Seattle has the largest international film festival in the United States and we've attended a few films at each year's festival since we've been here. Some films have been quite good and a few have been disappointments, but they've always been interesting.

The first movie we'd planned to see this year was called Page One: Inside the New York Times. We had purchased our passes ahead of time and wanted to get to the theater 30 minutes early. This was our first time to the Egyptian theater, which is a few blocks from where we live. When we got there, the line was halfway around the block - hundreds of people had tickets and were in line to get in. We got a seat in the balcony and as people entered the theater to fill all the seats, the palpable energy of the audience reminded me again that this festival is a much bigger deal than just going to see another movie.

SIFF has gotten some criticism because it has so many movies, not just the very best. And with more than 3 weeks of movies playing all hours of the day, every day, at 7 theaters in the region, it's amazing that so many of them generate the crowd we saw at the Egyptian and at other theaters other times we've gone.

This movie looked at how the Times operates and documented how the print media industry is struggling to react to the growth of online media sources. The documentary focused on some rather interesting news stories that the Times was covering, people with unique personalities, and a fairly balanced, if shallow, touch on the issues. It was was one of the best films we've seen at SIFF.

Tomorrow, we'll be going to see a movie about Sushi, which sounds like a really interesting movie to me. And later we'll be seeing the only international movie we're planning to see at this year's festival - a French animated film about a cat in Paris - called A Cat in Paris.

While we do miss out on a lot of mainstream movies in theaters, we have enjoyed broadening our perspective in participating in the major event that is SIFF.

We went to the annual cheese festival at Pike Place Market on Saturday. The weather was amazing all day with highs in the lower 60s and mostly sunny skies. We met some friends from church there and walked around sampling all the different cheeses. It seemed like there were fewer stands this year than prior years, but there were still plenty to choose from. I generally like milder softer cheeses and Troy likes the stronger harder cheeses. We each got a cheese we wanted and we also bought a wedge of Cougar Gold, which we buy every year. I got a cream cheese from Sierra Nevada Creamery that I also bought last year and Troy got a Fontina cheese from Oregon. There were so many different kinds I liked, but we knew we had to limit ourselves.

While at the market, we also bought some flowers and some really good Taylor's Gold pears. We also browsed through a Spanish store that had a huge selection of wines from Spain, Argentina, Portugal, and several other countries. After that we went to our friends' apartment, which is just down the street from the market and hung out for a while. We played Super Mario Brothers Wii for an hour or so. We also enjoyed looking out their windows at the amazing view of Elliott Bay and had a chance to see some of the tugboats out there for the Maritime Festival.

After a while we were a little hungry for lunch, so we decided to head down to the waterfront for a Chowder cookoff, which is part of the Maritime Festival. After trying clam chowder at 7 different restaurants, we all decided that Anthony's had the best. It wasn't too thick or thin, wasn't too buttery or peppery, it was just right. I think it will be a while before I want to have chowder again.

Once we got home, we took the car to get its annual washing and vacuuming in preparation for our visitors that are coming soon. Now it almost looks like a brand new car with a nice dark green paint job. Then we watched the Sounders-Timbers game, which ended in a tie unfortunately.

It was nice to hang out with some friends and have a chance to enjoy the nice weather on Saturday.

As I'm sure everyone has heard by now, the Seattle Seahawks upset the defending Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints 41-36 this past weekend in the Wild Card game. One play in particular was pretty awesome - Marshawn Lynch ran 67 yards and broke at least 8 tackles to score a touchdown late in the 4th quarter. Qwest Field erupted so loudly that the ground shook enough to register on a seismic monitor about 100 yards away.

I had briefly considered actually going to the game since tickets were still available as late as Friday and were only about $60 each. Neither of us has ever been to an NFL playoff game, but I figured the Saints would win though and I didn't feel like sitting in 35º weather for 4 hours. As it turns out, it was one of the best, most exciting NFL games I've seen in a long time. And finally, Seattle can be proud of something sports related! Now if only we could beat the Bears this coming weekend...

Troy and I went to my work Christmas party last night. It was held at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in downtown Seattle instead of the Hotel Andra where it was the past two years. We just barely made the bus near our apartment and arrived shortly after it started at 6 for cocktails and appetizers. They had several kinds of cheese, including Gouda, goat cheese, and aged Parmesan. They also had nuts and dried cranberries to munch on.

