Another Day Trip

I mentioned briefly in my "Week in Review" post that Luke and I spontaneously headed down to Columbus for the Ohio State game on Saturday. Luke somehow scored some great tickets online on Friday, so we couldn't pass them up.

I woke up at 5:00AM on Saturday, and we were on the road by 6:00. Way too early for a Saturday! But I guess for an Ohio State game, I can make an exception. We got there around 9, and the place was already teeming with people.We headed to the Skull Session first, as we always do. It is basically a pep rally where the Ohio State Marching Band plays, the team walks through, Jim Tressel gives a little pep talk, the visiting band plays, and they invite a high school band to play each week, too. The Ohio State Band is basically my favorite part of the game, so I always love the Skull Session!

The high school band played Poker Face! I got a kick out of this, because {little-known fact about me} I love Lady Gaga's music. Although I do not like Lady Gaga.

After the Skull Session, it was time to walk to the stadium! I always love seeing it get bigger and bigger in the distance. It's so huge!We were eight rows from the field close to the end zone. I had never been so close before, and it was great! Although I did miss being able to see the band do script Ohio. You can't see it very well from that close to the ground! But it was fun to be that close to the players, band members, and Jim Tressel!The game itself wasn't the most exciting one ever. We were playing Ohio University, which is just a little school. So Ohio State won pretty easily, and some of the second team players got to play for most of the game, too.The halftime show was amazing! This week, the band did a cartoon songs halftime show. They did songs from The Jetson's, The Flinstones, Scooby Doo, The Simpsons, Bugs Bunny, etc. They made all kinds of formations, from Fred Flinstone's face, to an anvil, to the words "That's All, Folks!" And lots more. They even had a little Flinstone car and "The Mystery Machine" from Scooby Doo drive out during the show. It was too cute, and I loved hearing all those songs from the classic cartoons!
After the third quarter, Luke and I decided we were tired, hot, thirsty, and oh, so hungry. So we skipped out early, something I never thought Luke would do! But it really wasn't much of a game, and I think Ohio State was up by 36 or so when we left.

The only bad part of the game was the fact that I got the worst sunburn of the year there, I'm afraid. The forecast had called for a mostly cloudy sky. Well, as you can see, that was absolutely not what happened. So I look like a lobster now.

Not a cloud in sight...

We stopped at Raising Cane's before we left Columbus for some chicken fingers. I refused to spend my money on overpriced food at the stadium, so I was starving! It had been about 10 hours since I had eaten my piece of toast for breakfast. So I ate a huge dinner, and then fell asleep almost the whole way home. Poor Luke, I don't know how he stayed awake that whole time to drive!
It is always a fun time going to the Ohio State games. I know this is probably something we will do once every year or two for as long as we are able. I found myself looking at all the families with little kids, knowing that that will be us in a few years!

Oh, and I got a new favorite picture of the two of us while we were there, too!

Just Pulling the Knife out of my Back...

I don't know why I care.

Maybe it's because I've been with Luke for so long.

Maybe it's because I just don't like arrogant, selfish sports stars who are paid way too much.

Whatever the reason, I was MAD last night when I heard Lebron James's decision to join the Heat in Miami.

Lebron has lived in Akron his whole life, and has played for the Cleveland Cavaliers for the past 7 years. He started fresh out of high school (actually graduated the same year as me, just an hour or so down the road). He has a lot of talent, and really helped to build up the team.

Apparently his biggest dream was/is to win a championship. The Cavs have been close now for the past couple of years, but have choked in the end.

The weird thing is that as much as he wanted to win a championship, Lebron sure CHOKED in the playoffs this year. He played so bad it was almost like he wasn't even there. There was a lot of speculation, and some people think he blew it on purpose.

So last night when he decided to leave Cleveland, I felt a little betrayed. In my opinion, we would have won the championship this year if Lebron hadn't choked or quit trying or whatever he did. He would have even made more money if he had stayed in Cleveland. And now he has a whole city/state of fans here who really never want to see him again.

But that's not really the bad part. The bad part is that ha has been dragging out this decision for the entire summer so far. And he went on national TV, on an hour-long special, to make his decision. So for me it wasn't so much that he did this to us, but HOW he did this to us. This isn't just effecting the fans. It's going to effect the economy of Cleveland, an already tanking city. So sad...

I've actually never liked Lebron. I don't like that he calls himself "King James" and that he makes such a show at the beginning of each game. I don't like how arrogant he was during interviews during the games. So this not liking him is really nothing new. But now I really, really don't like him, because he betrayed us all on national TV. Not very classy, Lebron.

