Starting the Year Out Right!

As many of you know we were lucky enough to score some tickets to watch Oregon beat Wisconsin at the Rose Bowl this year! What a way to start out 2012! Go Ducks! We stopped on our way down in Sacramento to try the famous In-N-Out Burger that everybody talks about and couldn't pass up a photo op.

Ashlyn was nice enough to make sure Puddles got a taste even though she opted for a gas station hot dog.

We got to our hotel around dinner time and since we had to get up at 4:30 am the next day for the festivities we decided to hit the hay early and didn't do anything exciting.

The next morning we were down to the Rose Bowl area by 7 a.m....here's our first view of the stadium from our parking space. We were shocked that we had NO traffic issues arriving or leaving the stadium which was nice since we were BEAT by the time the game was over.

After we parked the car we started to follow the masses to find a spot on the parade route. It wasn't too bad of a walk, but we had to take a few detours and finally found our piece of sidewalk "behind the blue line" as the police officers kindly reminded us of every 5 minutes.

We were surprised at how small all of the floats looked in person in addition to all the dead time there was in between things and all agreed that it definitely looks WAY cooler on TV. We were glad we did it since we were down there, but wouldn't worry about the craziness of it again.

We all took many turns of letting Ashlyn sit on our shoulders during the parade since we were too deep into the crowd for her to see.

We had a handful of really nice Wisconsin fans sitting by us for the parade that were fun to banter back and forth with. The Oregon float and marching band came in the parade first, so when Wisconsin's finally made it we had to make fun of them that their float design looked oddly familiar and they should try to be a bit more creative next time...their response was they didn't want to out do us too badly and make us look like fools so they kept it simple.

The Good Year Blimp flew right above our heads the entire parade. We waved lots, so I'm SURE you saw us on TV in the masses.After the parade we opted to take a shuttle bus back to the stadium and participated in all kinds of tailgating events in the parking lot. This one was the funniest to watch. Taco Bell had 5 recliners that people sat in and tried to throw footballs through holes in a football field backdrop. None of us got any of the 3 footballs we were given in, but had a few laughs at ourselves while trying.

Ashlyn on the other hand ROCKED at the State Farm booth with the football toss. She got all 3 of the footballs in the holes! Blake got 1 and Rick got 2...she beat both of them and was thrilled!

Especially when she found out she won these stylin' GO DUCKS sunglasses! She wore those things until she went to bed that night...well after the sun was down!About 2 hours before kick off we decided to start heading over to the stadium to get something to eat and find our seats. Rick didn't even get grouchy when I asked him to pose for the obligatory picture in front of the stadium...he was giddy like a kid Christmas morning that we were about to watch our Ducks play in the Rose Bowl. Maybe I should've hit him up for more than just posing for a picture!

About a week before the game we talked Rick's older brother and his wife in to going down to the game with us...more the merrier!We timed it just right and were able to see the Oregon bus pull up to the stadium and see the players walk in. Talk about the crowd going NUTS!We were SHOCKED at how good a view we had from our seats. We were in the 10th row after the box seats, but snuck down to the top of the box seat section for a quick picture.

Then it was quite a wait for kick off...in 85 degree temperatures! Much needed change from the ridiculous cold we've had in Oregon since we've been there.My camera only has a 5x zoom so the pictures don't look too much different than what our view of the game was. We were surprised that with 96,000 people that the stadium wasn't louder. However, the bowl goes out instead of up so the sound is lost pretty quickly. It made for a bummer when the bands were doing pre-game and half time shows...we were 10th row and had to strain to be able to hear them.

We didn't have to strain to hear Ashlyn when she was cheering during the game though...

...or Blake and Rick either.

However, we're sad to report we had sore throats and froggy voices that night but were fine by morning. What kind of fans are we that we could still talk the next morning??Needless to say if you watched the game, the last quarter was NUTS in the stadium! However, when the referees reviewed the last play and said the game was over and Ducks won...it was CRAZY!!! I had to take a few pictures before this one turned out because all that showed up was blurred confetti! We were really bummed that they didn't let the fans on the field for the trophy ceremony, but stayed to watch it any ways.

After the game we headed back towards our hotel and found a pizza place to feed our sun burnt faces...we were BEAT!

It was a great experience to watch our team FINALLY win a Rose Bowl. The majority of the people at our hotel were Duck fans and every where we stopped around town we were surrounded by fans. The best was the I-5 corridor driving home the next day...a HUGE majority of people were Duck fans with their cars Ducked out. Every where we stopped for bathroom breaks, gas or food we were surround by Duck fans traveling home. My sister-in-law was surprised each time we'd walk in some place and get a "Go Ducks" yelled in our direction or when somebody would stop and talk to us about how great the game was or honk at us while driving by...it was a BLAST! Go Ducks, we can't wait for next season!!