Clemson Homecoming 2015

Saturday was Clemson's Homecoming game for this season. Diane, Nator and I decided a few weeks ago that we were going to try to make it happen for all of us to go together. MaSha agreed to keep the boys for us, we searched the internet for tickets, texted about tailgating plans and got ready. We were excited. 

Boys on Saturday morning.... of course they were wearing Clemson gear. They totally love the Tigers. We're working on their cadence count. ;)

Tiger fans!

Stokes giving Ryan a hug

Yep, I never get all them smiling at the same time!

William, don't eat your jacket!

Nator, the boys and me

Our fam :)

We had a leisurely drive up to Clemson and weren't able to meet friends at the tailgate yet and had to kill a little time, so we went by Goobers to sit outside and drink a cold beer. The weather could not have been any better. It was absolutely perfect!

Nator and me

Diane, Thomas and Justin

We were able to use Carole's parking pass to park in Lot 1. Yeah, baby! We met up with Susan and Rick and got our tents, tables and food set up. Tailgating is so awesome.

My man!

Go Team Wilkes!

Besties! Me, Nator and Diane

After we had been tailgating for a while, I wanted to walk up to Bowman field to see the homecoming floats. I don't remember what the floats looked like when we were there, but I don't remember them being this good. These floats are amazing!

Diane, Nator and me in front of the KKG float

Kappa and Sigma Nu paired up on the float. Guess what. They got first place! ;)

Us in front of our beautiful float. We're proud. hahaha

Diane and Justin in front of the KA float (you can vaguely
see the letters on the float near their heads)

There was this one float that had a platform with a fake Howard's Rock on it. All these little kids were going up there and getting their pictures made. We are such nerds and waited in line to get our picture made too.

Rubbing Howard's Rock

The float also had a hill that you could run down after rubbing the rock. I mean, I felt like I was in Death Valley doing the real thing! ;) Not quite, but it was really very cool!

Running down the hill

We are having so much fun!

This was just a cool float of DeShaun Watson

After Bowman, we walked across the street to TD's. It was surreal walking in there. So much time has passed since we've been there, but it made us think we were back in college and 21 years old again. I love stepping back in time. Especially in Clemson, SC!

Nator and Dide in TD's

The main reason we went to TD's was to meet up with an old friend. This was a surprise I concocted for Nator, We met up with our TBF (teacher best friend), Chris Hopkins. Nator and I loved him while we were in school and have sporadically stayed in touch with him since graduation. I knew Nator would be just as excited as I was to see him so we worked it out and met up in TD's. We also got to meet his sweet and gorgeous fiancee, Karen.

Karen, Nator, TBF, me

After a little catching up and beer drinking, we meandered back to the tailgate and had some awesome visitors!

Steph and Clark came to tailgate with us!

Clark and Thomas

Steph and me - love this girl!

These tiger tailgaters were so much fun and we had to
get a girls picture with them!

Susan, Diane and me

Susan and me

Guy time!

Love these fellas - C-Note, Thomas and J-Rock

Beautiful besties - Nator and Diane

The whole tailgate!

The game started at seven, so we packed it up and did the short walk over to the stadium. Having a 7 PM game was just perfect because we got to have just the right amount of time to relax and enjoy tailgating and the gorgeous day.

Clemson has to be one of the most beautiful places and college campuses. Yes, I am biased, but it's a scenic place!

Picture doesn't even do it justice -
sunset over Lake Hartwell

Ready to cheer on the tigers with 81,000 of our closest friends!

Thomas and Justin - tailgating buddies since 2007ish :)

Fireworks!

The balloon release

Team Wilkes

Tiger Touchdown!

We won! YAY!

We didn't tailgate for all that long after the game, but after getting the car loaded and waiting in traffic, it was about 1 AM when we finally made it home. It was a long day, but so much fun and so worth it!

I have to give major props to MaSha for keeping the boys by herself all day long so we could make this tailgate and game happen with our friends. That is a tall order and she is fearless. She said they were great for her (hope she wasn't just saying that!). She is an awesome grandmother! No doubt about it.

The unsung heroes of the game were definitely MaSha, the Hardy's (Diane's parents) that kept Grace and Bobby and Nator's husband, Neil. Neil kept The Colt, who is only 10 weeks old, for over 24 hours all on his own. He checked in with Nator a little, but wasn't stalking her all day for help. He stepped up in a big way. What an awesome Daddy!

After having 2 super rainy and muddy games in row, we deserved a beautiful game day and it all worked out. The Tigers are now 6-0 and there are a lot of people that are really excited about this season. I hope we can keep up the momentum!