This morning, all of us in North-Eastern Ohio are collectively pulling the knives out of our backs. All we can do now is hope that the Cavs somehow miraculously beat the Heat next year.

At least our city is joining together over something! Even if it is burning jerseys :-P

Okay. End of vent. This is probably the last time I will ever devote a whole post to pro basketball or any other professional sport. You all probably don't care about this at all! haha but I couldn't not post about it this morning.

I guess we will see what happens from here! Now that this decision has been made, I'm actually wanting to watch The Cavs more than ever next year. I'm rooting for them, even if they are all a bunch of underdogs now!

Happy weekend!

Our Weekend Getaway

Luke and I arrived home from our little weekend getaway after midnight last night. It was a great couple of days spent together!

We were due to leave early on Friday morning. Thursday night, the forecast did not look good. 70% chance of rain on Friday, and 80% on Saturday. Luke and I were super bummed as we fell asleep that night, because we thought our trip was ruined and our money was wasted.

We woke up and got on the road Friday morning, and our fears were confirmed:
It was the ugliest day we had seen in awhile. We almost decided to spend the day shopping or going to a movie in Sandusky instead of hitting up Cedar Point. Something made us turn toward the entrance, though. We paid our $10 for parking and decided to wait it out in the parking lot. We sat there for an hour just hoping there would be a break in the rain long enough for us to head in and ride a few of our favorite rides.
After about an hour of sitting there, it seemed like the rain was letting up a little bit. Luke checked the radar map on his iphone, and sure enough, it looked like there just might be a short break in the rain, long enough to ride a few rides, hopefully. We decided to take our chances, put our hoods up, and head inside the park. What a sloppy, wet mess it was!
We walked to the back of the park, toward one of our favorite rides. Because of the rain, it wasn't open yet. there was no one else near it, and Luke wanted to just stand near the entrance so that we would be the first to ride it when it opened. I rolled my eyes, grumbled and complained, knowing that it probably wouldn't open for another hour or so. I decided to agree, though, and watched the cute geese nearby while we waited.
We had been standing there for about two minutes when a crowd started gathering. I guess people saw us there, and assumed that the ride would be opening soon. It wasn't long before a line started forming. Eventually, the line stretched back so far I couldn't even tell where it ended. And we were at the front of it! Well, almost. Some annoying people pushed past us, even though we were technically the first ones there.

Anyway, after about 20 minutes of waiting there, the rain stopped! A few minutes after that, it was announced that the ride would be opening. The crowd cheered! We ran on up and basically walked right on one of the most popular roller coasters in the park. In the first row! The 20 minutes we waited in the rain was much shorter than the normal 1-2 hour wait for that ride. Score!

So we rode that ride and then my favorite non-roller coaster ride, Skyhawk
At about that time, Luke decided to check the weather on the radar map again. To our surprise, it looked like there would be no rain coming our way anytime soon!

A little while later, The clouds parted, revealing a beautiful blue sky and sunshine! Here is what the park looked like when we first entered:
And here it is a mere 2 hours later!
What a transformation!! And what a blessing :-) We did not end up getting so much as another drop of rain the rest of the day or evening! It was such a wonderful surprise! There were periods of cloudiness, but no more rain!

So here is what we did with the remainder of our sunny day:
*Rode Top Thrill Dragster, one of the tallest and fastest rides in the world...here is a view from behind it, looking up:
*Rode two of our favorite rides, Maverick and Millennium Force twice! And all of our other must-ride attractions once.

*Enjoyed the beautiful scenery! Cedar Point is right on Lake Erie, and there are some beautiful views from some of the rides

*After riding everything we wanted to and more, we hit up some gift shops, and walked back through the park toward our car in the twilight. The overcast evening with everything all lit up was somehow really beautiful to me, and I took a few pictures. These were taken in one of those moments when you are exhausted, but so content. All of my worries had melted away during the fun of the day and all felt right with the world :-)
*At about 9:00, we headed to our hotel to get settled in. It was the cheapest hotel we could find and the furniture was definitely straight from the 70s. But it was clean and charming in its own way...I wouldn't mind staying there again :-)

*At 10:00 we realized we had eaten nothing but an overpriced gourmet pretzel that day. So we made a late night trip to Steak and Shake, right down the road from our hotel. We basically ate our frisco melts without talking or breathing because we were so famished at this point! Then we headed back to the hotel for a good night's rest.

