(as always, you might need to visit the actual post to see the video – it is also online on Facebook if you’re on there)

Over this past month, Aviva took her first visit to the East Coast (Baltimore and DC), along with having her first experience swimming, and then also starting “swim lessons” (more like organized play time in the water) at the pool down the street. She’s also become a ton more interactive and talkative. Pictures and videos show this best, of course: (as always, you might need to visit the actual post to see the videos)

Aviva as the talkative one:

Aviva’s first visit into the water, at the hotel pool in Baltimore:

Aviva’s first swim lesson:

And of course, pictures:

Meeting Caleb, Grandma Sue's dog

Hanging out with Eytan

In the pool with mommy, in Baltimore

Always warmer with a hooded towel

Silly Hats with Daddy

Aunt Amanda and me

At the pool at Aunt Elana's new place

Hanging out with Idan

Reaching for the face

Holding Hands

I love tummy time!

Grabbing Molly

Happy Aviva!

This game surely provided that excitement for the rest of the year – we looked much better than the Red Bulls (last year’s championship runner up) across the board, dominating the offensive end, and clearly being faster and more physical. The weather was a crisp 45 degrees, and the fans were fully enjoying themselves. A great start for the franchise! Right as the game ended, I remembered I had my portable video camera on me, so here’s a sense of the ambiance.

(you’ll need to visit the actual post to see the video).

One present I wish I had received was a shovel; having one would have made our snow easier to deal with, especially, as I pointed out in previous blog posts, the city did nothing to deal with it. Friday of last week, I drove around to quite a few stores, looking for a snow shovel, so that I would have one for the future, if not this storm. Being unsuccessful (everyone was out, at least for a week), I decided to place an order on Amazon, especially since I have free 2-night shipping due to Amazon Prime. This way, we will have one for the next storm (3-4 more years?), and I won’t be caught shovel-less again. I figured if I waited for the stores to get stock back, I would forget about it, so ordering online it was. The box finally came today – and the FedEx guy said to me: “Wow, that’s a weird sized box – and strangely light – what is it?” Informing him that it was a shovel, he just laughed – and mentioned it was a great idea – he’s going to order one now too! He’s right – the box is strange – and very, very tall – look at how much it dwarfs Molly. At least I am prepared now for the next snowstorm!

Let’s count the ways:

• Football – Seahawks (4-11, after being favored to win the division, and of course, us having season tickets), Huskies Football (0-12 – first BCS team to lose all of its games), Cougars Football (2-11)
• Basketball – Sonics are now in Oklahama City, so no NBA team left – and even they are 2-24
• Baseball – Mariners were a woeful 61-101, firing their general manager and coach
• Hockey – No NHL team here, unfortunately
• The senseless loss of Ed, the Tuba Man :(

Not a good one – on the upside, there’s a new soccer team coming to town – Sounders FC!

To add on to the pain for us, I am primarily a Detroit Lions fan, and they’ve hit 0-15, the worst record in NFL history… not a lot of good times watching football this year.

Quoting the article:

“Has any city ever endured a year in sports like the one the Emerald City is just completing? A 101-loss, last-place baseball season, despite a payroll of $117 million; a 62-loss, last-place NBA season; a 12-loss, last-place college football season (the first 0-12 season in the history of the Pac-10); an 11-loss (and counting) NFL season; four coaching/managerial changes; one general manager dismissal; and, of course, the hijacking of its basketball team to Oklahoma @$&%ing City. Sure, other cities have lost their teams or endured epic losing seasons, but for it all to happen in one calendar year? To end December without a single head coach or manager who was employed in January returning for the next year?”

As with other posts, click on each picture for a larger version.

Pictures – one of the practice fields:

Locker room:

Draft room – (i.e. preparing for my fantasy draft)

Look – they use Cisco products!

Other fun pictures :)

Video – running, running, running (with a little ickey shuffle while we are at it) – yes, I am a fool:

Aaron on the Seahawks Practice Field

Fast forward to 2008 – the Detroit Red Wings just won their 11th Stanley Cup! Which of course means I have a medical issue to deal with – my leg pain and back pain I have been discussing just isn’t getting better, and we need to ensure there’s no long term nerve damage in my foot or ankle from the nerve irritation. So after a couple doctor’s appointments (neurosurgeon and orthopedist) yesterday to get opinions, and a realization  that any more doctors were not going to give us a new non-surgical direction to try, we scheduled myself for a lumbar microdiscectomy on Wednesday, June 11th (time to be determined the day before), at Swedish Medical Center’s Neurological Science Center with the neurosurgeon (Dr. Peter Nora), to hopefully remove this pain from my back (literally!)

You can either have a neurosurgeon or an orthopedist do this; we feel more comfortable with the neurosurgeon, both personally, and professionally. As I’ve told people: “If someone is operating anywhere near my nerves, I’d rather it be someone who works on the brain, not the hand!” That said, this is reportedly, and I’ve done a bunch of research along with the doctor’s words, a fairly common, routine procedure – it is not the kind of “back surgery” you hear people so often discussing having lifetimes of issues, etc… Obviously, there’s no guarantees, but isn’t a metal rod implant, or a fusion, or anything overly scary – it takes about a half hour under the knife, and if I wanted, I could likely head home that day to start recovery. We are planning on having me stay the night for one night, just as a precaution, which the doctor recommended in any case.

Notes, including videos, descriptions, guides:

• Swedish Medical Center’s Spine Surgery Guide: www.swedish.org/body.cfm?id=547
  • Should be as they describe, other than we’ll only be there one night, not 4, as the procedures they are discussing are more intensive than I need.
• Good article describing the procedure: www.spine-health.com/treatment/back-surgery/microdiscectomy-microdecompression-spine-surgery
• Another good article on the procedure: www.esurgeon.com/scripts/content/treatmentoptions/back-lumbarmicrodiscectomy.html?doctor=nora
• Video of the procedure: www.esurgeon.com/scripts/content/playmovie.html?filename=discmicro&returnpath=treatmentoption/back-lumbarmicrodiscectomy.html&doctorname=Peter%20C%20Nora,%20MD&doctor=nora&page=back

Looking forward to getting healthy soon!

But who cares – in much more important news, WashU (my alma mater) won their first ever Men’s Division III national tournament in resounding fashion – 90-68 over Amherst. So as far as I am concerned, this year’s NCAA Tournament was a resounding success. Go Bears!

Coolest two things about this: a) CBS Sports showing highlights during their Division I coverage last night – that’s a likely a first for the school. b) Being at the sports bar with Joelle, watching Duke throwing away their game last night, I realized we had DirectTV at our table; I quickly scanned around, and found the game on CSTV. So while all the other fans were crying away the Duke loss, I was able to cheer like crazy! Cool :)

For more, see the following news articles:

• BearSports (WashU Athletics) – bearsports.wustl.edu/releases/mbk3-22-08.html
• StudLife (student newspaper) – media.www.studlife.com/media/storage/paper337/news/2008/03/21/News/Bears.Win.National.Championship-3278822.shtml
• St. Louis Post Dispatch – www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/othersports/story/F75C85A3FA2A787486257415001189E6?OpenDocument