So I have a bunch of really great friends, and October 19 was one of those days when I got to enjoy the company of some of the best of them in some very fun circumstances!
That Tuesday morning, I packed myself and a few of my belongings into the good car and sang along with my Glee soundtrack all the way to the magical land of Clearfield, UT. There I met with my Terrace Plaza theater friends, Andrea Scanlon and Annie Ferrin, and their youngest children, Kyra and Xander (the older kids were in school of course), for a lunch picnic in the park. We chatted and caught up on each other's lives and watched Kyra drag random strangers around the playground, calling one man "Daddy" and asking to be pushed on the swings or helped down the slide. It was a lovely couple of hours and I always love getting to spend time with these amazing ladies and their beautiful kids!
After the picnic, I had a couple of hours to kill, so I called my best friend from high school, Melissa Cannon Hislop and asked if I could come down and visit with her for a while. She and her husband, Sammy, and their one-year-old daughter, Lucy, moved from Cedar City to Bountiful at the beginning of the summer and I hadn't yet had a chance to visit her there, so I was excited to see her new-to-me apartment - and her and Lucy! We had a nice visit and Lucy wasn't too shy of me and I got to see all of Missy's cute crafts, my favorite of which was her candy corn tree (which can be seen here: Missy's Cunning Craftiness). I really miss having Missy right across the street to entertain me and to be dragged around on all my misadventures, but she is such a great wife and mom and homemaker that I guess I can't be too upset about it. (Also I look forward to all her crafty, homemaking help when I have a house and husband of my own!)
The final event of my awesome fun day was my very first Real Salt Lake soccer game with my friend, Marshall Stoddard. Marshall buys season tickets and has invited me a few times to accompany him, but this was the first day I was able to come and I was so excited! We met in Ogden and Marshall drove us down to Draper where we ate dinner at Chipotle and then went to the stadium. We sat down and this was what I could see:
And Marshall said in a sarcastically apologetic tone, "These aren't bad seats, are they?" Haha Marshall, no, they are definitely not bad seats.
I was a professional soccer virgin, because my soccer experiences as a child were not fantastic, to say the least. When I was on the U-10 Hillcrest Strikers soccer team in the second grade I spent most of my time on the field running away from the not-so-high flying ball with my arms covering my head. And in middle school, every time we played line soccer I would somehow manage to get a ball kicked right at my face or smack into my stomach. So I had kind of a bad taste in my mouth when it came to soccer, and flat-out refused to watch the World Cup with Melissa in our senior year. However, I am at a point in my life when I am excited to try new things and determined to be open-minded and fearless. So I went to the Real game not only with no trepidation, but with an adequate amount of enthusiasm.
The game was actually awesome. It was weird getting used to a professional sport where very little of the action was replayed over the loudspeakers. Despite the music and shouts from the crowd, it seemed so quiet without commentary that it felt at times like I was watching the little men kicking around the tiny ball on a TV on mute or something. And Marshall had to keep explaining what was happening in the game. But I caught on okay, I think, and I really enjoyed myself.
That night the Real played against a Mexican team, the Cruz Azul (Blue Crosses), and when their supporters kept shouting "Azul, azul, azul!" the Real supporters around us made comments about all the sneezing. And of course, there were many choruses of "Ole, ole, ole, ole! Real Salt Lake!" especially after the Real scored goals. Despite a lack of action in the first half of the game, there was still plenty to watch and keep my interest. All of the goals in the entire game were scored in a period of about a half an hour, and the game ended 3-1 in favor of the Real! Hooray! Thanks Marshall for the ticket and I would love to go again sometime!
P.S. I think I could do a pretty darn good job of being a soccer announcer, since I can hold out "GOAL!" like nobody's business. I'm probably not at a professional level just yet, but maybe when I am a soccer mom I can give it a try!
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