Kelly-the first century: Seattle trip, construction, and other drama!

We've been home since Sunday afternoon, but I haven't had the chance to post! We went up to Seattle for El Esposo's felíz cumpleaños and for the Stanford v. UW game. We had a great time! It was a quick fly-by, but we managed to pack a lot into it. We had time to talk with Podie before retiring to the nun beds upstairs and then more time to visit with her in the morning, Marsha came by and took us to have a really nice visit with Frank, we checked out an architectural salvage place called The ReStore, we had a dinner at Mark's, then we went to the game. I didn't remember to bring my camera so the only pictures I took were from the phone. Here are some pictures of Mark's folly in his backyard. According to Frank, a folly in an English garden is an unnecessary garden structure. Maybe it is unnecessary, but it sure is cool!

The weather in Seattle this weekend was perfect. Not too cold, very bright and sunny. Warm enough that we sat outside at Mark's and had wine and cheese before dinner. Clear enough that (as they say in the NW), "the mountain was out."

Then the game! What a game! It was great fun to be a Cardinal fan at the UW stadium. We attracted a lot of attention and had lots of conversations with people about why we were in town. Taking pictures from the top of the stadium marked us as tourists which led to more conversations!

If you look closely you can see Mt. Rainier in the background. My phone camera isn't that good and the sky was very bright so it is hard to see the snowy peak. People arrive at the stadium by boat as well as by car and foot and millions of buses!

We had a really good time at the game and as a bonus, Stanford won and #8 caught 7 passes including a TD! The picture below is from here, where the coach had this to say:

It's pretty clear he a go-to guy. He's also physical away from the ball--very aggressive down field on the block deep in the secondary. He makes the tough catch across the middle (against Washington) and takes a pretty good hit. A few plays later, he caught another pass across the middle on a crucial third-and-two play. He's getting better and better.

He wasn't a starter last year so now there is more opportunity for him to improve. Players improve. The biggest year in improvement comes from January in their freshman year to August beginning their sophomore year. Ryan has always been a player who takes advantage of every single workout, of every single weight lifting session and every single practice.

He has a gold standard attitude. He works hard to get better every day. He's improved a lot and he was pretty good to start with. We should have offered him a scholarship right out of high school. But he earned it.