Sea Dat? We Dat!

Last Friday Tony, Lily, and I headed to Seattle. It was a trip that took months and months of careful preparation, planning, and budgeting.

Either that or I received an e-mail from Seahawks.com on Monday saying there were playoff tickets available...I forwarded that e-mail to Tony...gave him a call...and less than 15 minutes later we had tickets to Saturday's game and were scrambling to make flight and hotel arrangements.

Can I tell you something? We are so not those kind of people. Impulsive is not a word I would use to describe Tony or I. Not at all actually.

Now, I'm not saying we always make the best financial decisions. Um, not at all actually. But, we don't usually decide in a 15 minute conversation to liquidate Lily's college fund and head to Seattle. Of course, I'm kidding...and anyway I'm sure Lily will be perfectly happy at the local community college. If not, I'll just gently remind her of all the fun she had in Seattle when she was 4!

Seeing the Seahawks play at Qwest Field was one of the items on Tony's "Bucket List". Seeing them play in a playoff game at Qwest Field was just the icing on the "Bucket List" cake.

Lily was absolutely incredible on the loooonnnngggg flight out west. We read books, colored, played tic-tac-toe, eye spy, and every other game you can imagine and finally arrived in Seattle late Friday night.

On Saturday we went to Qwest Field to see the Seahawks vs. Saints. It was amazing, loud, exciting, Loud, fun, LOUD and did I mention LOUD? Seriously. You can not imagine the crowd noise. Trust me, it was crazy and deafening.

I was not prepared for all the insanity! Let's just say some people are *seriously* into their football!



I know I've mentioned this before, but I'm not a huge sports fan. It's just not in my personality to get all fired up about sporting events. To be honest, there's a small part of me that is a little envious of people who do. But, the other part of me...a bigger part...just flat out doesn't get it. I mean...really...doesn't get it.

When Tony and I were dating he told me that he wasn't much of a football fan. He lied! Big!! The good news is that Tony is not the kind of fan that lets a bad game ruin his day. Sure he would like to see his team win...but if they don't...oh well..there's always next week.

That was Tony's outlook for Saturday's game, too. He was just THRILLED to actually be at Qwest Field watching the Seahawks play. Now, Tony may not be the kind of fan to let a bad game ruin his day, but he is the kind of fan to go completely CRAZY during a good game.

If you had seen Tony on Saturday you wouldn't have recognized him. I guarantee it! My normally quiet, mild-mannered husband was a hooting, hollering, fist pumping, high-fiving maniac. It was hysterical! Lily kept looking at Tony like, "Who are you and what have you done with my Daddy?"

Tony desperately wanted to get his full face painted for the game. There is a place at the stadium where they do face painting for free. Even though we arrived at the stadium a full 2 hours early, they cut off the line just one person in front of Tony :-(.



Tony good-naturedly settled for having the team logo airbrushed on his face. Lily and I joined in on the fun and all 3 of us sported Seahawks on our cheeks.



We had terrific Club Level seats. We had a great view of the entire stadium and Tony was clearly in heaven! Everything was just perfect until Saints fans sat down right next to us. Thankfully, they were actually very nice...despite the occasional "Who Dat? We Dat!" chanting and I think having them right next to us actually made the game even more fun!

Apparently, Qwest Field was architecturally designed to be the loudest stadium in the NFL...and boy did they get their money's worth! It's CRAZY loud!

The goal of the Seahawks fans is to cause the opposing to team to get a false start penalty. That happened 3 times on Saturday! And if you think the fans are loud trying to create a false start penalty...you should hear them after it happens!!! Oy!!!

You may think I'm exaggerating about the noise level at the stadium. I'm not. Check out this article in the Wall Street Journal about Marshawn Lynch's earth-shaking touch down.

I know I've mentioned a few thousand times on this blog that Lily is pretty sensory sensitive. Saturday was no exception. The noise level was incredible and some of the sights were pretty overwhelming, too! Thankfully, we had earplugs and Lily seemed able to completely disengage from everything that was happening around us.

Almost everyone around us stood up the entire game. When Lily and I stayed seated having everyone standing up around us kind of created our own little cocoon.

While people (including Tony) were going nuts Lily and I played tic-tac-toe and took turns writing the letters of the alphabet. We traced each other hands and then made funny looking animals out of them. We made mazes for each other to figure out and played eye spy. Occasionally, we even watched the game :-)

When the noise got to be too much for Lily we'd just sit back down in our cocoon and find some other way to keep ourselves entertained. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I actually lost track of the game! When there were only a few minutes left in the entire game I thought it was the end of the 3rd quarter. Oops!

While it's true Lily didn't like all the noise, that did not prevent her from occasionally joining in in a little "Sea dat? We dat!" and "Not in our house!" chanting. Actually, Lily didn't seem to like the 'dat' part and mostly chanted, "Sea that? We're that!" So proper!

Once the game was over and the Seahawks had won it was absolute pandemonium! Complete strangers were hugging and high-fiving, people were chanting, "Sea dat? We dat!" at the top of their lungs, and the excitement and energy were palpable. I've never been in an environment like that. It was thrilling...and a tiny bit frightening.

By the time we got back to our hotel room all 3 of us were completely spent. A combination of jet lag and coming down off the post game high pretty much wiped us all out. We didn't have the energy to go out for dinner, so we had pizza delivered to the room.

While we were eating pizza Lily asked, "So Daddy, did the Seahawks win today?" After Tony almost ruptured something laughing he assured Lily that the Seahawks did, in fact, win. Lily went on to say, "I didn't really like the game that much, Daddy. But I am happy your team won!"

It looks like Lily might have Mommy's sports gene!