The Big Game

The Wednesday before Christmas we took off for San Diego right after school got out.  Long ago we had planned to spend Christmas 2012 in San Diego with not only my parents but also with Lance's parents and his siblings and their families.  There was a deal with the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego that if BYU won enough football games this season they would get an invite to be one of the teams playing in this years bowl game.  Since my Dad continues to be very involved with the San Diego bowl games and Lance's family are BYU fans and had a tradition of coming to BYU football games in San Diego back in the day it was a natural fit and everyone was super excited.  In the first few days after Lance's Mom passed away we talked about upcoming things and this was one of the things that we agreed as a family should still happen.   BYU did their part and won enough games so it all fell in to place.  As a fun twist was the other team ended up being San Diego State University.  My parents were good sports to be with everyone cheering against their home team.

We drove down on Wednesday because the game was on Thursday.  Lance's sister and family also flew in that night from Seattle.  His Dad flew in Thursday morning and his brother and family drove in from Salt Lake that afternoon.  We picked up Brice from the airport and then went and visited with the Mullins for awhile before the game.  It was a pretty day so we drove up to Mt. Soledad to get a view of all of San Diego before we headed to the game.

One of my Dad's game responsibilities is he is on a Make A Wish Committee for the game so we were able to attend the Make A Wish tailgate before the game while everyone else attended a BYU tailgate. It was neat to see all of the amazing families going through the Make A Wish program. It was a good reminder to count our blessings and be even more grateful for our kids health at this special time of year. I also thought it was cool that in addition to normal BBQ fare they had corn dogs and mac n cheese with the kids in mind. Our kids thought it was great. While there we got an up close preview of both teams bands and cheerleaders. The cheerleaders were a big hit until the mascots came round and freaked out a 19 month old little girl. After that she didn't want to be anywhere but the safety of her Mom's arms- sorry cheerleaders- until the coast was clear. The big highlight though was getting to walk out on the field as part of the pregame show with all of these families. So awesome! Our kids get to do the coolest things.

The game was great and all the cousins had so much fun being reunited, watching all of the game, cheerleaders, dancers, band etc. from our amazing seats, snacking, and seeing some great fireworks.  In the end BYU even pulled off the win- some of us may have listened to the end in the comfort and warmth of the car going home.  All in all it was great.