And that concludes Friday's festivities. Saturday we were planning on heading on over to Cedar Point again. However, we decided that we had already done all we wanted to do and more there, so we changed our plans. Here is what we did on Saturday instead:

*Slept in until almost 10! We decided we'd rather sleep than eat the free breakfast offered by the hotel :-P

*Shopped around Sandusky, and discovered that Sandusky shopping is not good. I guess if your city holds Cedar Point, Castaway Bay, Kalahari, and Great Wolf Lodge, you don't have to offer much else ;-)

*Ate lunch at BW3s...again, we were famished after not eating breakfast!

*Headed to Cleveland! First we hit up Tower City Mall. It was pretty, but certainly not as nice as we remembered it. And they didn't have much to offer as far as shopping goes, either. Perhaps it has gone downhill with the economy :-/
We did find it funny that all the Lebron James items in every sports store we visited were on sale
It was also funny that there was a whole Twilight section in FYE. Of course the Jacob doll is not wearing a shirt
*We then went to see a movie at the Tower City Mall Movie Theater. I thought the theater would be nice, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Old, dirty, dated, broken seats...it was a nightmare. And we were the only ones in the theater for the movie we saw...it came out Friday. Weird. The movie was not good, either. This was a bust.

*After the movie, we decided to head on over to Progressive Field to check out the Indians game! They are not good this year, so tickets were only $10. We figured, why not?

*We got to the field super early, and had a chance to watch batting practice

*It was slider figurine night! How lucky are we? :-P

*After batting practice, we headed on up to our seats in the nosebleed section. It was Ohio Night, because the Cleveland Indians were playing the Cincinnati Reds. So Brutus Buckeye and the part of The Ohio State Alumni Band were there!

*It was supposed to rain. We lucked out again, and instead, it looked like this ;-)

* We watched the game, enjoyed some delicious, overpriced ballpark food, and had a great evening. Even if the Indians lost (it was okay, we weren't expecting a win!) What a beautiful evening it turned out to be. I love sitting on this side of Progressive Field with the view of the city in the background.
And the best part of the night?.....FIREWORKS after the game!!

Here we are...the only picture I took of the two of us the whole weekend. You can tell by looking behind us just how crowded the ballpark was :-P

What a fun weekend! I feel like Luke and I reconnected this weekend. It was so nice getting away from our lives for a few days just to have fun! I feel like my stress-level has gone down so much after this little trip. We should do it more often!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Sorry for the picture overload. Back to the regularly scheduled programming tomorrow ;-)

Super Bowl Party

Last night Luke and I had a little Super Bowl party. We just invited a few people, mostly family. It was fun! None of us really cared too much who won, and I loved that it was just a fun night, and not too serious or intense :-) There was a LOT of good food. Like, almost too much. I almost didn't have enough room for it all! (This picture was taken when a lot of it was already gone :-P)
When the game got boring, we had fun torturing Ellie with a laser pen. We seriously did this for the whole first half of the game, until she got so tired she could barely stand up. It was so funny! I had to take a video. Ignore Luke calling her a dummy :-P We love Ellie, and she's such a sweetheart, and a cuddler. But she's not very bright :-P Gabby is much smarter, but very, very mean. If only we could combine their good traits, we'd have the perfect cat ;-)

Anyway, here she is, frantically trying to catch the little red dot. Sadly, she will never succeed :-P Unfortunately in the video, you can't really see the little red dot from the laser pen. But it's still funny!

It was a fun night, and now we can officially say we've had our first party in our new living room upstairs :-) (JC and Luke look a little creepy in those pictures :-P)

Now I'm ready to head downstairs to watch "The Bachelor" in the bedroom so I don't have to subject Luke to it :-P I'm so into it this season! Mostly because I really like Jake. I hope he chooses Tenley! After that I think I'm going to flush ice down the toilet and wear my pjs backwards to ensure a snow day this week ;-) We had a 2 hour delay this morning because the roads were still a little bad from the blizzard over the weekend. And we're supposed to get 6-9 more inches tomorrow and Wednesday, plus it will be windy and there will be a lot of drifting of the 15 or so inches we already have. So I highly doubt that I will be going in on Wednesday! (knock on wood!!)

Happy Monday!

A Day at The 'Shoe

In case you didn't know, The 'Shoe is a name for Ohio Stadium where the Ohio State football team plays, because it's shaped like a horseshoe. And that's where I spent most of my day yesterday.

I don't have too many blog-friends from Ohio. A lot of you are from the south, and I've read a lot about the SEC in the past few weeks. Well, I'm here to represent the Big 10 today, and more specifically, The Ohio State University! We have crazy fans too, with a lot of heart!

