A diary of our two years in Seattle/Bellevue/Kirkland
I’m not sure if Toby is just concerned about getting a belly the size of his Dad’s or if he is getting carried away with his training regime for Friday night soccer. Either way he is determined to keep himself trim. His Aunty Sally would be pleased!
httpv://youtu.be/JRp6kzq8VRc
He was on it for just over 7 minutes and burnt 26 calories, that should keep the belly away for a little bit longer!
My parents will be pleased to know that I have made two two excellent purchases with my birthday money.
The first is a nice giraffe for the house – the same as the one Sally bought when she was out here. I have become very attached to that giraffe and I wasn’t going to give it back to Sally when we returned to the UK. As this probably wasn’t the friendliest thing to do I thought I should get my own. I adopted the same approach to the purchase as Sally, find a minor scratch on the giraffe and get a discount! It worked a treat and the shop assistant asked if a 10% discount was acceptable. I thought it was and made the purchase:
The second investment is a future family heirloom! I’m very pleased with it as are the boys. It is …. drumroll please …a Barcelona shirt signed by Lionel Messi! I’m very excited about this purchase! It is currently being framed so that I can hang it on a wall. I’m not sure Tracy will allow it in the master bedroom so it may go into the boys room. Lucky them!
What an excellent pair of birthday presents!!
Despite all the tantrums across the past week Harry was eventually allowed to go to the Gunners match on Sunday. It was a 9am kick-off so that meant an early start. As always, whenever an early start is required the children were fast asleep and had to be woken. Why they didn’t do that the morning before I don’t know!
Anyway, we arrived at Starfire at 8:30am and got ourselves comfortable ready for the big kick-off. This week the Gunners were up against another Crossfire team having despatched another a week earlier. Despite not having a referee the game kicked-off and quite clearly the referee wasn’t the only one still asleep as the Gunners were a bit sluggish. After the shout went up from the crowd of “wake up Gunners” they sparked into life and almost scored with this goal mouth scramble:
httpv://youtu.be/jcH4p0qYcTU
The pressure told in the end though with Ben scoring one goal and then Harry going close:
httpv://youtu.be/e1Fdu-1c2a0
It wasn’t much longer until Gunners got their second and a lovely goal it was too from #34:
httpv://youtu.be/hg2XG1UFuPA
With the score 2-0 at half-time, we hoped for a reasonably stress free second half. It still wasn’t stress free enough for Tracy who had to leave at the start of the second half and go for a walk! She needn’t have worried though, three more goals for the Gunners followed, including another for the Stickman, and the final score was 5-0. The Gunners stay top for another week at least and it was a good finale for their coach who is heading back to the UK. They have a new Brazilian coach now so hopefully there will be lots of samba football to come!
Go Gunners!
It’s been a quiet week in Washington. We have been settling down into the routine of school runs, homework, soccer practice and a complete and utter lack of holidays! It feels like months since we’ve had a holiday!
There have been a few things going on though which need to be recorded. Last weekend started with Toby’s Coyote Team winning their soccer game on the Friday night. Toby was awarded man of the match by his coach thanks to his non-stop running, action packed goal scoring performance. The fact that his dad is the coach is completely and utterly irrelevant.
On Saturday morning we went to Redmond for the first time. Not sure why we haven’t been here before but we finally made the trip after learning there was a British pantry there. After about 15 minutes and $130 later we left with supplies that would probably have cost £15 in the UK! $10 for branston pickle! Really? Who would pay that!? Although when I ate some later with a $6 pork pie the cost felt justified! The haggis was rung through the till at $200! Fortunately this was an oversight on the cashiers behalf – it was only $20 (or 2 pots of Branston in British Pantry money).
Located next to the pantry is a British pub. We didn’t go in this time but maybe next time we should go in for an afternoon drink and then buy a pork pie and go home! Sounds like a very British weekend afternoon.
Sunday is now officially football day much to Tracy’s delight! It starts with the English variety in the morning, the American version in the afternoon and evening and somewhere in the middle we squeeze in Harry and the Issaquah Gunners. On Sunday it was a 3:15pm kick-off, so Toby and I took our seats on the side with our umbrellas and enjoyed the rain, sun and football. The stress was a bit too much for Tracy so she stayed at home for this fixture. This week the Gunners were playing Crossfire Premier Shull. Both teams had won their opening game of the season so it was being billed (mainly by Harry, Toby and I) as the clash of the giants. Fortunately the Gunners class shone through and they won 4-0, with Harry “Stickman” Stickells scoring another. The results all went the Gunners way and after two rounds of the league the Gunners are 6 points clear at the top of the table. Come on Gunners!
