How It Feels

Armed with our Seahawks gear and a mountain of snacks and goodies, we bunkered down with friends tonight to watch the Super Bowl, in an incredibly loud living room somewhere along Washington's Olympic Peninsula. We celebrated what turned out to be an incredible night for Seattle sports fans. In fact, I think it is safe to say that today was the best day in Seattle sports history.

Ready to watch!

As the pregame fanfare blasted (I literally mean blasted) out of the TV, we were so nervous. So anxious. So ready to see what our team could do. We were not disappointed. We were all buzzing with energy the first quarter of the game as the Seahawks started strong and started out on top. We held our breath, afraid to hope that this was a signal about how the rest of the game would go. Everyone literally was bouncing up and down consumed by a mixture of anticipation and nerves. If bottled, this energy could put an energy drink to shame. But it was all natural. Pure adrenaline and excitement. 

For the record, these homemade pretzels were amazing. All 42 of them.

Recipe here.

There are no word to describe the chaos that ensued in that household over the next couple hours. As the Seahawks racked up the scoreboard with incredible play after incredible play, our minds were blown. It was as if the entire season's top highlights were being played out on the field in this one single game. There was little down time between the exciting plays and it was incredibly hard to remain seated (even with a 25 pound toddler in one's lap).

Each time the Broncos lined up to scrimmage, the house erupted into a unison of monosyllabic noise, as if the power of the 12th man could distract the great Peyton Manning from 3,000 miles away. With each touchdown, we rallied around a kitchen island and carried out well-rehearsed, soundbarrier shattering chant followed by a tip of a shot glass filled with Fireball. Randomly throughout the game someone would yell, "SEA!" and the rest of us would rally back, "HAWKS!" in perfect unison. Whenever our defense turned the ball over or the offense got a first down, an orchestra of noise--beautiful, chaotic, and random sounds, reflecting the raw and otherwise indescribable emotions pulsing through our bodies--lifted to the ceiling. 

Imagine how you would feel if it suddenly rained money in your living room. Well, it rained money in our living room for four straight hours. And the cheering was ceaseless. 

In the euphoria of a Seahawks win, my husband didn't even mind that I pretended to be Mrs. Russell Wilson.

We're happy that Seattle is finally on the sports map. And hopefully tonight will stifle all those jokes in the sports industry about Seattle being Southern Alaska. I'll spare everyone an even longer rant about how much I love this team and how well we played. How about some amazing facts about Seattle's domination over the top-rated offense in the NFL:

• Seattle's 2-point safety was the quickest score in super bowl history.
• In addition to the safety, our defense also scored a kick-off return touchdown (at least a 70 yard rush) and an interception touchdown.
• We turned the ball over at least 4 times.
• Russell Wilson, QB and my personal favorite player, had a strong second half and threw two decent touchdown passes.
• We are one of, if not the, youngest team to ever win a Super Bowl.
• Russell Wilson is third youngest QB's to win a Super Bowl.
• We won crushed it 43-8.
• When we played the Broncos in the pre-season, we won 40-10....I love how prophetic that is!