After we went to Lake Keowee earlier this month, I flew directly to Las Vegas on Sunday morning for a conference and spent a few days in the desert. When flying back to the East Coast on Wednesday, I didn't fly in to Greenville. Instead, I went to Charlotte.
Thomas took a half day off of work and drove up there to meet me at the Charlotte airport. This was a planned out and strategic decision all due to the fact that the Texans were in town to play the Panthers that night. While college football (Clemson, specifically) is more my thing, this particular NFL game caught my eye. There were too many Clemson alumni to miss this game! The Texans had 5 Clemson guys and the Panthers had 1. Our main man, Deshaun Watson, got drafted by the Texans in the first round of the draft this year and is a rookie. How perfect is it that preseason games are the opportunities that rookies get to play and the very first Texans preseason game was in Charlotte, NC, which is easy driving distance from where so many of Deshaun's fans live! In advance of the game, I reached out to Corey to see if she was planning to go. She was, and not only that, she had season ticket seats that we could use, too! We coordinated all the plans and she told us to go to Draught, which is a bar right near the stadium. I found out later that it's the official Clemson alumni bar to watch Clemson games. When we got there, we realized that the Charlotte IPTAY club had sponsored their event there that night. The place was overrun with orange. It made me so happy. And actually, before we even got to the bar, the parking attendant where we parked noticed our orange and commented that there were more Clemson people there than Panthers fans! Clemson faithful showed up in droves to support our guy, Deshaun, along with Nuk Hopkins, DJ Reader, Carlos Watkins, and Marcus Gilchrist on the Texans and Ben Boulware with the Panthers. The Panthers's drumline, PurrCussion, came by the bar and played for us for a while and it was awesome. We ran into several friends and acquaintances there and eventually got with Corey and Clark and two of their friends. We had AWESOME seats at the game, thanks for Corey and Clark. You should have heard the crowd go crazy when Deshaun got his chance to play and ran out onto the field. It was definitely a Clemson heavy crowd there in Bank of America stadium. We got to witness Deshaun's first NFL touchdown. What a fun, proud and exciting moment!
Yes, I did wear my DW4 Clemson jersey ;)
Go #4!
Deshaun's TD
Having fun at the game!
Corey and me
DJ Reader, Jadaveon Clowney and Nuk Hopkins all together!
We left about midway through the 3rd quarter to drive back to Greenville. I wanted to stay longer but was really tired from the Vegas trip and traveling cross country that day, and was ready to just be at my own house and sleep in my own bed. I didn't do very well staying awake on the drive home (poor Thomas!) and it was late when we got home. I was excited to see the boys!
Then that weekend, we asked MaSha to keep the boys for us on Saturday so that we could go to Lake Cherokee with Clark and Steph. Lake Cherokee is small but it is really such a beautiful lake!
Thomas took this panorama of Lake Cherokee
It was a great day for us. We swam, rode on the boat, rode on Big Mable (the huge tube) and ate good stuff! It was such a nice and relaxing day. It even rained on us some but we took it in stride and kept swimming and acting like kids during the rain. We were diving and doing cannonballs off the dock and just having a blast. I secretly love swimming in the rain! ;) We definitely missed Heather and Walker, who weren't able to come that day.
Thomas and me on Big Mable
What a goofball
Beautiful clouds
Hahaha
That evening we ate at the Walhalla Steakhouse before coming back to Greenville. It's a fan fave. They have the best fried chicken. We used to always go there on the way back from our annual camping trip. That was back when we used to go camping...before we all had kids!
MaSha was a doll for helping while I was in Vegas, keeping the boys during the Texans/Panthers game in Charlotte and then babysitting again that Saturday for our grown-up lake day. We're so grateful to her.
Being gone from my kids so much caught up with me after all those fun activities. I was ready to get home and stay home with them for a while!
Pics from Vegas:
With a group of co-workers at the Chandelier Bar in the Cosmopolitan
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