Family Rivalry

With Ron, Ben and I being Gamecock fans and Clay being a Tiger fan, the big day is interesting at our house! Unfortunately we couldn't get a picture of all of us together, but this will give you the general idea. Ron and I headed downtown in the afternoon to tailgate with one of his vendor's. We had a great time before heading back home to finish watching the game.

Have you ever noticed it is impossible to get a really good self picture?!

Friendly rivals! Ron's rep from this company is also the wife of his friend, John, from high school...it was a total coincedence!

Stupid Is As Stupid Does --- But Stupid Sure Can Be Fun!

Okay, granting that I've been sick all week. We had tickets for the USC/Kentucky game for last night. School might not want me to infect 100 kids, but you can guarantee that for Gamecock football, I don't mind infecting 80,000 football fans. That said, last night was not one of my brightest moves, but I had a TERRIFIC time!

Ron got home about 5 and took a shower, changed clothes and we headed back downtown. After a half an hour of looking for parking we finally found a spot. As we hiked towards the staduim we saw a cool triple rainbow over the stadium and about five seconds later the bottom fell out of the clouds ---- torrential downpour. We grabbed a Monster Energy drink from the Monster Crew and then headed to Ron's vendor's tailgate. We huddled under their tent, Ron ate some chicken and we chatted with some folks.

We braved the monsoon to head to the other side of the stadium to get inside before "2001".

It was insane! People were all over the place going in every direction. And, then all of the old people were huddled around the tunnel entrance because they didn't want to get wet! We found our seats which were four rows from the field on the 50 yard line. We were right there, but because of where the seats were, we had to stand the entire game.

Ron and I had the best time!!! I was determined to not scream and yell because of my throat, but after missing the first major play (an interception and immediate touchdown) for a potty break, I gave up and am suffering with NO voice today (my kids loved that!).

We had the funniest people around us. On the other side of me were about 10 Kentucky fans. One of them wanted to be a smart alec and after a bad play yells out, "This ain't South Carolina State, boys!" Well that set off the Carolina fan two rows behind. He was in the guys face for the rest of the game. Then, the two guys behind us brought in their own mini bottles and mixed drinks the entire game. And, then for the entire game yelled, "Welcome to South Carolina. That's how we roll up in here!" I told Ron that I would be repeating that one in my head for days. The people in front were very calm, but the lady next to Ron....wooohoooo! She was so drunk she could barely stand and decided that she wanted to be Ron's bud. She kept talking to him and asking him questions. I giggled forever about it. We laughed and laughed about all the people.....they were as entertaining as the game.

We stayed until the very end and didn't have any traffic issues at all --- except we got caught at a 15 minute train. All in all, we had the best evening and can't wait for the next game! It is well worth the fact that I can't talk above a whisper today.

I Can't Take the Pressure

We are barely half an hour into the first quarter and I'm already biting my nails. Come 'on, Gamecocks!! (Hence the reason I am blogging...gotta do something when football gets my neves torn up.)

Update: They are at the 1 yard line or something....and Mitchell called a time out.......SCORE!!!!! (okay I watched it through my fingers...I was really scared to watch!)

Update: 3rd quarter...it ain't lookin' good for the Gamecocks.

Have I Told You Lately That I LOVE.....

FOOTBALL....GAMECOCK FOOTBALL THAT IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

( I can quit biting my nails now....they did it! The Gamecocks beat Georgia 16-12 for the first time since 2001....WAY TO GO COCKS!)

TV Tailgate --- Johnson Style!

With tonight's USC/UGA game being away at Georgia, we are watching on ESPN. To get ready we stopped by Kroger for maximum tailgate foods before the start of the game. We got our usual "Mexican Fiesta Foods", chips and dip, sushi, shrimp and pizza rolls. We have a TV tailgate feast going on while we cheer for our COCKS!!!

The boys enjoying some shrimp

Silly Ben cheering on the Gamecocks.

Ben watching the game with the balloon that Ron insisted we had to have while at Kroger

(As I type there is only a little over a minute left and I am SO seriously nervous...which is why I'm typing....it is stil capable of going either way....)

Tailgating and Gamecock Football

First game of the season! We left home about noon yesterday and headed to Yesterdays for lunch. After lunch we decided to go on to the fairgrounds and try for parking. We had to wait in line for about 30 minutes until the gates opened, but we secured a great spot. Meanwhile, our friends, Mike and Leigh were on the phone with us and we waited for them to pull into a spot and then spent the rest of the afternoon tailgating and catching up with them. We had a blast!

Going looking for Mike and Leigh.

We found them! And, had a blast tailgating together....can't wait for next time!

Ben enjoyed some tailgating snacks and then made his own place in the back of Mike's SUV to play his gameboy.

Ben and I walked over to the Gamecock Village where he tried some football practice with his "throwing arm".

Finally about 5:30, we headed towards the Biscuit House where one of Ron's vendors was hosting a tailgate.

Mike and Ben watched a game ( Ga. Tech, I think) on the bigscreen at the Iron Mtn. tailgate area.

And the band played the fight song for us after they ate dinner.

We hung out there for an hour or so before Mike and Leigh headed off to the game and we started looking for tickets. That was interesting.....we thought we'd never find 3 tickets together. Finally, right as "2001" came on and right as we were ready to give up, the gentleman came by and told us he had 3 tickets, upper bowl, under the press box. We were hoping for lower bowl tickets, but snapped these up as we realized if we wanted in, this was it! From there we ran...yes RAN all the way to the tip top of the stadium and our seats were on the very next to the last row at the top. By the time we got to the top, we couldn't breath from running and the heat. I was seriously thinking I was going to throw up and was debating how much damage would be done if I had to throw up in my Vera Bradley! Luckily, I just sat still for a few minutes and the feeling finally passed.
Can you tell how hot Ben and Ron were? This was about fifteen minutes after we sat down!

