Family, Football, and a Birthday Party

April 19-20, 2013

Jeremy and I have wanted to take Caleb to an Alabama football game but just did not want to pay a ton of money for him to go and sit for 20 minutes then make the rest of the game miserable. So, duh! A-Day was the perfect opportunity for us to take him (and his sister) on a trial run. *For those of you who aren’t Alabama fans: A-Day is the football team’s practice scrimmage game in the spring where they open up the stadium and let fans in to watch. It is so much fun because the band and cheerleaders are there, just like a regular game.

Jeremy’s Aunt and Uncle who we adore were so gracious to host our crew for the weekend. Not only do we love being able to go back to Tuscaloosa for football, but it gives us lots of time to catch up with them too! This trip, the whoooole crew came!! Jeremy’s parents, Josh, Jessica, and Addison, and his Grandmother. Almost everyone fit in their house, but Jeremy’s parents had to get a hotel room for the night. We all headed out to eat Jalapenos for dinner Friday night and it was delicious. Jalapenos and El Rincon were our two favorite Mexican restaurants from college, so it brings back memories! They absolutely have the best chimichanga I have ever had, hands down. Seriously. Anyways…once we got back to the house, the kids were SO wound up, we had some play time before finally getting them all down for late bedtimes.

We were so excited to get to be there to celebrate Drew’s 2nd Birthday with everyone. He had a wonderful party! The weather was perfect for lots of outside play time. Cynthia did such a great job with the decor and food. Most of all...she was SO calm hosting a million people for the weekend plus throwing a party. Whew! Poor Kailyn napped through most of the party since it was during her morning nap time…usually we would have let her skip, but since we were taking her to campus later for the game, she had to have that morning nap!! ~*Happy Birthday, sweet Drew!!*~

As the party was winding down, Kailyn woke up from her nap…she must have smelled the yummy cupcakes and ice cream! We got her up and dressed, bags packed, and kids sunscreened up then headed to campus. Luckily we were able to park at a friend’s house (which we are SO thankful for!!) so that wasn’t a hassle. We decided to go straight to the game since it was almost 2pm at this point. Little did we know, it would take at least 30 minutes to enter the stadium! First, we had to take the stroller to a designated stroller parking area. Then they wouldn’t let me in with Kailyn’s diaper bag, which was a major necessity. After calming down for a second, I figured out a good solution of smooshing her empty bag into my camera case, wearing the camera, and carrying alllllll of the stuff in her bag in my hands. It worked! And we were in. Then we could not find an open spot in the lower section where we could all sit together. So around, and around, and around, and around we went all the way up to the upper section. Unfortunately, we ended up in the shade where it was a little cool, but it was okay. We had the chair back seats, which was super nice! But the kids quickly got antsy. Enter all of the snacks I carried by hand into the stadium. Then Kailyn started to show signs of being past due for her afternoon nap and Caleb was cold. So we decided that we came, got our pictures, so we were ok to go. We headed to the Quad to take a few pictures and let the kids run around and burn off what little energy they had left while we relaxed on the blanket. It was such a nice day in the sunshine!

Suprisingly, after such a long day and no naps, the kids had tons of energy once we got back to the house! Kailyn got maybe a 5 minute nap on the way back, courtesy of her big brother waking her up. We decided to have our “grown up” dinner after the kids went to bed since they were going to be going down early-ish. The kids enjoyed playing outside some more, including jumping in the jumper. Then we got them some yummy pizza and they topped that off with more cupcakes. I would say it was an awesome way to wrap up such a wonderful day!

More to come of our wonderful family day on campus Sunday…..