Oh so close

Last weekend was the annual Anderson family reunion. This year it was held in Everett and to be honest I had no idea how many would show up.

You always hope that a majority would be there but two couples were going to be out of state, and another couple was celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and their families weren’t going to show up either.

I figured that we would be lucky to have a dozen family members show up. More on that later.

Brother Don and Larry and I set off for Seattle from the farm last Friday morning to make sure we wouldn’t have any traffic issues. It was a smooth trip with very few traffic problems until we hit downtown Seattle.

When it takes 20 minutes to go 10 blocks you wonder where all of those people were going. We knew that we were going to Safeco Field to find a good parking spot close by. We’ve reached that age where we are willing to pay a little more to save our legs.

Since we were at Safeco a couple hours before the gates would open we decided to go across the street to a local watering hole.

I visited with the guy next to me and we talked about the Seahawks, Mariners and the Sonics. We talked about how the Sonics need to return to Seattle and he felt that the city also needed a hockey team in the NHL.

I really enjoyed the visit and actually got excited about the upcoming Seahawks season. The guy had been to the first day of training camp and was really upbeat about the practice and several of the players.

We talked about the Mariners and that they need to be more consistent and it was tough to come up with a definitive answer as to the quickest fix but that’s what is fun when visiting with a total stranger that is also a fan of the same teams as me.

When it was about time for the gates to open we went across the street to give away one of the tickets. It seemed that everyone had a ticket. The funny thing is we had trouble convincing anyone that there weren’t some kind of strings attached when giving away a ticket.

It’s one thing when you try to charge someone half price and they lose $20 or so. But if you get a ticket for free and it’s no good then you go back and buy one.

Right?

Well we gave the ticket away and the three others who were there purchased tickets behind us. I guess that was the catch. Jokes on us!! By the way, the tickets were a gift from Larry’s daughter and they were pretty good seats.

We watched batting practice, which is kind of boring until a few balls go over the fence. But since we weren’t in the outfield it was something I don’t need to do again.

But at least I can say I watched it once!

We were excited because Felix Hernandez pitching and he did a great job in his seven innings of work. He left the game tied 1-1 with the Baltimore Orioles. Felix gave up a line drive home run in the second inning and nothing more.

The Mariners had several opportunities to score but squandered them all. Charlie Furbush gave up a home run to Oriole first baseman Chris Davis and the M’s went down 2-1 even though they out hit the Orioles.

But they couldn’t get a timely hit with a man on third base with two hits. But hey, the tickets were free and the fireworks show afterwards was pretty good.

On Saturday morning, we were getting ready to go to one of the parks in Everett when I got a phone call from my nephew Dan. He told me that there was a big celebration going on at that park and the parking was very limited and that we probably needed an alternative location to go to.

Now I started scrambling to find phone numbers to get in touch with relatives. Dan told me that we could go to his place. I started making phone calls and told everyone about the change of venue.

Twenty-two family members showed up for the picnic and BBQ and we all enjoyed Dan and Maureen’s new deck. The weather was perfect, the food was delectable and it is always great to visit with family.

We’ve already planned a return trip to Dan and Mo’s place next summer. What a great location for a fun time.

It was definitely close in many ways this past weekend.

The Mariners were close to making our Friday night perfect but they came up short.

As a family we were close to having a miserable family reunion but thanks to my nephew and his wife we had one of the best family get-togethers ever.