Hawkeyes need a win in 2009!!

For one of our Christmas presents this year my hubby and I were given Outback Bowl tickets! We are so excited we can hardly stand ourselves!! The Iowa Hawkeyes hope to slaughter the South Carolina Gamecocks at the bowl game. We are hopeful too!! Kyle grew up in Iowa and has been an Iowa Hawkeye fan for most of his life. I lived in Iowa with him for a few months and have been a fan since we met (never had a favorite college football team). So basically, I've now been a fan of the Hawkeyes for almost six years. Wow. Time really does fly.

So, anyway, I've never been to a college football game. I've been to several Tampa Bay Buccaneer games and several pro baseball games. I've been to races and hockey games. I've seen everything. Well, from what I've heard, I haven't seen nothing yet. I haven't been to a college football game.

Well if yesterday was any indication of what I am in for tomorrow for the New Years Day Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida, I am really excited to experience it! There have been several events during the past week to pump the teams and fans for the big event. Yesterday was Beach Day in Clearwater Beach. We live about ten minutes from the beach and found it really easy to navigate the crowds and find spots to park. Poor Iowans and South Carolinans who drove all this way to be here. We never thought we'd see so many Iowa fans!! It was incredible! I now know what it feels like to be apart of something so big. It's a comeraderie you don't really get from every other sporting event. We have Iowa Hawkeye gold and black flags flying off the back windows of our truck. We were waved at and honked at like we were in some sort of parade!! Frankly, I couldn't hold back from grinning and waving like a Miss USA Pageant winner. It was so cool!!

So anyway, we are beyond thrilled to be able to see a bowl game together. We also look at it like this will be Brady's first game! He will have been to a bowl game before any regular season games, but there are many Iowa fans who never get the extraordinary opportunity to see a big game in person. Brady is so blessed! I think he's thrilled too! During the marching band and cheerleading shows he was moving all over the place! I think he liked the crowd noise and drumbeats! We will have our boy ready for loud noise way before he is outside the womb!

The Beach Day was such a great event! We saw skydivers and TONS of fellow Iowa fans!! Felt kinda sorry for the Gamecock fans... they were really skimpy on fans comparatively! Supposedly there are already 55,000 tickets sold for the big event tomorrow! It's not quite sold out yet, but they figure it's a great turn out with our slumping economy!! If it wasn't for a very wonderful friend who gave us tickets to this game, we wouldn't be going either. We'd be sitting at a sports bar watching it on ESPN (down to basic cable now...).

Today is New Year's Eve. It's supposedly time for a Leap second. We will have one extra second at the end of this day to catch up to the Earth's clock. Kinda like Leap Year, only it's just a second. What to do with this extra time? I will take the second to just be thankful. Even for just a second longer.

I am thankful the tickets to the game. I am hopeful for what the future holds for 2009. I would like to think that the Hawkeyes will whoop up on the Gamecocks.. if not for anything else, so I can hold it as indication of a great upcoming new year. We will see tomorrow!!