AUBURN A DAY

Long ago, in the midst of not-so-fantastic Auburn football records, we decided that the safest way to take our children to an Auburn football game and not worry about winning or losing would be to attempt A-Day.  Stephen and I had actually never been before, but went to almost every home game during college AND as newlyweds, thanks to his parent's season tickets.  So we reserved a room at the hotel and conference center and arranged babysitting for Jacob.
Little did we know that the Auburn nation would soon experience a dramatic upheaval of the current football regime...with firing and hiring and shifting and shaking.  By the time A-Day rolled around, the hype of the coaching shift as well as the sad goodbye ceremony for the Toomer Oaks promised for quite the exciting weekend.

The trip up was actually pretty painless, even though Emory decided to potty train herself two days before and didn't quite have it all down yet.  Thankfully though there were no accidents and tons of movies.

AND NO NAPS.

We were not counting on this lady missing her nap, since she is a great car-napper, and after an impromptu dinner with some friends, needless to say it led to one extremely sleepy baby come bedtime.
Incredibly sleepy and hyper at the same time.

So after around six hours of sleep {vs their usual twelve}, Stephen and I braced for what was sure to be a quick little trip over to the actual A-Day game.

And we were right.  Emory was having pottying issues {as in she was not going.  at all.  problem.} and Bennett lost interest soon after discovering Auburn wasn't playing anyone and therefore no one was really winning or losing {his competitive streak came through}.  They both loved Aubie and screaming and singing cheers they have known since they could speak.  We made it to the end of the first quarter, then threw in the towel and decided it was a good time to head to the hotel for naps.

Which were not had.  Emory was jumping around and throwing fits and NOT napping.  And Auburn was PACKED with people.  We had no idea how we were going to take the kids to dinner and neither Stephen nor I could imagine spending our remaining time in our beloved Auburn in a hotel.  We went against our better judgement and decided to brave the crowds around Toomer's corner before the official start of the ceremony for pictures and final rolling attempts.

As tired and slightly disappointed as we were heading downtown, we were SO thankful we decided to do it.  There were so many people we could barely move, and we only got within twenty yards or so of the actual tree, but the kids got to throw some toilet paper around and we got to experience being surrounded my thousands of Auburn-loving fans.  It really was wonderful.

And after being down there for about twenty minutes it was time to go :)

All we knew was that Emory was overly exhausted, there was no way were would be able to wait through the crowds to get a table anywhere with the kids anyway, so we packed up the car and headed home.  Emory thankfully passed out immediately.  Bennett couldn't stop talking about Auburn and how pretty it was and I so wished it could have worked out to stay that last night for his sake.  But when you have small children sacrifices have to be made and we definitely learned that on this trip!

I can't wait until our next trip and when I think about it now, just a month and a half later, I have no doubt Emory would be able to handle it with much more grace and ease...thanks to potty training mastery and leaps and bounds of overall "growing up."

I feel thankful to have gone to such an amazing school and to be part of the Auburn family.  It might sound crazy but the family part really is true!  One of the happiest places on earth to Stephen and me, and we can't wait to share more of it with our children. {maybe just in a few more years ;) }

And hey, it was worth all the craziness just to see this girl in her Auburn cheerleading outfit.

Die.