I survived my first NFL game — and kinda liked it!

I had a stellar weekend. I’ll start from the beginning.

Every year for the last several years I’ve made “wish lists” on my phone notepad for holiday gifts for my son and husband (and now Little Bee, too). Year after year I’ve had “football tickets” on the list for my husband. He’s a huge NFL fan. Huge. His life revolves around football and he’s always checking the scores and odds to see if he fancies a bet. Sadly for me, I know when preseason starts, when the draft is, and I’ve had to sit through my fair share of hootin’ and hollerin’ at the TV. My husband’s friend came over to visit for a couple hours over Thanksgiving weekend, and he mentioned to my husband he was coming back up to CLE the following weekend for the Browns/Colts game. I didn’t think much of it.

Then Tuesday rolled around, and I was busy placing online orders for more holiday gifts (queen of online shopping here). For some reason the realization hit me that I shouldn’t be wasting money on more “stuff” that no one really needs, but instead should consider tickets for the game. I checked StubHub and found a couple seats for not too astronomically much (…). I thought it was kind of a long shot, but I asked my aunt if she could babysit. Why not?

Meanwhile, as I was waiting for my aunt to respond about babysitting, an old college buddy of mine messaged me that he and a whole bunch of friends from IU were coming up for the game too.

Shut the front door. 

Then, about an hour later, I found out another old friend would be there too.

So now there I was, waiting for my aunt to respond (my babysitter unfortunately did not respond…), trying to keep a secret from my hubby, while secretly freaking out that his friends and my friends will be there. My aunt said she could babysit and to buy the tickets (yes!), but then I realized I asked her to come way too late and we would be really late to the game. Thankfully she was able to come earlier so we were in the clear.

The whole plan was to wait and tell my husband literally an hour before we had to leave for the game, but I was so worked up about driving and parking and getting there on time that I decided I would tell him on Friday. Well, Friday came and went because we went to dinner (skyline! healthy eating be damned!) and to see the Hunger Games with our friends. (Hi Julie! Happy birthday, Brian!)

I ended up telling him on Saturday afternoon. It was seriously the most stressful four days of my life. 

Win!

He was so happy. And I’m glad I told him ahead of time because the bugger found us prepaid parking with a guaranteed spot not too far from the stadium.

Just retelling that part of the story made my heart race… phew!

The game itself was awesome. We spent the night before laying out our outfits because we knew how cold it was going to be. And I’m no fool! Just because there’s no wind out in the east ‘burbs does NOT mean it’s windless downtown! I’m so glad we were prepared. It was balls cold. Our seats were actually quite great. Despite being on the upper deck, we could literally see the entire field. I don’t really watch much football, but let me just tell you something. Live sports is always so much better! Unfortunately the Browns lost, but it was a good game and honestly, it was way fun so who cares, right? I mean, I would never say that to my husband because he’s football crazy, but y’all get what I’m saying, right? 😉

We were hoping to meet up with my husband’s friends after the game as well but we never heard from them. I’m sure phone batteries died. Mine almost did! I had to turn it on airplane mode several times to conserve power. But we did end up meeting with my roomies from IU. It was so so awesome to see them. I knew I missed them, but I didn’t realize how much until I could hug them all again. Ok so technically only two of my roomies were there but the rest of the guys were my buddies for three years while at IU. Ah, good times. And oddly enough, they all look the same! We only had a few minutes to catch up and stupidly we didn’t take any pics, but it was so awesome to see them even for just a few short minutes.

Overall, the entire experience was awesomesauce. It was freezing and despite my layers I literally could not feel my feet by the end of the game. I’m not sure I’ll do it again any time soon, but now I know how much fun my husband had so I will definitely be purchasing him more football tickets in the future.

Huge, huge thanks to my amazing aunt and uncle who kindly babysat for us for an insanely long time (almost 7 hours!). We both appreciated this opportunity. 

And I survived my first NFL game — and kinda liked it! 

How was your weekend? Did you do anything fun, or anything you’ve never done before?!

Happy day!

xo