Festivals and Soccer Games in the Rain

A week ago, Oliver turned one month old. To celebrate, our HOA hosted a summer festival at the community's nature center. OK, so they didn't throw the party just for Oliver, but that didn't matter. We still decided to check it out, anyway. It was a nice overcast day so the weather wasn't too hot and it was actually quite nice outside, so we headed over to see what all the excitement was about.

The bounce houses were the main attraction, at first anyway. But Max was soon distracted by the pink and blue cotton candy being spun nearby. Before we left, he had eaten FOUR cotton candies all by himself. We left his teeth at the festival before we came home because we didn't want to deal with the resulting cavities. Kidding. I am kidding! We didn't leave his teeth there. That would be silly. Isla and Wyatt also enjoyed a little cotton candy, and if that wasn't cavity inducing enough, they all feasted on snow cones and popcorn as well.

There was a juggler/entertainer there as well, and in between juggling balls and spinning plates on sticks, he let the kids spin balls on sticks and their fingers while standing on one leg. Max thought it was awesome. Isla did too. Wyatt just loved the bounce houses.

Of course, when Isla saw that other children there were getting their faces painted, she wanted to have hers done as well. I waited in line with her while Shayla hung out with the boys as they bounced around in all the fun houses.

Later that day, after the fun at the festival had ended, we piled into the van because, well, that's pretty much the ONLY way to get into a van, and headed for DC.

The weekend before Oliver was born, we went to a soccer festival (let's face it, we are festival-loving people!) in Leesburg and while there I had jotted my name down on the DC United email list. Mostly because I just wanted a couple free DC United magnets, which I got. But in the days after the soccerfest I began receiving phone calls from a salesman at the DC United ticket office.

He was a nice enough guy, and I mostly just talked to him on a few different days on my drive home from work. Of course he wanted to sell me tickets, and I was willing to listen to his offers, because I knew I probably wasn't ever going to purchase tickets from him and it gave me something to do as I drove home from work. We'd talk about the abysmal season United are having, the news of the potential new stadium to be built in the District, the great season RSL is having, and other things, like my new baby boy, where he grew up and the first soccer game he ever attended. etc. One day, he called and left a message on my phone and said he had free tickets to an upcoming game. Now he had me. This was an offer I couldn't refuse! You want to sell me tickets for free?!? Now, we've got a deal!

I took him up on his offer.

After piling into the van we headed to the cavernous RFK Stadium, tailgated in the parking lot with Little Caesar's pizza, and then watched DC United pick up only their third win of the season!

The game was a lot of fun. DC actually put on a good show, outclassing the Montreal Impact all over the field and came away 3-1 winners. RFK stadium is also HUGE, so we had a section of seats pretty much all to ourselves, which is nice when you have kids who just want to run around more than they actually want to watch the game. Max, in fact, did enjoy watching the game, and Isla liked watching and celebrating with the team after every goal was scored, so it was fun to watch them get into the excitement of it all.

Just before halftime, we I took the three oldest kids and we walked to the Volkswagen Garage at the north end of the playing field. You get to stand about fifteen or twenty feet behind the goal, so you get to see a lot  of the action up close. They also have a few Volkswagen vehicles for fans to look at, as well as a "garage" filled with activities. Max, Isla, and I played FIFA soccer on the XBOX, while Wyatt played a little foosball. We picked up a couple huge DC United poster boards that we got to hold up later while watching the game.

Our one-month-old Oliver, at his first professional soccer game. 

It started raining about twenty minutes before the end of the game, but our seats were far enough under the upper deck that we hardly got wet. We'd get a little spray every once in a while, but not enough to force us to find new seats, like almost everyone else in the entire stadium did. Isla and Wyatt however, had enough with being dry, so they asked me to take them out into the rain to which I happily obliged.

A couple minutes later, as we were standing next to the fence separating the seating from the field, we had a perfect view as DC scored their final goal. Isla was super excited! We danced and cheered and celebrated the goal as the rain steadily came down. A couple minutes later and the game was over.

We piled back into our van and headed home. It was a great day and a great way to celebrate Oliver's one month birthday.