After about an hour we all sat down at our assigned tables and had salad, dinner, and dessert. I really liked the salad, which had thin pear slices, cheese, walnuts, and bibb lettuce with a nice vinaigrette dressing. I had a steak with mashed potatoes and green beans while Troy had a cheese ravioli pasta dish with asparagus. My steak was cooked just right, but it didn't have a very good flavor. For dessert we had a chocolate Swiss roll with cream filling and raspberries. We also had some red and white wine throughout the night.

The Fairmont is a really nice hotel and the ceilings were really high compared to the low ceilings at the Hotel Andra, which made it easier to hear people talk. We also had a live group of carolers, which is always a nice touch.

This party was a little different from the last two, not just because it was in a different hotel, but because my former boss is retiring at the end of this year. A few people said a few words and gave short speeches. She really likes Elvis, so we had an Elvis impersonator put on a show. It was a big surprise for her and pretty unexpected. He sang to several ladies, but thankfully I managed to avoid him. It probably helped that we were at a table in the very back corner of the room, although I didn't like feeling so far away from everyone else.

Overall, it was an interesting night. I liked the nice hotel, but didn't care much for the steak or where our table was located. I got tired of standing on my feet, which hurt my heel. We also had to wait in the bus terminal for quite a while to get home, which was slightly inconvenient. I'll take free food and drinks though any day.

More than a year ago, phase 1 of South Lake Union Park opened. Unfortunately, the park closed again after just a few months so that the other phases could be built. After a very long wait, the rest of the park opened on Saturday.

We're just over a half mile away from Lake Union, but with the park being closed, we didn't really have a good way to get to the lake. The park has some good open space and offers a plesant environment for enjoying the view across the lake.

During the opening festivities, there were kayak and stand-up paddleboard rentals, several informative booths, and a farmers market.

The park includes a model boat pond, a public fountain, which had plenty of children playing in it today, and green space for sitting, lying down, throwing a frisbee, and whatever else.

Now that the park is open, it contributes to the growing livability of this part of the city along with the new restaurants that have opened in the past few months. We're looking forward to being able to walk down to the lake and enjoy the park.

Weekend before last, Troy and I went to the Seahawks preseason game against the Green Bay Packers. Troy got the tickets for free from one of his co-workers. They were pretty good seats, only about 20 rows up from the field at the 40 yard line, and normally cost over $100 each.

It was really fun going to a football game again and sitting in those nicer seats was cool. We got to see Aaron Rodgers play for the Packers and the Seahawks scored three touchdowns, if you can believe that. Unfortunately we forgot to bring our camera, so we don't have any pictures. I was surprised how late so many people stayed for the game, since most starters were taken out at half time. It briefly sprinkled a few times, but we didn't get that wet since the roof blocked some of it. We stayed until late in the 4th quarter. The Packers won 27-24, but it was still nice to go to a game for free. It made me wish football season would be here sooner.

Yesterday was mine and Troy's 9 year dating anniversary. To celebrate, we went to the Cascade Farmer's Market near our apartment, which is every Thursday during the summer. This is the first Thursday of the summer that the market has been there. We bought some pretty flowers, fresh raspberries and strawberries, and some strawberry rhubarb ice cream.

After that we went to Denny Park and sat on a bench for a little while enjoying the awesome weather. Since Troy's last post about the cloudy weather, it totally cleared up this week and we had highs in the mid 70s.

This weekend we plan on watching the US vs Ghana soccer match on Saturday and we're going to a cook out at one of my coworker's houses on Sunday. I'm really looking forward to a nice weekend.

This past Friday the weather was nice, so we went for a walk in our neighborhood and then to Whole Foods to buy some steak to grill. We got a top sirloin Chateaubriand steak for $10, some asparagus, onion, and mushroom to stir-fry, as well as some sweet corn on the cob, and red bing cherries and baklava for dessert!

We tried to grill the steak on the grills the apartment building provides, but they were both out of propane, so we had to broil it in the oven instead. We put some seasoning salt on it and then butter once it was done. It actually turned out really good and juicy and was almost as tender as a filet. The corn was also really good, much better than canned corn.

Saturday afternoon we decided to finally go to the Fremont Solstice Parade to celebrate the summer solstice. Everyone gathers to watch all kinds of colorful people in a flamboyant parade of strange sights. We saw body painted bicyclists, a giant spider, plastic bag decorated dancers, and a big yellow submarine. It was really crowded and it seemed like everyone had their dogs with them. There was also a big beach ball that rolled along the parade route with the help of spectators laying in the street to carry it underneath them. The entire parade is really pretty weird, and rivals even San Francisco's weirdness, though there were plenty of families with children there. It's something that every Seattleite should see at least once.

