Moon Summer of Fun - Real Salt Lake

On July 20th Grandpa Ott and I took the two big guys to their first professional soccer game ever. Real Salt Lake was taking on Sporting KC. I think everyone but Grandpa was really excited. Beckett loves playing soccer, so I think he wanted to see big guys get paid to play a game. Daddy has become quite the soccer fan over the last few years, so I was super excited to cheer on my hometown team (although, I realized while at the game that I've been away from Utah longer than RSL has existed). And I think Ciaran was excited because he knew that free pizza was likely.

The atmosphere at the game was electric. It truly was a first-class experience. RSL has a battle hymn (search Believe RSL on Youtube) which is a pretty cool song, but downright inspiring when sung by 20,000 fans at the same time. I've been to a couple of Red Bulls games here in New York, and the atmosphere in Sandy, Utah blows away Harrison, NJ.

At halftime I made Beckett and Ciaran pose with the cool RSL stuff they had set up in the concourse.

Truly soccer is the Game of Thrones. My tiny dudes are the Khaleesi of Major League Soccer.


Ironically the two guys behind the throne didn't play. They were on duty with the U.S. Men's National Team at the Gold Cup.






RSL ended up losing on a goal in the 97th minute of the game. And yes, there are only 90 minutes in a game, and yes, the ref only said there would be five minutes of extra time.

Fireworks for Pioneer Day at the end of the game were also incredible. Much better than i was expecting. I would definitely recommend an RSL game to anyone who's a sports fan.

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I'm not going to make this a separate post, but here's the food highlights of my trip to Utah:

I finally took a pilgrimage to Red Iguana 2. A little cleaner, a little less crowded, but the same great food as the original. I got the steak tips over almond mole sauce. To die for.




A few days before Red Iguana, Dawnell and I met some friends down in Orem for dinner. This was dessert at The Chocolate. Also awesome. The pizza place we went to also ruled. No photos of Pizzeria 712, but it measures up to the best out here in NYC.




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Ciaran's Birthday

I'm going to try to catch up with the fun times that we had this summer by posting some of our adventures in New York and Utah. Mostly Utah, and mostly not including me.

Ciaran had his 4th birthday party in June. He ended up having a pirate-themed party. Fun was had by all.

Dawnell made a pirate ship cake with Jake and Captain Hook. Not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the cake part has pirate ship shaping, it's not just a triangle, it also has deck bumps on top. Very cool.






We had themed games for all of Ciaran's friends to play. Station 1 was keep away from Captain Hook. The kid in the middle got to wear a big hook (there was a choice of hooks) and then try to hit away the beach ball.



Station 2 was Walk the Plank. You'll see the plank a little further down.


Station 3 was Cannonball Captain Hook. Not pictured are the black water balloons that you could throw at the Captain Hook pictured here. This was probably the favorite game because, duh, water balloons.



I think there was also a fourth station, but I can't recall exactly what it was and I have no photograph of it. Oh well.

Here's a twinner walking the plank. I think this is Aidric, but well, two months after the fact I'm not sure. The twins were allowed to come to this party, but we didn't make them dress up.


Beckett and Ciaran, on the other hand, got into the spirit with pirate jewelry, headbands, and swords.





Love this picture.


Scooge and Beckster were living on the edge, sword fighting on the plank. If I recall correctly, both of them splashed down to the green grass below.






Dawnell did a great job of planning the party and all of the kids had a great time, especially Ciaran.



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