned silence from the crowd where minutes before, we’d all been so loud. But I’m proud of my RSL. They played an amazing game, they just had some bad luck in this game. Luckily that wasn’t our season, it was just the CONCACAF. Our season has only just began – and I can’t wait for the remaining games. I think it’ll be a nice consolation to have us win the MLS Cup this year. I know our guys can do it – they’re having a great season so far. I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds.

End of Season

Tonight was the last RSL game of the season. I didn't know going into the game that it was the last one. It was a playoff game, we were playing against Dallas. We had already played Dallas in the first leg of things last weekend, at Dallas, and they beat us, 2-1. I was not happy, but not discouraged, because I knew that we could turn things around at home. We are so far unbeaten at Rio Tinto for the last 25 games or so. All we had to do was beat them by 2 or more points, and we would continue onto the next round, but that was easier said than done.
It just wasn't our night. We played pretty well for the first 15 minutes or so, but then Dallas unexpectedly scored, and then we kinda fell apart for the rest of the half. We came back from the half and played really great - and had so many missed goals, and opportunities to score that we just couldn't finish on. Fortunately, we scored in the 80th minute, tying up the game, but we needed one more goal to stay alive, which we didn't get. Although the game ended in a tie, we lost out of the series, so season over.
I'm sad that the season is over, soccer is my favorite season. It'll start again in 3 months, so at least I have that to look forward to during these cold months. And the good thing is now my weekends aren't going to be determined by an RSL game going on, there's more of a freedom here. But still, I'm sad. Good work, RSL. You finished a strong season.

Best.. night....ever....

As everyone knows, I have RSL season tickets. I've had them almost as long as the team has been a team. We've moved from stadium to stadium, and we've tried different parts of the stadiums too, to see which parts are best suited to us. We found one that was really great section, we made loads of friends over there - some of who we keep to this day. But then we had to move stadiums, and our friends bought more expensive tickets, so we couldn't sit by them anymore, sadly.
Our tickets now are in a really good section - mostly because the people we sit by are really cool. We sit by some of the RSL staff - kinda. I sit by one of the coach's wives, and the rest of the people are just people that help them out with stuff, fundraisers and the like, so pretty much they all know the players. One night after a game, Jen turns to us and asks if we want to go to the club with her. I thought she meant like a dance club, so I was hesitant to say yes, until she clarified that it was to the clubhouse where the team goes after games. Uh...hells yeah I wanted to go! So we waited a while, for the place to clear out, and into the clubhouse we went. We grabbed a table, some food and drinks, and awaited the arrival of the players.
They finally came, and they were swarmed with fans, so we waited for most of the fans to clear out, and then Jen introduced us to most of the team. It was so amazing to meet them in person - I was shaking so much from like, excitement and nervousness. We got loads of pictures taken with them, some of which I will share with you here. It was only about an hour, but it was definitely one of the best hours of my life.
Me, PJ, and Nick Rimando

Us and Chris Wingert
Us and Jamison Olave - this guy is as big as a house. His calves alone are like, as big as my head, I swear

And Kyle Beckerman, the captain of the team.

The guys were all really nice, and while I didn't get to meet all of the players (there was not enough time, nor did they all come to the clubhouse) I got to meet some of my favorites, so it was just amazing. I hope we get to go again next year!

It's that time again!

Ya’ll, it is that time of the year again. No, not just autumn, or holiday, or anything legit, it’s National Blogging Month again! I have been so sporadic lately with my blogging, I know. I have a new someone in my life that sucks up a lot of my time, so there’s that, but this month, I am committed to writing an entry every day – regardless of excitement of said entry. So today, let’s kick things off by a quick recap.
Recently, I traveled to Denver with PJ for our annual “Stalk the Real Salt Lake soccer players” trip. Usually, this trip brings us great rewards – we usually see a bunch of players, and a coach or two in our hotel, but this year they weren’t staying in our hotel! The trip was still awesome, don’t get me wrong, but it’s so hard to stalk – er, I mean, make friends with – the players if I don’t know where they’re staying! So maybe I need to do some more research there. Of course, I found a cupcake shop while I was there, I can find those anywhere.

The cupcake I tried was called Twinkielicious – and boy was it. It tasted just like a Twinkie – only better – and it was gigantic. The owners of this place were smart when they named their place Big Fat Cupcake; it took so much out of me to finish this cupcake. I had a stomachache afterwards, I had to lie down on the bed, waiting for it to pass before we went to the RSL game.
The game was awesome. We tied, which usually would suck, but we came back from a 2-0 loss, so it was amazing. We scored our goals in the last 5 minutes of the game, and we celebrated so much afterwards, and stayed for so long that we were asked to leave by security. This didn’t sit well with me, so I calmly explained to the policeman that I would leave when I was good and ready. As he started making his way over to me, I decided that I was good and ready right then, so I quickly turned and left the stadium of my own accord. It was such a great game night.
That’s pretty much the highlights of the trip. It was really quick – we flew in late Friday night and flew back out Sunday morning, so it was the perfect amount of time. I'm always so excited for this trip, regardless of if I get to see the RSL players or not. Here's to looking forward to next years trip!