We went home after the parade to hang out for a bit and watch some FIFA World Cup soccer, then went to West Seattle to have some ice cream from the Husky Deli. I got raspberry decadence (chocolate ice cream with raspberries swirled in) in a waffle cone and Troy got the coffee oreo. Then we walked around the neighborhood for a little bit and saw lots of greenery and flowers in front of houses.

Seattle has one of the largest, if not the largest, film festival in the country. The Seattle International Film Festival runs for more than 3 weeks, with hundreds of films (400+ this year) at several different venues in the area.

Lesley and I have gone to a couple movies at SIFF for the past couple years and this year got a package to go to 3 movies. It's fun to go because it's such a big festival and there are so many movies to see that aren't normally available in theaters.

One of the movies we saw this year was Garbo: The Spy, a Spanish documentary on a double-agent who, working for both Britain and Germany during WWII, delayed German forces from reaching Normandy. It was a very interesting documentary about an unfamiliar historical figure who impacted history.

We also saw a less serious film called White Lion, which follows the life of a white lion in a majestic South African setting.

We're looking forward to seeing another movie later this week, about a New Zealand family that lives in the wilderness.

In the past we've seen some very good movies and some unremarkable movies, but they're always interesting and are different than the Hollywood films that you can see any weekend at the multiplex.

My good friend Megan visited us this past weekend and we had a lot of fun! It had probably been over 2 years since the last time I saw her, so it was good to see her again. We picked her up from the airport around 4pm on Saturday and chatted for a while at our apartment. Then we walked downtown through the retail core, including Nordstrom and the Westlake Center. We briefly walked through Pike Place Market and stopped to get piroshkys at Piroshky Piroshky. Unfortunately it was close to closing time, so we didn't really see much of the market and most of the flower/fruit stands were closed. Megan seemed to enjoy the view of Elliott Bay.

After the market, we walked back to the Westlake Center and looked at some of the stores there. Then we took the Monorail to the Seattle Center. That was actually the first time for me to ride the Monorail, if you can believe it. We hung out for a while at the Northwest Folklife Festival, where we saw some tap dancers, live music, and lots of interesting people. I had my usual roasted corn on the cob and Troy and I shared some stir-fry noodles.

We were pretty tired after all that walking, so we decided to take the bus back to the apartment. The three of us played some Super Mario Kart 64 before going to Paddy Coyne's, the bar on the main floor of our building, to have some drinks and appetizers.

Sunday morning we went to Top Pot for donuts. It was really busy, but we were still able to find a table. Megan had an apple fritter, I had a chocolate covered ring, and Troy had a cinnamon sugar old fashioned donut. After breakfast, we toured the Museum of Flight near Boeing Field. They have 85 aircraft including the supersonic Concorde and the first jet Air Force One. We were able to go inside the Concorde and Air Force One, which was really cool. This particular Air Force One served in the Presidential Fleet from 1959-1996. The museum also had a small section reserved for space exploration, which was probably my favorite part along with seeing the inside of those two planes.

The weather continued to be cloudy with drizzly rain, so we decided to just drive around and show Megan the different neighborhoods in Seattle. We drove through Fremont, the U District, and Capitol Hill. We also stopped at Gas Works Park briefly for a view of Lake Union and downtown. By the time we were done with that, the rain had stopped, so we took a ferry to Bainbridge Island.

We went to one of our favorite Italian restaurants for dinner - Mamma Melina in the U District. The piano player was really good and even played "Got to Get You Into My Life" by the Beatles (because I suggested it when he asked what we'd like to hear.) After dinner, Megan and I went up in the Space Needle while Troy walked around the Folklife Festival again. Unfortunately it was pretty cloudy and most of the mountains weren't visible, but it was cool seeing downtown lit up at night. For dessert we went to B&O Espresso on Capitol Hill before going back to the apartment to watch one of Megan's and my favorite movies, Back to the Future.

Megan thought she might have to leave Monday afternoon because flying stand-by can get tricky, but the flights were pretty open for Tuesday morning, so she decided to stay until then. For breakfast on Monday we ate at the very popular Portage Bay Cafe, just a few blocks away. Troy was nice enough to walk over there early and put our name on the waiting list. There was a 45 minute wait, so we just hung out at the apartment for most of that time before going there.

