Wildcat Football - Fan Appreciation Day

We headed down to Tucson this weekend for what has become a family tradition for the past 3 years.

Wildcat Football Fan Appreciation Day!

We got down there early, hit the stores to pick up some new Wildcat Gear, had some lunch, and then chilled in the hotel pool for a while. A great start to our trip.

The kids just LOVE staying in hotels - even just hanging out in the room or riding up the elevator is exciting to them. Little things can be quite fun when you are 6 and 3 yrs old.

After grabbing a quick dinner at an old college haunt of ours (Gentle Ben's), we headed to the mall for some pre-scrimmage football on the mall.

We didn't plan it - but found out the morning we went that some friends of ours from college were coming down with their kids too! A great surprise! So of course we had to have our own little reunion and football scrimmage with all the kids on the mall.

Here are the old college roommates (Matt and our friend Steve) along with the offspring (Shaun) - plotting out their play!

After some of our own football - we headed to the stadium, picked up our posters for autographs, and got settled in for the scrimmage.

Here is where things began to turn for the worse.

We realized the mascots and cheerleaders were not there this year as they had been in previous ones. Ainsley was so sad because she really wanted to give Wilma a "biggest hug and kiss".

We enjoyed watching some plays, but the wind started whipping ...

... and the lightening came as well ...

... and then the downpour started.

In all we had 14 of us - 6 adults and 8 kids - and we were not moving - storm or not we had a mission.

Then - - -

They called the scrimmage off ---

and then the loudspeaker announced they were cancelling the autograph session as well.

Auggghhhhh! Nooooooooo!!!!!!!!

So - what are you to do when you are all disappointed that you were not going to get any autographs, watch more than 10 minutes of the scrimmage and eat junk food in the stadium, or meet cheerleaders and mascots as you had promised?

We opted to play some football in the pouring rain...barefoot in the grass!

The kids didn't even skip a beat - I don't think they minded at all at that point - it was too much fun!

Even Ainsley played football!

After finishing on our playing in the rain Shaun started to get a little disappointed that he didn't get to meet Nick Foles this year - so we stopped and got some Ice Cream cones and ordered a movie in the hotel room. Disappointment was wiped away!