Skip to main content

Michigan vs. Illinois

Several months back (when I foolishly thought that we would have moved and settled in a new location and home by now), I bought tickets for the Michigan/Illinois game, happening in Champaign where Mark and Allison conveniently live ;-). Well, the time rolled around, we are still here, and we still had tickets, so we headed five hours south to their lives in the corn fields.

We arrived Friday night after a hair-raising drive that included pelting rain for hours, construction that took us on 30 minute detours, and an accident caused by rain that allowed us to move three miles in 45 minutes. But we met up with Allison and her parents in "downtown" Champaign and found a restaurant that would seat all six of us.  Very kindly, the Bosses paid for our burgers and sandwiches.

The Bosses.  They are seriously some of the nicest people.  I sure wish we could have gotten along better when Mark and Allison actually got married.  They remind me a whole lot of the Carlsons.  If we end up staying in the area, I think we need to get in better with them, because they have a whole lotta love to give.

The next day was beautiful.  It was the perfect Fall day.  Only 50 degrees though, so Mark took us over to his house to pimp us out in Michigan and Illinois finery.  Man, all those clothes I bought him at M-Den definitely came in handy! ;-). And we got to see his very cute apartment.

We drove over to the stadium, and it was amazing to see absolutely no traffic, and the Bosses were tailgating as close to the stadium as is allowed.  It was all so easy.  And they had a wonderful breakfast spread with yogurt parfaits, doughnuts, and egg quiches.  Unfortunately, my tickets said the game was a 12:00 start time, but it turns out they said 12 AM because the time was unknown when I first bought them.  However, the game started at 11:00 a.m. (noon EST) which meant we horked down the spread in about five minutes, packed it up, and headed to the stadium.  Yeah, bad planning and miscommunication on our parts.

Turns out, we were only five rows off the field!  And if I had to guess, I would say it was 50/50 Wolverine/Illini fans in the stands.  It was a fun game.  We were warm enough.  Mark and I would lead our section in "Hail to the Victors" after every touchdown, and we won!

I told Mark that my hat (borrowed from him) was a WOLVERINE for all intents and purposes.  It can be a yeti any other day, but not today!
The carrots were HEAVEN SENT after the game!

ALL kinds of goodie drinks ;-)

Pretty good seats, eh?  The Illini shoot off fireworks every time they score which caught me off guard every time.

Don't we WISH we'd had the special padded seats?!



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The FIRST of the Best Days of My Life

I'm always amazed when people can answer the question, "What was the best day of your life?"  For me, I've never had a specific answer.  The typical response of "my wedding day" doesn't work for me, because in all honesty, our wedding day was pretty sad with no family in attendance.  The second most popular answer of "the day my child was born" only conjures up feelings of pain, misery and exhaustion for me.  Really, up to this point, the best day of my life is anytime my family is together, and we are laughing, and talking, and ... being together.  I guess if I could string all of those moments into one solitary day, that would be the best day of my life. Everything changed though on Tuesday, October 27, 2015.  In fact, I feel quite relieved now, knowing that I can answer the proverbial question successfully and succinctly, for on that day, Anneliese Margaret Kennedy joined our family, and there has never been a better day in my life. Po...

SURPRISE!!

When the pizza guy came to the door last night, here's what John saw: It took a few seconds for John to process who the pizza delivery man was, but when he did, he was incredibly happy (and couldn't stop saying "heeeeyyyyy....".  It was Jared Moran, John's best friend. And me, I just knelt down, right then and there, and began repenting of all the lies that I have told over the last four months, hiding this most amazing surprise :-)  I told Sarah the other day that I was glad to see the light at the end of the falsehood tunnel, because if I kept this up much longer, I was destined to end up in liars' hell... Jared ran the Air Force marathon with John last year.  It was his first marathon, and from what he told us, his last.  However, he called in June and said he was coming again, but I was supposed to keep it a surprise from John.  I'm not sure what changed his mind, but we sure are glad he did.  John hates runnings marathons alone, and ther...

Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place

I'm writing this, not as a complaint, but as a plea.  If anyone has any advice, I would greatly appreciate it. My children are talented.  In fact, every child that I have ever met is talented in some way.  That's the fun thing about meeting kids--discovering those hidden talents. Some of the talents my children possess are very public--you guessed it...music.  Some aren't so public--kindness and generosity. My kids are frequently judged by other children because of their musical talents.  Other kids see them as "snobs" because they play their instruments well and because they are willing to share those talents whenever asked. My kids never play with arrogance.  They recognize that they are better at music than most kids their age, but they never, ever show it.  In fact, they are very generous with compliments towards other kids and their efforts with music.  I have raised them to appreciate anyone who tries to do anything with music--it's ...