Our 1st Game...

Posted by Danice - - 1 comments

Here are some pictures of our first University of Illinois Football Game we made it to! With my brother visiting from Nashville this weekend, we took our season passes we have (every graduate TA gets a few for family members or whoever!), our rain coats as the forecast warned of rain throughout the game, and plenty of snacks to keep the boys occupied and content through as much of the game as we could get through :) I went with low expectation of how long we'd stay...for me, just making it through the crowded parking lots and crowd of 70,000 to our seats with both boys would be a victory! After that...I didn't really care!

It took us a half hour to get from our front door to our seats, which I thought was pretty good. It was a humid day as the sun shone through skies that held rain clouds way up high...too high to bring rain, but thick enough to make it extra sticky and hot. Yuck! We found our seats after finding the wrong ones and being corrected by other ticket holders, and "sat" to watch the pre-game show by the Marching Illini...better known in our house as "Daddy's Marching Band." The Band came in with all the pomp and circumstance of a group with long standing tradition and 350 members strong. It was very cool to be a part of. The band marched, fireworks blasted in the air and the jets flow over to end it all. We stood to sing the national anthem, and I took Cole under the stadium to get out of the heat a bit and to walk around.

We finally went back up to our seats and I gave both boys some goldfish crackers to keep them busy only to find Cole wiping his wet goldfish hands on the man's shirt in front of him...oh boy! Even with our hats and glasses, I could tell that this could be a very long 1st half as we tried to wait until half time to see the marching band play once again. "Derek," I said to my brother..."I think I'm going to take Cole home. You can stay with Ryder if you want and we'll pick you up later?" Wanting to stay together, we all talked out of the stadium shortly after kick-off feeling much like fish swimming up-stream! Fans in their orange and blue were still streaming in as we were asking ticket officials where the exits were. "You want to leave for good?" They asked in disbelief, wanting us to be sure before we went out, not able to get back in. "Yes," we said with sheepish smiles, "Thank-you!"

I really do feel like it was a great time though! We made it in, saw the pre-game show, saw Daddy conducting on the sideline in white gloves and left in our air conditioned car off to get smoothies and show Uncle D around town. Here are more pictures of the pre-game show. The stands are not quite full yet since we left so early! Enjoy!