On Tuesday night we went to the Sounders CONCACAF Champions League game and we all know what that means! Soundwave!! So here’s the obligatory video:
httpv://youtu.be/u85TAl4kcAQ
The attendance was low compared to normal but at least that meant we got to sit in some nice padded seats, with beer bought to us, all for a very reasonable price! The match itself was not great. Sounders lost to the Costa Rican team Herediano. They were cheating, diving Costa Ricans but we still should have beaten them. The main thing is though that the boys enjoyed themselves although you wouldn’t think so to look at their faces in this picture!
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This week also saw the start of the fall TV schedule. I think we can safely say that the summer schedule is not great but that apparently is because Americans are out in the evenings across the summer so they put reality TV programmes on, try new programmes and generally have rubbish on. This week though it all changed because …. X-factor USA started!! So we’ve had two episodes of that plus the season premier of Revenge which looks quite good. Dancing with the Stars has also started and we still have the great programmes like Man vs. Food and Diners, Drive-ins and Dives! Factor into all this that we are watching Celebrity Masterchef and X-factor UK and we’re actually having a busy time of it!
On Thursday Harry and Toby had “earthquake practice” at school. They apparently learnt all about what to do if there was a big one although the fact that we are having lots of little ones at the moment is apparently a good thing as it means that pressure is being released rather than building up. Not sure if that is actually true but the logic seems sensible. The people at the school bus stop have also told Tracy that we need to have an earthquake plan at home because apparently there is a small fault line that runs along the I-90 just over the back of our house. So when you’re packing to come visit us make sure you bring earthquake survival stuff!
Friday was the first day of fall and another lovely day. It was super hot during Toby’s football training in the afternoon. This week, after practicing their passing, the Coyotes played the Ocelots. With time running out and the scores tied at 3-3 young Toby Stickells seized the moment, dribbled past a couple of players and calmly slotted the ball into the goal. It finished 4-3 and the Coyotes won again. Toby once again received the man of the match award from the coach!
Friday evening was spent in Red Robin and then watching the UARS satellite taking its crash course to earth – it did at one point go right over Seattle, fortunately it kept going and disaster in Washington was averted!
And so, that was the quiet week that was!
Friday night. Toby won at football. A nice tea washed down with ice-cream cake. What next? Dancing of course!! Never mind America’s Got Talent – Bellevue is where it is at!
httpv://youtu.be/Cc6KWees7cM
September is the birthday month in this house and today was Toby’s turn. Five years ago today out he popped – just like that – and he’s been trouble ever since! So here we go in honor of the birthday boy, here is Aunty Sally singing happy birthday:
httpv://youtu.be/wFh-rX_Sfhs
The day had a very busy start. Toby woke up, had a tickle fight with Tracy as it is the only day in the year when you can have one with her without being punched in the face, had a birthday cup of tea, opened a couple of presents, had breakfast, got dressed and set off for his early entry test for school. This possibly wasn’t the main present Toby had hoped for, however, he did it and was a little superstar irrespective of the outcome.
httpv://youtu.be/m-5QZwtilXY
httpv://youtu.be/8HFQr_B4bCs
He got back home he wanted to, understandably, open the rest of the presents but he managed to control the excitement and wait a bit longer – until everyone was back from work and school. Next stop was Bellevue Mall where he spent his vouchers and money on Cars lego and a Build-a-Bear kitten, called George. He is a soft toy monster – his bedroom is slowly disappearing under them!
After collecting Harry from school it was off for a couple of hours fun at Chuck E. Cheese’s. They used tokens up playing all sorts of games and then used all the tickets they had won to buy some tat. You just can’t beat plastic tat – these two love it. Finally it was back home to open the rest of his presents and start playing!
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httpv://youtu.be/6eyTf4TX6JI
So that’s two down, one more to go, and a certain Master Harry Stickells cannot wait!
Sunrise and Pike sounds like a street address in Seattle but in fact it is just a very short post to include some pictures from the last week.
Firstly, there have been some fabulous sun rises:
Secondly, on Saturday morning we went to Pike Place market and stocked up with food, things for the kitchen and flowers:
And that’s it! Something and nothing or Sunrise and Pike.