Yesterday we met Luke's family at Bob Evans for breakfast to surprise his dad. The Ohio State tickets for that day were his birthday present, and he was totally surprised! We left straight from Bob Evans and drove all the way to Columbus.

The first thing you see when you get there is a sea of tailgaters. These people made me realize that there really ARE crazier Ohio State fans than my husband (We have our own Ohio State themed room in our house). They bring their campers, buses, vans, or whatever else at 6:00 in the morning. Most of their vehicles are completely decked out in Ohio State painting and gear. When we walked through at about 11:30, we could already smell the delicious smells of tailgate food. People were playing cornhole and throwing footballs and sitting in lawn chairs watching their big screen TVs out in the parking lot. It looked like such a fun time! A lot of them stay all day and all night and leave the next morning. I would LOVE to go down and do this a few times a year! Maybe someday we will :-) Anyway, here are some pictures of some of the hardcore fan tailgate vehicles:After walking through all of that and dreaming about our future tailgating adventures (and I really hope we have some!) we walked around campus a little bit, and then headed to the Skull Session. The Skull Session is basically a big pep rally before the game. It's held in the old basketball arena. A high school band is always asked to come and play, and then The Ohio State Marching Band comes in and plays their pre-game and half-time shows. Sometime during all of that, Coach Tressel comes in and gives a littl speech-ette and the team walks through. It just gets everyone really pumped up about the game! And I really like this part almost as much as the game itself, because I LOVE the band. They are probably the most amazing marching band ever.

On the way, Luke and I got our picture taken with Brutus Buckeye:

Here we are inside St. John's arena for the Skull Session
And here are Luke's mom and dad
Here they come! TBDBITL (10 pts if you're not from Ohio and you know what that stands for!)
And here was the i-dotter for the day: (during script Ohio, he's the guy that gets to run out and dot the eye. And then he bows down like this:)

After we got pumped up at the skull session, we headed to The Shoe. There were just droves of people EVERYWHERE, and they were all wearing scarlet and gray.
Aerial View
About to enter the beautiful stadium
Finally in the stadium! By the time the game started, just about every single one of those seats were filled. Over 105,000 fans!!

The team takes the field:
And then it was time for pregame
Drum major always does a backbend and touches the plume of his hat to the field. Everyone goes wild at this moment!
The infamous script Ohio (backwards and kind of sideways :-P)..Luke took a video of the whole amazing thing, but it's not working :-( The band is just unbelievable.
Here's the band during half-time. they played songs from broadway this week, and they closed with "Defying Gravity" from Wicked!! I was so thrilled, because Wicked is one of my FAVORITE musicals (second only to Phantom of the Opera).
It was a pretty exciting game. The energy from the crowd is just incomparable to anything I think I've ever experienced before. We ended up beating Wisconsin 31-13. After every touchdown, people would just give everyone else around them high fives, regardless of whether we knew each other or not. There was a little boy in front of us who kept screaming "Wisconsin stinks!!" in his little high-pitched voice. Too cute! But it was amazing just being there celebrating with everybody. Here is a picture taken after the game finally ended (it was a long game yesterday!)

Unfortunately, we had a few bumps in the road yesterday (if you'll pardon the pun :-P). Right as we were approaching Columbus, our new car that everyone told us was so reliable and would never give us any problems proved everyone wrong. It started making a really weird noise, and the guys thought it was something with the oil pressure. We didn't want to chance it, and try to drive the car all the way home. Luckily, Luke's uncle lives in Columbus, and was at the game. We had to walk a REALLY long way to meet his family at a restaurant (where I sadly could not eat b/c of my stomach). He was nice enough to let us borrow a trailer and his extremely nice truck so we could tow our little Passat all the way back home. We're going to have it looked at this week, but Luke will have to drive the truck and trailer allll the back to Columbus later this evening. And that's at least 2.5 hours each way :-/ But I'm just really thankful that the situation ended like it did, and we didn't have to pay for someone to tow our car all the way home!

Today after church we had a delicious lunch at Luke's parents' house. It was the first "real" food I had eaten in about a week, because I'm finally recovering! I don't think anything has ever tasted as good to me as that food did today :-) And I did overdo it, but it was worth every bite! After that, our friend JC took some family photos by the pretty fall leaves. I bet they turned out really nice, and I can't wait to see them :-)

Sorry this post was sooo long and had sooo many pictures. But let's face it, my posts have been pretty boring and whiney this past week, so I thought this would be a nice change of pace. I promise to be a lot less boring and lame this week!! :-D