Other than the fact that the overhang prevented air flow, we liked our seats.

Our (literal) view from the top!

We had a great view of the field, except for during halftime when a couple rude guys decided to stand up through the entire show.

Clay called during the game (he's at Edisto with his friend, Chase and his family) and we gave him a hard time. I held the phone up and asked, "What's that the sound of?"

Clay, "the people cheering?"

Me: "NO! Real Football!" and then Ron, Ben and I started laughing. Clay, I'm sure, was shaking his head and rolling his eyes! He's not only a Clemson fan, but a Michigan fan. It turns out he wore his Michigan shirt on Saturday and took quite a bit of ribbing from folks at Edisto after THAT game.

Ron will be out of town for the next home game, so we're really getting ready for the last game of this month.

We Won!

No, I don't mean the Gamecocks....they DID win (more on that later), but I'm referring to me and Ben! In the car waiting to park,we set a little wager with Ron.....Ben and I thought we could find 5 people (that we didn't already know were going to be there....Mike and Leigh didn't count...this had to be random spottings) that we knew. Ron said, "no". Well, Ben and I didn't just find 5, we found 9!

First, tailgating three cars away was Sherrie from Spartanburg that I used to teach with at Madden.

When Ben and I headed over to the Gamecock Village, we ran into the McDowell's (2) from Boiling Springs.

As we were leaving the Iron Mountain tailgate spot to start looking for tickets, I ran into Elizabeth from Discovery Council.

While saying "bye" to Mike and Leigh and waiting on tickets, we ran into the Sanders (4), a family we knew from Boiling Springs.

And, then during the 3rd quarter, I realized that on the row in front of us was the PE teacher that was at Boiling Springs last year!

9 people!

What did we win? We haven't decided yet, but it will be something Gamecock!

22 Hours and Counting......

Can you just hear "2001" in the background? Tonights the night, baby, some GAMECOCK FOOTBALL 2007!

Fan Appreciation Day

After church, Ron, Ben and I (Clay is at the lake with his friend, Chase and his family for Chase's birthday) had lunch downtown and then ventured over to Colonial Center for Fan Appreciation Day. We had a fun time seeing all of the coaches and players with thousands of fans!

The lines were long so we opted to wait for Cocky and Spurrier, but not the football team. Ben had already collected many of their autographs earlier in the summer. (notice Coach Spurrier's look and Ben's smile? Spurrier was asking who had signed over his picture on Ben's poster --- it was Cocky! Spurrier's comment to Ben, "someone needs to tell Cocky to quit signing on my picture".)

He did, however, want to get a poster autographed by the soccer team and a couple of cheerleaders. Ben was all smiles after getting his autographs.

Pigskin Poets

49 days.......WoooHoooo!!! We are counting down to football season! That is the only good thing about the end of summer and start of school :)

To get us started, the boys and I went downtown this morning for "Pigskin Poets", where Gamecock football players read to the kids and sign autographs at the library. It was awesome (crowded) and FUN! It was definetly a "get in the mood for football" good-time.


Oh, and Ben and I were on the news tonight at it.....they showed me taking a picture of him with one of the Quarterbacks.

Ben LOVES Cocky! He says he wants to go to college at USC and be "Cocky" one day :)

I've only posted a few pictures because I literally took one of each player signing for Ben. Here he is with one of the QBs. This is actuallly the picture being taken when the news crew was filming.

Garnet and Black Game

We got up on Saturday morning and headed down to Columbia for the annual Garnet and Black game at Carolina. We noticed a "Sportsman's Warehouse" on the way and stopped to check out their camping gear.

When we arrived downtown, we headed over the bookstore next door to the Law School to pick up a jersey for Ben, hats for me and Ron and a diploma case for Ron. Then, we stopped in Five Points for lunch at Yesterday's, Ron picked up a backpack from an outdoor consignment shop and I picked up some plaid Sperry's that I had seen a couple of weeks ago at a shoe store there. Finally, it was time to head over to Williams Brice. We parked, picked up our tickets and headed into the gate in the endzone. There was the band, Hootie and The Blowfish's trailor and when I rounded the side of it, I got all excited because there stood Sonny, the drummer! (I know...I know....we are such big nerds!) We hung around for a while to see if Darius would come out, but he didn't and we headed into the stands.

Ben is proud of his new jersey!

Clay and his friend, Ryan at the game.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the day --- Ben and I are twins!

Don't we make great Gamecock fans?!?!

Steve Spurrier, with whom we were very impressed talks with Hootie and the Blowfish just before introducing them to the stage.

The concert started shortly after we got seated and it was wonderful! We haven't seen Hootie perform in several years and they are still an awesome live band.

Ben and I took this picture while dancing along to the music!

After a little rusty start to the "2001" entrance, the game finally got underway.

Nice hat!

During the first half we had a few seats next to us and it worked out really cool because an old friend that we haven't seen in YEARS (like five or six) just happened to walk up with his family looking for seats. It was good to see Scott and meet his wife and kids.

At half time the founder of Under Armour and Steve Spurrier introduced the new uniforms. They are really pretty cool!

And, then, Hootie played another set!

Cockey joined them on stage for the last song.

After the game, we walked around to the Cock-a-booses,

did a little bargain shopping in the team store, watched the Ft. Jackson soldiers march out,stopped by the Pi Kappa Phi house ,parked along the street next to Russell House, and walked around the horseshoe before heading home.......tired, but happy from a TERRIFIC day!

We can't wait for fall football to get here!!

Even Cocky was ready for the ride home! :)