A busy footballing weekend began on Friday afternoon with the start of Toby’s eight weeks of training. He’d been chomping at the bit since he’d scored 22 goals for Argentina in the World Cup final earlier in the summer! His team details had come through earlier in the week and he’d been put in the Coyote Team – or Boyotes as he called them initially!
Not only was it time for Toby to start training, it was also time for me to start helping out! Despite protestations all week I’d managed to find myself volunteered as a coach – so that’s my next 8 Friday afternoons sorted – let’s hope I don’t get any Friday afternoon meetings!
I left work early and took Toby up to the fields up on Issaquah Heights – which is up nears Zeeks Pizza in Issaquah. It was an absolutely scorching afternoon – the start of September has set new records this year as it is the first time that there have been 8 days over 80 degrees and we’re only 11 days in!
When we arrived we went over to pitch 16 and I had lots of parents asking me if I was “Coach Stickells” which felt very American and very odd! Unfortunately I was coach Stickells and I pretended to know what I was doing! Anyway, after a quick kick about, we went over to the group of main coaches to learn the skills that we had to teach the team. The exercise was called “sharks and minnows” and it was designed to teach them how to dribble and tackle. I had the pleasure of coaching Toby who, despite being a year younger than the other boys on team, was definitely one of the best (the second best actually). I’m not biased – he is just very good for his age. Plus the American boys weren’t! One picked the ball up every time it went near him, another appeared to be completely deaf or just confused by my accent! The only one better than Toby was the French boy. So the Coyotes had two good players out of six – an English and French boy!
After the exercises it was onto a game. The Coyotes had been given a blue shirt to wear throughout the training sessions which was a relief as there was a team running around in bright pink shirts – I think Toby may have quit if he’d had to have worn that! It was a 3-a-side game which lasted for about 20 minutes. Toby played very well and scored his first goal which he was very pleased about, although I think he enjoyed making some crunching tackles even more. The game was against the Dragons and it finished a 3-3 draw. All in all a pretty good start and Toby enjoyed himself so thats the main thing!
Apart from watching it on the TV, Saturday was a soccer free day. Sunday wasn’t though. Sunday was the opening day of the season for the Issaquah Gunners. Kick-off was at 2pm and the match was being played at Starfire Sports Complex which is the official training ground of the Seattle Sounders – this made the occasion even more exciting for Harry. And me!
We arrived at 1:15pm, got our car park season ticket and settled down on the astro-turf ready for the opening game. The Gunners were playing against Tynecastle FC who they had played a few weeks back in a tournament (when Harry was in Hawaii) and they lost 2-0. Not to worry though – the Gunners are a finely tuned footballing machine with the confidence of a Cup victory behind them. It was a 9 a side game – which is the largest game that Harry has played in. His good performances in the Bainbridge Island Cup had obviously caught the eye as he was now a starter in the game.
Despite being American, the Issaquah Gunners are a very good soccer team, I think they would give the Harrold & Carlton Tigers a good thrashing! The game was tough and the Gunners goalie had a storming first half to stop what looked like 3 certain goals! At the other end, the Gunners were clinical and scored a couple of good goals through Marcos and Ben, to lead 2-0 at half time. In the second half it got even better with the Gunners scoring 3 more and not really looking too troubled at the back. Harry, who looked dead on his feet at the end, managed to score the 5th goal of the game. He came off just before the end and had a good drink to keep hydrated – there was no puking this time!
So, it finished 5-1 and the Gunners not only avenged the defeat from earlier in the season – they also went top of the league. Hopefully they will stay there but either way it was a very successful soccer filled weekend! Apart from the Sounders lost…
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Although there have been a few quakes around since we have been out in Washington, Friday was the first quake that I felt. At 12:41pm a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Vancouver Island.
I was sat sitting in my office and to be honest I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it if it hadn’t been for the blinds in my office. They started swaying and banging against the side of the wall. At first I couldn’t work out what it was – other than my office being haunted my best guess was that maybe some work was being done in an office above or to the side – it was only when Tevin said that “I think we’re having an earthquake” that it even dawned on me!
I stood up as it was then that I felt the building moving a bit. Not lots but enough to make my legs go funny! The blinds probably kept swaying and banging into the wall for a couple of minutes before they stopped. In the meantime lots of people who I’ve not seen before appeared out of offices and announced that “we’re having an earthquake”!
Anyway, the detail of the earthquake can be found on the US Government earthquake site. It was just a tiny one in the grand scheme of things but it was quite exciting for a few minutes!
