Army vs. Rutgers - A Series of Football Miracles

Back at the beginning of football season, Tom and I bought a two pack of tickets to watch some Army football. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Part of the plan was for sweet Lolo to come up for the Rutgers game which, in a strange turn of events/confusion, ended up being a Friday night game rather than a Saturday day game. An 8pm game...and we bought tickets for our children. Oh my. But it was going to be fine. Two adults, three kids, no problem. But then, the Thursday evening before the football game, I got this phone call.

Tom: Hey nen! I have some news.
Me: Is this good news or bad news?
Tom: I think it's pretty cool.
Me: Cool, what is it?
Tom: General Wesley Clark (4 star general, former Supreme Allied Commander NATO) is coming to the game and I get to be his escort!
Me: ...
Tom: Cool huh?
Me: ...
Tom: Nen?
Me: This is for tomorrow's game? The one at night? With the forecast for rain alllll night? And we're taking the kids?
Tom: Yeah...
Me: Oh. Okay.

So maybe I was a bit more emotional than that but that was the gist. So now it was 2 on 2, 8pm kick off, rain literally forcasted for all night long. Bring it.

Thus began a series of quite wonderful miracles to make this night be not completely horrible. Lolo the angelcake was fantastically supportive. I packed my bag (this is purse sized bag cause no bags allowed in the stadium and also no umbrellas) with candy, books, an ipod with 2 sets of headphones, a water bottle, and two little color wonders. I found coats, hats, mittens, etc. for everyone, rolled a stadium blanket with two extra blankets plus a towel, and we rolled. The first miracle was that some fabulous friends let us park by their house which is right next to a shuttle bus stop. Our "parking pass" would have had us park literally as far away from the stadium as possible and still be on post, we'd have to walk over 1/3 of a mile to the bus stop, and about 8 billion people park there. But from our friend's house, it was a 2 minute walk to a covered bus stop and in 10 minutes we were right on the front of a not too crowded bus and a 5 minute ride to the stadium.

Miracle #2 was that this bus happened to drop us off at the gate as close to our seats as its possible to get. There was NO line at security (miracle #3) and the guard who searched my bag actually complimented me on my preparedness and said he wished that he had brought the same stuff I did!

So then came the best part. As we went to our seats (these are bleacher style, no seat backs mind you) We walk down under the second tier (so its ) and stop right before it ends. That's right folks, we were sitting in the one covered area in the stadium. And it turns out the rest of the stadium felt like crowding under there too and at one point I was getting claustraphobic because we were so jammed in there with everyone else (I would say well over 1/2 of who did not actually have seats there) but we didn't get wet. The girls ate their candy, red some books, watched the ipod. Emma fell asleep before the 1st quarter ended and stayed that way until it was time for us to leave. We made it all the way through the end of the third quarter by which time we actually were wet from the wind blowing the rain on us plus we were getting trounced and it was just time. My sickness was becoming a nuisance again but Tom was very helpful in bring us some of the FREE FOOD he was getting as he sat in his nice dry seats with the General. But I'm not bitter. Really.

But the good times didn't stop there. We walked right to the right bus, right ONTO the bus, managed to cut some corners to get back to the van quickly, and were home in no time. Lolo was such a good sport and it actually was lots of fun. Mary was an absolute pleasure and people around us kept listening to her and laughing. She was asking things like, "why is that boy falling down?" "how come they keep landing on theirselves?" and she would cheer when everyone else would cheer. One of the few annoying things was that when Army scores any kid of points they loose of a CANNON SHOT. Yeah, nice huh? And you think I would start to expect it coming but no, I was always surprised and jumped and we tried to cover Emma's ears cause I would NOT have been pleased if she had woken up. But all was well. Thanks Lolo for coming and thanks Tom for the pulled pork sandwich! If only you brought four instead of one... ;) I love you!!