Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Yesterday Mike turned 40. We had a great vacay planned, that is until the GREAT FLOOD of 2011 (more on that later) wiped out our vacay budget. So we improvised.

First, Eli had to wish Daddy a 'Happy Birthday':

We had a great day of doing nothing really. And we had a babysitter all set up (yay, Charley!) for the evening with no real plans when suddenly Mike and I had a brilliant idea. The biggest soccer game ever (or something) was here last night: Real Salt Lake vs. Monterrey. Of course it was totally sold out, but we decided to get all street and buy some tickets from a scalper. It came down to Carlos and Derrick. Carlos was offering 2 seats in the end zone, or behind the goal I guess as it was a soccer game. Derrick was offering seats about mid-field, but they were in the ADA section. He said it was not illegal for us to sit there. So Derrick it was! We set up a meeting in the parking lot of the Fresh Market. We got there early and had our cash ready:

We were taking bets on how Derrick was going to arrive. No one won. This is Derrick:

Whatever. It was way more shady than it looks. Here are our tickets:

We got to the game just in time for the national anthem. It was so fun! 

I didn't realize how serious soccer fans are. Everyone was in their seats for every second of the game. Which made getting to the concessions stand a breeze:

Which made Mike very happy!

 Plus the stadium had super cool beer dispensers that filled the cups magically from the bottom:

We had an awesome view from our seats:

The only drawback was that we had to climb over to actually get to them:

Here is where we would have been sitting if we had gone with Carlos instead:

Hard core soccer fans! Probably too hard core for us I think.

 But we were awesome (fair-weather) fans. We helped pass the flag:

 And we both wore our RSL scarves:

Plus, I think we were sitting next to a polygamist woman and her brother-husbands! Check it out:

I'm pretty sure I have seen them on the Discovery Channel!

I even though we saw Derrick again:

See? He's way street. That's a PAPER plate he's eating off of!

At the end of the game RSL lost 1 - 0, which made Mike sad:

 But at the end of the day Mike said it was his best birthday yet!

XOXO!