Now moving onto a more scientific review. Apparently this part of the earths crust (Pacific NorthWest) has the smallest tectonic plate – the Juan de Fuca plate. It is named after the explorer of the same name, a 16th Century Greek explorer from Kefalonia.
This tectonic plate was generated from the Juan de Fuca Ridge, and sub-ducting under the northerly portion of the western side of the North American Plate at the Cascadia sub-duction zone. It is bound on the south by the Blanco Fracture Zone (running northeast off the coast of Oregon, USA), on the north by the Nootka Fault (running southwest off Nootka Island, near Vancouver Island, Canada), and along the west by the Pacific Plate (which covers most of the Pacific Ocean and is the largest of Earth’s tectonic plates).
The smallest of Earth’s tectonic plates, the Juan de Fuca Plate is a remnant part of the once-vast Farallon Plate, which is now largely subducted under the North American Plate. The Juan de Fuca plate itself has since fractured into three pieces, and the name is applied to the entire plate in some references, but in others only to the central portion. When the three fragments are so distinguished, the piece to the south is known as the Gorda Plate and the piece to the north is known as the Explorer Plate. The separate pieces are demarcated by the large offsets of the undersea spreading zone.
This subducting plate system has formed the Cascade Range, the Cascade Volcanic Arc, and the Pacific Ranges, along the west coast of North America from southern British Columbia to northern California. These in turn are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a much larger-scale volcanic feature that extends around much of the rim of the Pacific Ocean.
There is speculation that the Ring of Fire is flexing its muscles. It started with the large earthquake in Japan last year (or was it this year? I can’t remember!), followed by a large earthquake in Alaska not so long ago, and now this little quake. Maybe there is going to be a large quake further down the coast – it appears to be moving in a clockwise direction?
As long as it doesn’t hit Bellevue that’s the main thing – I can cope with a 6.4 quake and more importantly so can the buildings, so I think that will do for me!
Well the stress of the first day is over. As we waited in the assembly hall, Tracy insisted that Harry looked like he was about to cry. I think it was more likely the other way round to be honest! Harry and Toby both went off to their respective classes like very brave boys and before you know it we are all back into the old routine. There are a few new routines as well including Harry coming home on the school bus (the #45):
A proper little American school experience!
Toby had a good time at pre-school too but hopefully in the next few weeks he will be joining his brother on the school bus! You may think he is too young for that but after one day at pre-school he has already asked if he can be dropped off at pre-school tomorrow and left to walk in by himself!
What an independent pair!
On Sunday as the weather was, once again, sweltering we decided to open one of the water slides we purchased at Walmart. The day was hot enough as it was however the slide needed inflating and with the electric pump refusing to work it meant some manual labor and the day got even hotter. After what felt like 4 hours on the hand pump but was probably only 40 minutes the slide was ready and the pool was full.
I don’t think there is any need to try and describe what happened next, this video does the job perfectly:
httpv://youtu.be/XJMLQc-yLeY
Day 3 of our vacation was a day on a boat! How exciting! We woke early and got all our stuff together ready for the day ahead. We had the drink, a cool box filled with ice, crisps, DS’s, towels, swimming shorts, cameras, driving licence, sun glasses and kindle. What else do you need for a day on the lake? Other than a boat. We went down to the boatyard, picked up our life jackets and had 5 minutes of instructions on how to start it, drive it, stop it exploding when refueling, empty the bilge, fasten the tube, avoid driftwood and other stuff that didn’t really sink in!
Lake Chelan is just over 55 miles long and we probably made it about a third of the way along across the day. Once we’d gone a little way up, and past the likes of Manson, we decided it was time to try the out the tube. I thought I’d have a go first. I shouldn’t have. I don’t think I am a water baby! As it eventually turned out, later in the day, the bit being dragged along behind a speeding boat holding onto a rubber tube is actually really easy. The bit getting into the tube is not so easy. In fact it’s almost impossible – for me. After belly flopping into the lake I swam over to the tube and tried to haul myself in. I couldn’t. I had another go and pulled the tube over on top of me. Under the water I went again. Oh dear. The life jacket which was helpfully keeping me afloat was, at the same time trying to climb off over my head. It was clearly embarrassed about the whole situation it was involved in. Never mind. I looked to the boat for encouragement and saw Tracy bent double having hysterics. At this point I decided that it would be much easier to get in the tube from off of the boat. I swam over, climbed the ladder and attempted to climb into the middle of the tube. One foot went into the middle, one foot stayed on the boat. The tube then started going one way and the boat the other. It wasn’t pretty. But apparently it was very funny.