Then we drove to the Boeing plant in Everett to take a tour at the Future of Flight Aviation Center & Boeing Tour. We saw the manufacturing facility Boeing is using for the 747, 767, 777, and the new 787 airline jets. The place was huge, in fact, it's the largest building in the world by volume at 472 million cubic feet. About 30,000 people work there and has over 2.33 miles of pedestrian tunnels running below the factory. It was really cool seeing how the planes are made.

Afterward, we drove to Snoqualmie Falls, made famous by the TV show Twin Peaks. This time there was probably the most amount of water I've ever seen pouring over the falls, which are 268 feet high. In comparison, Niagara Falls is only 167 feet high, but is much much wider of course. The tallest one in the world is Angel Falls in Venezuela at 3,212 feet high. Anyway, it was misty and rainy when we first got there, but then cleared up as we were about to leave.

Megan's trip to Seattle wouldn't be complete without seeing the view from Kerry Park, so that's where we went next. Unfortunately most of the weekend had been cloudy with drizzly rain, but Monday afternoon the weather decided to clear up, giving us a decent view. Mount Rainier wasn't visible, but the overall view was still impressive.

We went back to the apartment briefly and then took the bus and Link Light Rail to the game. Megan bought us tickets in the right outfield lower level, which was very nice. I hadn't sat in the outfield in any ballpark in a long time, so it was a nice change. We sat right behind Ichiro, which was cool. I had some Thai food at the game and Troy and I shared the famous garlic fries. Unfortunately the Mariners couldn't pull out a victory in the bottom of the 9th.

After the game we took a taxi back to the apartment, which was a lot faster than the bus/light rail would have been. We were channel surfing when we got home and just happened to find Sleepless in Seattle playing, so Megan and I watched the rest of it and I pointed out all the places I recognized.

Overall everyone had a great time and I really enjoyed seeing Megan again. It was nice to catch up and show her our city. We're glad she came to visit us and look forward to next time!

We went to the Cheese Festival at Pike Place Market for the third year in a row this past Saturday. We wanted to get there early so we could beat most of the crowd. Some of the stands weren't even completely ready yet when we got there at 10. We learned from previous years that we should bring some water with us because eating so much cheese makes you thirsty. The weather was really nice - sunny with temperatures in the 60s.

We tried free samples of lots of different kinds of cheeses including goat cheese, gouda, cheddar, and cream cheese. Thankfully the lines weren't too long so we probably tried at least 30 kinds of cheese. I don't like blue cheese, so of course we didn't get any of that. We ended up getting 4 kinds of cheese to take home:

Cougar Gold Cheese - a rich white cheddar made by Washington State University

Sierra Nevada Cream Cheese - a very tasty, sweet cream cheese from Northern California

Bergenost Cheese - an interesting Norwegian style cheese made in New York

Tournevent Chevre Noir Cheese - a subtle goat cheese from Canada

I'm looking forward to eating all our cheeses! Yum!

We had our best weather in 6 months this past Sunday, with a high near 70 and clear, sunny skies. The summer is just around the corner and I can't wait to go to some of the festivals in Seattle in a few weeks. The Cheese Festival at Pike Place Market and the U-District Street fair are both the weekend of May 15th. The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) runs from May 20th-June 13th. And the Northwest Folklife Festival is Memorial Day weekend. I love going to festivals here because of all the good food, music, and having fun outside in the awesome weather here.

We went to two Olympic events when we were in Vancouver. The first one was the men's 5,000 meter speed skating at the Richmond Olympic Oval. The event started at noon on Saturday, February 13th and was the second medal to be awarded. We rode the light rail to Richmond and arrived pretty early so we would have plenty of time. The weather was bad most of Saturday unfortunately, with windy, cold, and rainy conditions. We waited outside in line to get through security for probably 30 minutes, so I was happy to finally get inside the Oval.

I was in awe when we came up the stairs to our seats and could see the ice and all the flags for world countries hanging in the rafters. We were going to see an Olympic event! It was really amazing to watch. There were a lot of fans from the Netherlands, which apparently has a history of having great speed skaters. They were all dressed in orange, so they were easy to see in the crowds. There also weren't nearly as many seats as I thought there would be, it only seats 8,000 fans.