Cheers to the tigers and I hope we can make a similar plan for next year. This day couldn't have been much more fun. It was the best!

Wet and wild

My friend Carole called me up and said she had an extra ticket to last Saturday's Clemson game. I ran it by Thomas and he was (thankfully) willing to stay home and watch the little guys* so Carole and I could go whoop it up in Death Valley. Let me just say that Thomas and I have both been getting Clemson season tickets since we graduated college in 2004 and 2005. We had to stop getting them in 2013, the year the boys were born. Since then we've only been to a couple of games and we both miss it. Whether we'll be able to do season tickets again in the future remains to be seen, but it sure is nice to get the chance to go see the Tiger play once or twice in a season!

After last week's emotional win over Notre Dame, amidst a monsoon of rainy weather, I don't think anyone was sure what to expect. We could have the big game hangover that a lot of teams face. Georgia Tech had lost several in row and fallen out of the top 25 after being heralded as a true contender in the preseason, and they were hungry for a win. We typically do not play well against GT's triple option offense. The fans came out in droves to tailgate in the mud and sit in the rain for the Notre Dame game - would they be willing to come back out after those crazy conditions? It didn't help that the weather was calling for rain once again. 

As luck would have it, the rain indeed showed up once again. All the tailgating fields were still mud pits from the previous game and now all the mud was showing its ugly face. I typically love the fact that Clemson tailgates in grass fields instead of parking lots and concrete, but when it's rainy, that mud is a force to be reckoned with. I have never, ever seen the tailgating scene in the conditions that I witnessed on Saturday. I took some pictures, but they just don't do it justice. It was unbelievable. 

Carole, me and Susan at the tailgate, pre-game

Carole and me in Death Valley

Look how close we are to the action!!! Carole has AMAZING seats!

We went out at halftime to a friend's tailgate and I got to see this for the first time.

My first glimpse of the "Oculus" - what is that thing?!?!?
Dunno, but it looks pretty cool.

Go Tigers!

Big win! Fans gather on the field after each and every game

Scoreboard - Clemson 43, Georgia Tech 24

Despite the mud and muck, it was a GREAT game. The tigers took the lead and never looked back. It was total domination and I loved every second of it! 

Believe it or not, I managed to stay completely DRY the entire day. I had jeans and a t-shirt on for my first layer. I had some tall rain boots (nevermind that they are houndstooth - aka Alabama-themed - you gotta do what you gotta do in the rain). Then Carole lent me some water repellent pants that I put over my jeans and stuck inside my rain boots. I had a rain jacket over my t-shirt, a hat on my head and my final layer was a Clemson poncho. I was surprised after sitting in rain all day long, my first layer did not have a drop of water on it. And the temperature was very mild, so at least we weren't cold! :)

Lot 1 post-game

Fun at the tailgate!

This random guy was at our tailgate and was wearing a Florida shirt
and was barefoot. OMG.

Beautiful green grass replaced with inches of mud!

These guys were at the tailgate and just happened to be
fraternity brothers of Thomas's. So naturally I took a pic with them. :)

Post-game cleanup proved to be...well, interesting. Keep in mind that everyone set up their tents and just had their chairs, tables, coolers, etc. sitting in the mud. People spread straw out on the ground in their tailgates, but it wasn't enough to keep the mud at bay. Smart people even brought tarps to put down on the ground, but even the tarps got filled with mud with people walking in and out. I'm sure people that were there are going to have to get their cars detailed after tailgates were taken down, folded up and packed away in trunks. I mean, there was just so much mud everywhere; there was nothing you could do. We had extra trash bags and were putting them around the bottom of coolers and putting chairs inside the trash bags to mitigate the damage, but holy moly. Mud for days!

Some people even abandoned stuff - just left grills, chairs, etc standing in the field. I guess they just thought it wasn't worth it to pack it up, get mud in the car, then have to pull it out later to clean it all up.

Pictures don't do it justice for how crazy muddy it was!

Cars stuck in mud. When this happened, people from all
over Lot 1 would trudge over to push the stuck vehicle
toward the exit.

Pictures don't really capture how totally muddy it was, but these videos may help!

Meanwhile, back at home...

Thomas and the boys celebrating the first Tiger Touchdown of the day!!!

Thomas/Ryan selfie :) <3 <3

So Carole and I got a little surprise. Do you recognize this?

Random picture of Carole and me cheering....

Guess what! It's a picture of a TV screen. Yep, that's right! We made a {very brief} cameo on screen during the game. We're famous! I've had thousands of new Instagram followers. People are stopping me on the street and asking for my autograph. ESPN is already calling us to be guests on next week's College Gameday episode. Ok, ok, not really, but I've never been on TV before so I thought it was pretty cool. I mean, this just goes to show how incredibly awesome Carole's tickets are!

