Riff Ram Bah Zoo!!

So as most of you know, my TCU Horned Frogs made it to the Rose Bowl this year to play against the University of Wisconsin Badgers. And as most of you know, I got to go!!!!!!!!! Ok, so I was on the naughty list with my mom for a bit for missing the big cousin/aunt/uncle Christmas this year, but it just couldn't be helped! T wanted to go but because of our upcoming Disney trip, we just didn't want to spend the extra money. Course he truly prefers watching football from his chair at home, he fully admits that!


It was AMAZING! And I know that word is overused these days, but in this case, it's not even close to what the weekend was truly like. I was able to meet up with my friends Seamus, Jennie and Sean again this year as we all flew in from different parts of the U.S.


T & J drove me to the airport early Fri. morning, Jan 31st and I was on my way to Pasadena. A great way to start the trip was ending up on the same flight from Phoenix to California as Sean! We all had planned our flights fairly close together so we ended up in CA around the same times, meeting up with Jennie and then Seamus.

Sean learning to make an origami fish out of a dollar bill...oh the things Southwest Airlines can teach ya

Thanks to our great friend Bob, we were able to stay at his sister's apartment in Studio City (in the Valley apparently) which was a perfect location.

We drove around a bit, took a trip up Mulholland Dr for the heck of it...turns out it's a major tour bus stop for the views of LA and the Hollywood sign!

Then we lucked into a wonderful Italian dinner at Vitello's...we had forgotten it was New Years Eve and parties would be going on, but they still fit us in.

On the way back to the apartment, we decided to follow Sean's suggestion and spend a few hours at the local dive bar a block from where we were staying. The Star Lite. It ended up being a cleaner version of our old Pub hangout in Ft. Worth. It was great. And while we didn't mean to stay up until midnight, we ended up ringing in New Years through all 4 time zones, a first for all of us! Oh yea, and right before the bar, we think we saw Fred Durst (of Limp Bizkit), our only celebrity sighting.

I'm truly not sure how we made it to midnight pacific time, I about fell asleep 3 times!

Saturday morning arrived and while we wanted to see the parade, we had been warned that it was hard to make that and kick-off so we opted to head on to the stadium. Turns out we probably could have made both, but no big deal. We were there for the game, that was priority!

We had to get a pic with some Wisconsin fans, of course! And Seamus can pretty much strike up a conversation with ANYONE so we left him to it.

The funny thing was, we all had decided separately to do things opposite of last year and joked about it all day. We had all worn new clothes, tattoos on different sides of our faces, etc...we didn't want to jinx anything!

And even funnier...someone fell again this year (read back on my Fiesta Bowl post to see Seamus's fall and bloody nose)...that someone was me. Yep. We were just walking around all of the tailgating and coffee in hand, my foot slipped in my shoe and down onto the sidewalk I went. Scraped knee and torn jeans, coffee stains on my shirt (and I was sad about the coffee!!). Oh well. Jennie figures next year it's her turn, ha!

Back in spring of '91, when Jennie & I met, and all through spring '94 when we graduated, you could not have paid us to believe we would EVER be in front of this stadium in our TCU gear!

Game time arrived and what a game it was!!

 a little pre-game stretching

                            

FEAR THE FROGS!!!

And then we won!!!!!  We couldn't believe it! I'm surprised we had voices the next day. The sweet older lady behind us had tears in her eyes as the clock wound down, which made us tear up also :-)

I know, to a lot of you, it's just football. But to us little Texas private school Frogs, this was HUGE. HUGER than HUGE! (yea, I can make up words here, my blog!) Especially those of us who were there during the really stinky ball years. We just beat a Big 10 school, one who assumed they would have it made in the shade. And what made us even more proud was how wonderfully our team handled the win. They were gracious, they cried, they were exhuberant...they didn't complain that they didn't get in the national championship...this WAS our national championship and it was freakin' awesome!

And check out this ad that TCU put in the LA times, now this is class!

And just in case you are curious...it says: "There is only one Rose Bowl...We Horned Frogs from Texas Christian University are honored to have been a part of its unparalled tradition and pageantry. From the spectacular venue to your welcoming hospitality to the festival of flowers on Saturday morning. The "Grandaddy of Them All" was every bit the showcase our team and TCU fans envisioned of the game. We made history being here. We are just one of five schools outside of the Big Ten and Pac Ten conferences since 1947 to play in the Rose Bowl game. We're proud to boast that our storied heritage is now intertwined with that of the oldest and most prestigious of bowl games. From all of us at TCU and Fort Worth, Texas, thank you for an unforgettable celebration of college football.

Happy New Year and Go Frogs!"


And I thank my incredible hubby, my adorable son and my parents for sending me on this once in a lifetime weekend trip!