There were 14 pairs of skaters with an intermission in the middle. They started out with the slower pairs, but they still seemed fast to me. Each skater had to skate like 10 laps around the rink, I don't remember exactly. It was really exciting toward the last few pairs of skaters because each time they would just destroy the time set by the previous number one spot. As expected, Sven Kramer from the Netherlands won gold, with an Olympic record time of 6 minutes and 14.6 seconds. A Korean won silver with a time of 6 minutes and 16.95 seconds. Russian, Ivan Skobrev, won bronze with a time of 6 minutes and 18.05 seconds. It's hard to believe only a few mere seconds determine who wins gold.

One thing I didn't like was that we did not get to see the medal presentation. We only saw the flower ceremony. We would have had to pay even more money to buy a ticket to see the medal ceremony at BC Place. For some reason most of the events except the ones in Whistler are having the medal presentations at BC Place instead of the individual venues. So, I felt ripped off in that aspect.

The other event we went to was the first preliminary round men's hockey game, USA vs Switzerland at noon on Tuesday, the 16th. This took place at the General Motors Place (aka Canada Hockey Place) in downtown, normally where the Vancouver Canucks NHL team plays. This is the first Olympic games to use an NHL-sized ice rink. It's a really nice facility and only 15 years old.

We had really good seats, only a few rows up in the upper level and toward the end the USA would shoot at twice. Despite not really following hockey the past several years, I still recognized a lot of the USA players. I was disappointed though that Mike Modano wasn't on the team. I heard that they had decided to use a lot more younger players rather than the older, more veteran players like Modano. I did see former Dallas Star Jamie Langenbrunner play as the Team USA Captain. There were actually a lot more Switzerland fans than I thought there would be. There were also a lot of Canadian fans, who really cheered for Ryan Kesler, from the Canucks. It was a pretty clean game, no fights at all. The USA won 3-1.

Here's a video from the pre-game warm ups:

USA vs Switzerland Men's Hockey Warm ups on Vimeo.

I was a little disappointed we only went to two events. I wish we could have gone to more, especially short track speed skating or figure skating. It would have been really cool to see Apolo Anton Ohno win a medal. Still though, going to two events is probably more than most people will see in their lifetime. I'm very happy and lucky to have been able to go to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

Here are pictures from Vancouver and the events we went to:

We finally received our tickets to the two Olympic events we requested at the end of October last year. We're going to a speed skating event on February 13th at noon and a hockey game on the 16th at noon. The actual tickets are pretty cool looking and rather large.

I'm getting really excited about going to Vancouver and being a part of the Winter Olympics. The city will probably be very busy and swarmed with tourists and spectators. It also happens to be Valentine's Day on the Sunday while we're there, so maybe we can eat at a nice romantic restaurant or something. I can't wait!

Troy and I went to my work Christmas party this past Friday night. The weather was actually decent for mid-December, so we just walked to it. It was held at the Hotel Andra downtown again, which is only two blocks from my building. Just like last year, we had food catered by the famous Tom Douglas restaurant called Lola.

We started out with appetizers and drinks as everyone mingled around. There was also a small live band that played music. Then we sat down for dinner around 7, which consisted of a salad with beets, fish with brussels sprouts (which I'd never had before), and some kind of steak with a vegetable I can't remember. Then they brought us a dessert plate with a small chocolate cupcake, a small coconut cream pie bite, and a small dish of creme brulee. All the food was good and it was fun hanging out with Eric and my other co-workers.

This is the first season for Seattle's Major League Soccer team, the Seattle Sounders, and the team has had a very good first season. The Sounders are in the MLS playoffs and will play their first playoff game tonight against Houston. The mayor has also proclaimed today as "Seattle Sounders FC Day". Unfortunately I'll miss the game due to another commitment, but it's a two-game series (combined score determines winner) and I'm looking forward to watching the next game on Sunday November 8.

It's been a really exciting season and I've gotten more excited about Sounders games than I ever have before for any other soccer team. We've watched almost all of the Sounders games on TV and have picked up a lot of the nuances of the game. We also went to two Sounders games this season (1st game post 2nd game post) and I enjoyed them a lot. The Sounders have sold out every game this season and our average attendance ranks 30th in the world (which is the highest attendance for an American team).

Anyway, I hope the Sounders do well tonight and win their first playoff series, but if not, it's still been a great season.

As I mentioned before, we had tickets to go see SMU play Washington State University this weekend. We left early Saturday morning to drive to Pullman. Previously, the farthest east we'd been on I-90 was to hike 30 miles or so east of Seattle, so this was the first time we went over Snoqualmie Pass, which is 3,022 feet above sea level, and can become impassible in the winter. When we left Saturday morning it was raining lightly, but the rain got heavier as we got closer to the pass (probably the heaviest rain I've experienced in Washington) and then stopped once we got over the pass.

