Seattle Pub Cup Soccer Tournament!

It was great to be on the field again.  I have sat out 4 weeks with a cracked rib and this was the weekend for my return.  THe Pub Cup is in its first year, a holiday tournament that looks to grow, and hopefully will!  It was beautiful but chili weather, the sun was shining but you still wanted a warm jacket.  Every team in the tourney had to pick a pub/bar/tavern as there team name.  Since a lot of our team is south we went with Bonney Lake Tavern, unfortunately I have never had a beer there.  There was a Irish team from St. Patties and 2 other teams.  As I said a small tourney.  We played each team once and the two best teams play again in the final.   Day 1 we played the Irish team, they were loud mouths and hacks and we beat them 3-0, I was hoping not to play them again, they were the type of team people get hurt in while playing.  Our 2nd game we won 6-0 and didn't blink a eye, our team was playing well.  Unfortunately we took that confidents into cockiness and had our worst game against a team that had lost to the other teams we had destroyed.  We had the skills and ball control but could not finish.  We got beat 4-1 for a wake up call!  We advanced to the final and played the Irish team and the team that beat us.  See they picked up players from the other teams.  So... in the final we were playing a combined team of our 2 toughest games.  We got back on track and started playing our game.  Dave (a PLU graduate)  scored the first goal in the first half to give us a 1-0 lead and with15 minutes left I was able to score my first goal of the tourney.  It felt good.  The keeper cleared a high ball to around the 35 yard line where I chest trapped it beat a player and hit a lazer into the upper V.  It felt great!  We finished 2-0 received a nice Crystal Trophy and headed off to a near by pub to celebrate!  A Great Weekend!!

A River runs through it

If any of you are seattleites or follow the news you know we had a pretty big rain almost a week back and there was a lot of flooding around Washington.   Today I had the pleasure to float the Skykomish river with Joe.  Joe wanted to check out how much the storm changed the river (He's a guide).  So we grabbed our fly rods ((Spey rods, which is a 2 handed fly rod that is usually 12 plus feet long, mine is 13 ft and Joes is 15 ft) and headed out.  We put the boat in at 2 bit hole (which now cost two dollars)  We ran into the owner that told us he opened up his property in 1955 for the public for only 2 bits, nice guy!  As we drove down the road of his property we quickly saw proof of the flood.  The road became covered in sand and mud, we kicked in the 4wd and parked by the river.  the bushes, grass and tree branches looked like a large comb was ran down the side of the river bank and then painted with dirt and mud.  The large log jam that use to be straight ahead of the launch sight was practically gone.  A lot of big trees had been moved by the powerful force of the water.  

It was a beautiful Nov. morning, the sun was shining and it wasn't chili at all.  Along the way some of our old fishing spots had been washed away, which was sad but we did find knew spots as well.  This trip down the river held the most ever Eagles I had scene on this river, with out exaggerating I can say I easily saw 20 plus eagles, a handful of the youngens.  We got pretty close to a lot of them, boy they always amaze me in how big they are.  We were great at the fishin part but there was no catchin happening.  Though Joe did snag a 16 inch sucker fish on the dorsal fin.  I had one good knock on my line but no one was home.  At the end of the trip we started to see some fish tails waiving at us (Frustrating).  It's nice to catch fish but that is only a added bonus to a fly-fishing outing.  We saw a deer cross a wide part of the river in a strong current.  She made it across but was swept pretty far down the river before she made to the other side.  I also saw a red-tail hawk,  There were some new log jams, different sand bars and trees blocking certain routes of the river.  Its amazing how mother earth can be so powerful and change things with a little water.  The humpies (salmon) had just starting to come in I bet there will be better luck next week.  I hope to go, I am determined to catch a hen and make caviar.  The river had great color to it.  The hills and the mountains added color to the blue and white sky and the constant sound of the river added peace to my mind.  All I know is the country is beautiful and a river runs through it, any old way it wants to run through it!

Ranger Dooey

I guess I haven't posted my good news, though I have told everyone.  I was recently accepted into a Park Ranger Law Enforcement Academy that begins Dec 29th thru April 10th.  They accept about 36 "cadets" a year and I believe their are only about 7 other programs like this in the U.S.  It will be held at Skagit College in Mt. Vernon.  It is a 8-5pm boot camp m-f 30 credits and you have to be in uniform at all times.  I am pumped and doing everything I can to be in shape for it.  It's amazing how easy it is to get soar at 33.  This is a great jump start for my goal to be a law enforcement ranger in the olympic national park!

MJ'S Wedding

Well my little sister is married and is now a Compton.  I just wanted to say she had a beautiful wedding.  She looked stunning and oh so happy!!  The two of them (Alex and MJ) looked great together.  The wedding was in a little church in W. Seattle.  The night finished at the fauntleroy hall for the reception and the party began.  A lot of amazing dancing going on.  It's nice to have a family that gets on the dance floor and celebrates.  I think there were a lot of new moves invented!  I think the two that got the most attention for their style were my brother Mike and cousin Jamie.  Though everyone got their groove on!  I finally lost my voice to Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi which is ironic because I had to lead worship the following morning at church.  I am excited for my new brother Alex.  He fits in well with the family. I also know that MJ and Alex fit so well together, they will take good care of each other.  They are off in Hawaii avoiding our stormy weather and enjoying the sun, beach and ocean!  It has been a great time to see the family both the Doolittle side and they Lyford side.  I am very blessed to have the relatives I have!!

A Sweet Dive!

Morgan (my Dive-Buddy) and I went diving yesterday at the Edmonds Underwater Park.  The visibility was 20-25 feet.  The dive was full of fish!  We were swimming in hundreds and thousands of schools of different kinds of fish.  At one point the school came at me at lightning pace as the light flashed off there sides, I looked to find what made them take off so fast and saw a bird flying underwater at about 35 feet.  The bird then headed for the surface, pretty cool!  We also saw some huge mammoth looking lingcod, 6 plus feet with gigantic heads, some had pretty fat bellies, most likely pregnant.  We did get challenged by a few lingcods that would do a dance to try to scare us from their nest another few would start coming at us, hoping to scare us away.  We saw some cool grunt sculpins, nudibranchs, shrimp, many thick layers of colorful types of seaweed.  We took a nice route underwater, we came across a lot of sunken boats we hadn't seen before, one in particular was wood, it looked like a pirate ship and it was surrounded by schools of rock fish, with a handful of rockfish larger than I have ever seen.  The sun was actually out so everything was well lit.  We entered a few large cement boxes like caves.  There was one I swam into to wait for Morgan, I was going to jump out and scare him, when he didn't arrive after a minute i figured I would go look for him, as I swam out he came from above me arms wide and scared me half to death.  Talk about your major backfires!!  There is nothing like laughing hard underwater.  We were swimming at noon at high tide the water temp was in the high 40's, are deepest depth was 43 feet and we navigated are way back to the bay.  Nothing like popping your head above the surface and being in the right spot.  We were underwater for exactly a hour.  Morgan was on his second dive with a drysuit which sent him scrambling to get out so he could use the restroom, but at least he was dry.  I went scrambling for the car to get my hot water to pour down my suit, my feet and hands were pretty cold.  We went to the near by pub which has a fireplace to have a burger and beer and chat about the dive. BEAUTIFUL!!