Road Trip

Nothing like a beautiful fall weekend with 80* weather for a night football game on the shores of Lake Michigan!

The kids and my folks and I took to the highway (or espressaway as Mallory still calls it) to watch Michigan play “the Kitties” (Northwestern).

We made a stop at Lou Malnatis in Chicago for my favorite pizza before going to Evanston. We tried to scope out parking and tailgating options but they don’t have golf courses and high schools nearby (and for some reason my package of football parking passes didn’t come with a pass for Ryan Field…)

So, we thought we had this really great idea of parking on campus and riding the free school bus shuttles to the field. It seemed genius – there were nine of us on the bus going to the game and we didn’t have to fight traffic or anything.

Carson was fired up to ride on a school bus – he and Mallory counted at least 15 school busses on the highway between our house and Chicago. Mallory was excited that the bus had seatbelts on it.

We met up with a bunch of friends who were tailgating just east west of the stadium. The K kids were there with their mom and Mallory got a little facepaint artwork done by Kaylie. Kaylie started painting a big block M on Mallory’s face, like it was going to cover her whole face. M wasn’t sure about that big of an M so Kaylie started over and made a smaller blue & yellow M instead. That worked until Mallory rubbed her face and it got all smeary. Blah.

She wasn’t really sad about this M on her face, it’s just that she is so sad all the time. Just kidding.

I asked my mom to take a picture of the Hens but she must not have clicked it down all the way because I can’t find the picture on my camera. My dad jumped in for one and that one is on my camera so here we are.

The game was a little scary. We were down by a bunch at halftime but the second half was great and Michigan won 42-24 (no points by Northwestern in the 2nd half!). Both kids were good – considering the game started at 7p ET which is when we are usually getting ready for bed.

It took five pictures to get a good picture of me with Mallory. She is on purpose closing her eyes for these pictures. Little snot.

And then I tried to get a picture with Carson. Also a little snot.

I don’t know what’s more embarrassing about those – how much my kids don’t cooperate for pictures or how much I can smile like a dork while my kids don’t cooperate.

Michigan won. The kids didn’t act like total idiots (sort of idiots, but not total idiots), we got to see some of my cousins (Mallory asked if ALL of my cousins lived in Chicago), AND Michigan is undefeated AND bowl eligible! But that great idea of the shuttle was a FAIL when everyone else at the stadium was getting on the shuttles to go to where they parked too. That was annoying. Carson was recently at the doctor and weighs 37 lbs. But when he’s asleep in your arms he weighs a lot more.

Big game next weekend at Spartan Stadium – I asked Mallory if she wanted me to find her a babysitter or if she wanted to go. She said she’s never been to the stadium where the Spartys play so she wants to go.

GO BLUE!