Nice two bishop & knight mate, analysis help wanted!

Just wanted to showcase this nice game (for my opponent, not for me ) and ask for any feedback about where I went wrong.  My opponent did a great job keeping his pieces well coordinated I'd say.  Me on the other hand...

Game is here

You take too much time doing nothing. You need to exchange bishops on h6 and then castle queen side and push your king side pawns beginning with h4.

I'm not sure I'm strong enough to really offer suggestions, but, it seems that the major weakeness in your position turned out to be the open a-file.

given that black has a lot of play down the queen side, and that white has two knights, I'm not convinced 17. axb5 is the right idea. why not a5?

Looking at it now, I'm not sure, or since I captured I probably should have traded both rooks & tried to hold on.  I thought a5 would have just strengthened white's position, driving my pieces back to inferior positions & tying me down to defending this pawn but my pieces were driven to bad positions anyway & yes, black had this great open file which I was tied down to, to some degree, anyway.

Well, after a5 it is definitly true that your pieces would have been driven back to inferior squares but I feel that is more a tempoary problem (knights in closed positions will often find the right squares and moreover, have the time to get to them)

The only problem then, is defending the a-pawn, which, could get quite tricky.