Proving Ourselves

I keep finding things that I forgot to blog about.  I make the mistake of posting a picture on Facebook and then figure that's good enough.  But it's NOT, because I like to be able to tell (and record) the full story.  Mostly because my Mom reads this and isn't on facebook.  This one's for you, Mom!  (And you, too, Jen!)



So, anyway, when we first moved here, Craig got the idea that we should go to a UVA game.  I'm all about growing roots wherever you're planted and all that, so I'm happy to become a UVA fan.  My kids worried that maybe we need to be loyal to BYU, but I assured them that we could like both schools just fine.  And I guess Coach Mendenhall agrees!

But going to a game...  Honestly, stuff like this always sounds like so much work to me (even when it's just Craig and I).  But Craig pointed out that we needed to do things like this just to prove to ourselves that we can do fun things, even with five kids.  Yup-- he appealed to my competitive nature.  Or my desire to have a good story to tell-- that got me fully on-board.  (It's a good thing Craig is fun and knows me well, or else we'd never do anything at all.)

So it was decided!  We were going to a football game!  The one against William & Mary was the cheapest, and in the summer so we wouldn't have to worry about freezing, so that made it an easy choice.  Craig bought the tickets, I tried to figure out what we needed to make this work, and away we went!

As we were parking the car, I said to Craig, "Well, if we make it to half time, we'll call this a success!" and Craig gave me a puzzled look.  "We're gonna stay the whole time," he said.  "WHAT???"  I said.

I thought for sure we'd agreed to just stay until the kids were crying and/or absolutely crazy and then we'd leave with no hard feelings or disappointment.  Apparently we were not on the same page on that one.  I gritted my teeth and decided we'd just have to see how things went.

We had to walk for forever to get to the stadium (good thing we had a stroller and the ergo carrier), but then the kids were pleasantly surprised when they were given free backpacks as we entered the stadium!  It turned out it was Kids' Day!  So that was fun.  We got all settled and quickly learned that our seats were in the glaring sun.  We sat.  We squinted.  And we sweated.  And it was a bit miserable.  Craig noticed that the opposite of the stadium was getting shadier as the sun sunk, so we moved over there.

AND THEN WE HAD A BLAST.  The kids had fun.  We had fun.  It was great.  I was so pleasantly surprised by the whole thing.  We stayed the whole time, UVA won, the kids were thrilled, and it was a great day.  I can hardly wait to do it again!

I'd even managed to make dinner in the crock pot, so we ate as soon as we were home and then sent everyone to bed.  It was a great day.  We can do fun things.  Even with five kids!

Go Hoos!!!