Woot woot! 

Our Clemson football team looked AWESOME, I got to hang out with some of my favorite people, Thomas sent me pictures of the boys and checked in with me throughout the day...what more could you ask for?!?!? It was a great day. GO TIGERS!

* In exchange for Thomas staying home while I went to the game, I offered to repay the favor. You read it here, folks. If Thomas wants to go to a game later this season with some of his friends, he's got the green light. :)

A Decade

Yesterday, Oct. 11, 2015, marks 10 years since my Mom passed away. It seems like a lifetime ago with how different our family and lives are since then, but it also seems very recent - I can very vividly remember a lot of things about that day. It seems unfathomable that it has been 10 years.

I'm not going to write a long post about this anniversary. But I do intend to start talking to my boys about their Grandma Robbie.

I read a friend's Facebook post recently that inspired me. He, too, has lost his mama and has little kids of his own. I'm going to summarize, but it said something about how he talks to his daughter about his own mom a lot and how he wants his kids to know about her. He asked his daughter what her grandma would say if she were sitting there and the daughter answered with something that was relevant and important to her grandma. My friend goes on to say that he felt his Mom's presence and misses her.

I really haven't yet starting talking to my boys about my Mom, and I don't know why. Maybe I'm worried that the concept is too complex for them to understand. Maybe I don't want to confuse them. Maybe I'm worried that it will make me sad. I don't know the reason. But regardless, it's important for them to get to know who she was. I'm missing a huge opportunity and reading my friend's Facebook post made me realize it. I'm making a resolution that I'm going to talk to them about her and show them pictures of her. I'm going to do my part.

Friends and family, if you knew my Mom, or even if you didn't, feel free to talk to my boys about her when you're around them. Hearing stories or memories about her coming from people other than me will probably further cement her legacy for them and put her firmly into their lives.

She was too wonderful a person not to be shared with the next generation. I miss her so much my heart aches. Much love to my Mama. xoxo

Office life

Ok, so we won the game against Notre Dame last week. WOOT WOOT! I didn't breathe for about 3 hours on Saturday night, but the outcome was excellent, so it's all good.

In other news, I have several posts I need to write but can't seem to get caught up! Here's just a quick post about our visit to Thomas's work on Wednesday. I had to go up there to get a flu shot, and some of the girls in the office have been asking Thomas to have the boys come for a visit, so I brought them along with me. I always get a little nervous because they are pretty disruptive while they're there, and I don't want to annoy anyone who is trying to work or for Thomas to get in hot water. 

The boys had a great time playing with calculators (thinking they were cell phones), various balls and stuffed dogs. There are always lots of fun things around at the office. They love Thomas's co-workers and everyone was so sweet to play with them while we were there.

We Too Deep

In case you haven't heard, Clemson has a BIG game this weekend! We're playing Notre Dame and ESPN College Gameday is going to be there. The boys (and their parents) are super excited!

We thought...for a millisecond...about taking the boys to Clemson to tailgate for a few hours on Saturday afternoon. After thinking logically and logistically about it, we decided to veto the idea. Thomas had to talk some sense into me. We don't have a parking pass, it is literally going to be a zoo there and there is a 100% chance of rain. So there you have it. We'll be watching Gameday and THE GAME from the comfort of our living room. I'm hoping we can work it out to take them to tailgate during another game this season.

So today is Solid Orange Friday. We're All In.

GO TIGERS!

We Too Deep
WRU (Wide Receiver University)
1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, C-L-E-M-S-O-N T-I-G-E-R-S, FIGHT TIGERS, FIGHT TIGERS, FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

p.s. If we don't win, can we just agree to not talk about it and pretend like it never happened? K, thanks. It will be too painful. And you won't see a follow up post about it. I will be too busy wiping my tears and gathering up the pieces of my shattered tiger pride.
What?? Too much?? Let's hope we don't have to worry about that!

A few outtakes of our little Solid Orange Friday photo shoot:

Stokes stealing the football from William (this happens
ALL the time, regardless of what the toy is!)

Me: "Can everyone sit still and look at Mama??"

Stokes: "Nope"

Stokes: "I wonder how much it's raining outside."
Ryan & William: "We love this football"

Stokes: "I think I'll go check it out"
Ryan: "Orange is my favorite color"
William: "Where are you going, brother?"

All: "Picture? What picture?"

Yep, just snapping away. Lots of movement.

He gone.