I got fed up with the tube and decided not to bother! We moved the boat a bit further up the lake – just in case it was that particular piece of water that was the problem, rather than my flooping about like a floopy thing. After stopping the boat again Tracy decided to take a swim and clearly she is a lot more graceful (and fish like) than me:
httpv://youtu.be/1tg0ZaZfctE
After the short swim Tracy decided that she was going to try the tube. Fortunately the water was much less choppy here, the under currents a lot weaker, the driftwood wasn’t crashing in to her and the giant salmon few and far between. I’m not saying it was an easier set of conditions for Tracy to work with, I’m just highlighting a few differences!
Anyway, Tracy put me to shame and was in the tube within a couple of minutes and only a handful of squeals! And then we were off:
httpv://youtu.be/kj7oJFZJbqY
Basking in the glory of tubing success, Tracy asked Harry to join her on the tube. Although a little reluctant Harry plucked up the courage and climbed on board. With considerably more ease than his Dad. With them both settled in the tube, we were off again:
httpv://youtu.be/2SnsRPkKtTk
Now just at the end of that short clip you may have heard a cry along the lines of “stop the boat” and a bit of a squeal from Tracy. Maybe tubing wasn’t meant to be! Once the tears, coughing, shock and laughter from Toby had subsided the analysis began, including, “Mummy pushed me off”. “No I didn’t”. Anyway, similar to the snorkel incident a couple of days earlier, Harry wasn’t going tubing again! Although to be fair he did sit in it a couple of times a bob about.
I suppose I should point out that despite how it sounds, we were having a lovely time! The sun was hot, the lake was beautifully clear, and, the temperature of it didn’t cause any of us to reference Jesus Christ on the way in. As we all relaxed again and continued up the lake, the first wine bottle was opened at about 11:15am. I’ve no doubt the early start was due to the relaxing nature of the day rather than the stress of it.
After bobbing about for a bit Tracy suggested that I try the tube again. I’m sure this suggestion was made because she was sure I would enjoy it rather than anticipating more ridiculous escapades from me trying to get into it. So, with a change of life jacket and a wary step, I lowered myself across and into the middle of the tube. Hurrah! The technique is to lie across the top of the tube, holding onto the handles and letting your legs hang over the water at the back. Trouble is my legs were now stuck in the middle of the tube and I couldn’t get them to hang over the back for fear of falling out and having to start all over again. But with a bit of a wiggle and plenty of encouraging laughter from the boat I managed it and we were good to go. I clung on and hoped to god it was worth all this hassle!
Tracy steered the boat and increased speed. We went fast and slow, turned corners, bounced around in the wake, I knelt up, waved to the boys and generally turned into a tubing expert! Unbeknown to me as I enjoyed myself on the tube, Tracy was busy driving, trying to calm Toby down who was crying because we were going to fast with Daddy on the back and helping Harry wee into an empty wine bottle because he was bursting! God job I wasn’t on the boat with Tracy on the tube – it would have been a disaster!
Having moments earlier been an expert tuber, it suddenly all went wrong! My arms were beginning to ache and my body slipped a bit further back over the tube. The waves from the boat were starting to pound against my private areas and it hurt! Tracy looked back and checked I was still there, I shouted to her to slow down – forgetting that we had pre-arranged hand signals to communicate slow down, speed up and stop. The boat kept going. The water kept smashing into me and it was really starting to hurt! Tracy looked round again. I shouted “ssttttooooopppppp”. The boat carried on. At this point my shorts started falling down, (could this get any worse?!) and so I gave up and let go of the tube, hoping that someone on the boat would notice. I’m assuming someone did because once i’d finished cartwheeling through the water with my shorts round my ankles my head popped out from under the water and I saw the boat coming back towards me! I hooked my shorts on and swam over to the boat. Wow. Tubing was fun!
After lounging around in the sun drying off we started going back down the lake again. Harry and Toby took it in turns to drive the boat, which they both enjoyed:
httpv://youtu.be/qsyKch4-TlY
The rest of the afternoon was spent swimming, bobbing about, tubing and asking random swimmers to come on board and start the boat when it wouldn’t and was on the verge of crashing. Oh what fun we had. Harry filled up about 6 mini wine bottles worth of wee – check the photo’s out carefully! Toby refused to go on the tube – the only sensible one amongst us – but he did go for a swim in the lake at Willow Point. Tracy laughed herself silly at her ridiculous husband and I had a brilliant time.
I think I’d like a boat!
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