The landscape east of the pass was a little drier and flatter, and the farther east we went the fewer trees there were. There were rocky hills with brown grass and some bushes. It was a very different landscape than in the Puget Sound area.

The drive to Pullman was about 5 hours, much of which was along a two-lane highway. We stopped for lunch once we got to Pullman and then went to the Washington State campus to park for the game. We walked around the campus and then went to the stadium. We didn't see the SMU Mustang Club tailgate that was supposed to be there so we went inside the stadium and found our seats, which were three rows above the field. The stadium wasn't sold out but it was pretty full. There seemed to be 100 or so SMU supporters in our section. Before the game started, WSU's president came and welcomed us to the game.

I won't give a full game recap, you can get that here. The game started well, though, and SMU was up 17-0 in the first half. Though the median age of our section was around 65, there were a few younger people who led us in some cheers and stuff. It was a lot of fun cheering the Mustangs on as they gained a 24-7 lead in the 3rd quarter. This was the best I'd ever seen SMU play, but unfortunately, like at so many SMU games I've been to, we ended up losing. Still, it was a lot of fun, and it was cool to support the Mustangs in the June Jones era so far from their home.

We drove to Spokane after the game and checked into our hotel near downtown. We had some dinner and drove around a little bit before settling into our room. The next day we had the hotel breakfast and went to a few parks in town. We went to Riverfront park along the Spokane River near downtown. This was a pretty neat park and the waterfalls of the river were pretty cool. After that, we went to a natural area east of town to go for a short walk.

We were going to try a local hamburger place called The Milk Bottle for lunch, but it was closed, so we went to Sonic instead because we haven't been there in a couple years. Then we hit the road and made it back home.

It was a fun weekend. I'm glad we were able to make it over to that side of the state and spend some time in Spokane, the second most populous city in the state. It's very different from the Puget Sound area and reminded me of Texas in a lot of ways. It was a lot of fun and a good way to spend a weekend with my wife.

The nation's first Art Walk began in Seattle and First Thursday is still a strong local tradition. The First Thursday of every month, more than 50 art galleries in Pioneer Square stay open late to share their art with the public.

I've been to a few galleries here, but have wanted to do First Thursday ever since we moved here and just haven't been able. Finally, last week, we went to check it out.

There's a wide variety of contemporary art represented, including sculpture, blown glass, and painting. We probably visited less than a third of all the galleries but there were some neat artistic concepts that I hadn't seen before. Some of the art was strange, some was neat, some was uninteresting, and some was impressive. Some of the galleries were very busy and, being a bit small, became crowded. Some of the other people seemed to be art connoisseurs, but not the majority. I really enjoyed going and am looking forward to going back and seeing some of the galleries we missed.

Every year there is a big party at Gas Works Park for Independence Day called the "WaMu (now Chase) Family Fourth." We thought about going this year and staying, since we walked around Lake Union last year and saw it, but didn't stop. However, this year the only fireworks in Seattle would be on Lake Union, which meant that it would be even busier than last year. So we ended up just staying home most of the day and went out around 8:30 to find a spot either south or east of the lake.

We went up onto the I-5 overpass that leads to Capitol Hill, but eventually police closed the bridge to both cars and pedestrians, so we couldn't stay. It was definitely one of the best views, so it was annoying that they made us leave. After that we went down to the lake and stopped somewhere along Fairview and ended up having a decent view of all the fireworks. It wasn't too crowded where we stopped, which was nice. A boat and a couple of buildings were in the way a little bit, but not that bad.

The show lasted about 20 minutes and seemed better than last year. We were also close enough to hear the music that was playing along with the fireworks, which was pretty cool. I'm kind of glad we ended up not going to Gas Works Park because of the huge crowd of about 50,000 with traffic jams from the afternoon to 1:30 in the morning.

Here are some pictures from last night:

We went to our second Sounders game of the season today. The first one we went to was the Sounders second home game, when they were playing great. Over the last few games they've had quite a few ties and needed to get a win. Fortunately, we were there to see it today as part of a record crowd of 32,526. The Sounders didn't play that well in the first half, but got a goal and then got a couple more in the second. It was nice to see a 3-0 victory. And, the weather at the game was nice, though a little breezy and cool in the shade, but at least we didn't burn. We're not planning to go to another Sounders game this season, but are hoping to see them get a lot more wins on TV.