Sic 'Em, McLane Stadium!

Y'all. It's been a month since I blogged. Back to school, Cara's birthday, all kinds of life stuff has been happening, and I have a backlog of posts, but I've got to get through them all.

I did want to highlight a big event in our lives and the lives of many Baylor fans--the first game at McLane Stadium! We knew we had to take Cara, even though it would be tough with logistics and weather and the unknown, because it was the first game ever! In 16 years, she can run the Baylor Line as a freshman and say she was there for the first game. :) Not like I'm planning for that already or anything!

We walked from the Ferrell Center lot to our shuttle and took a short ride down University Parks. Cara walked a lot of the way, thankfully. We also brought our very own "Bruiser" bear for her to hold.

{our first view of the stadium-ever!}

The walk from the shuttle to our tailgate was much longer than we anticipated, due to a ton of people on the bridges and walkways. We came to a standstill for a while on the bridge, and Chance was holding Cara while we all sweated. I seriously thought we were in danger from the heat because we were all getting red. We finally made it off the bridge and to our tent, where we immediately started hydrating. Lesson learned-bring a bottle of water for the walk from the shuttle to the tailgate next time.

Cara got to meet the song leaders and eat some yummy tailgate food! On our way to the stadium, we found our bricks! I made her stand near ours, and then I found the brick that some of my closest college friends and I made together. What fun memories, and what fun we had staring at our feet to find ours. :)

We found our seats and started taking tons of pictures. Seriously, the stadium is simply breath-taking. It's large but intimate, top-of-the-line with everything and so surreal. We took a family selfie and then let Cara walk around between us. She really wanted to walk up and down the steps near our seats--not a good plan. I love the picture of Chance and Cara singing That Good Ole Baylor Line with their hands up. We're teaching her Baylor spirit all the time.

So many big events before the game started--Governor Perry, President George W. Bush, RG3. This place was a hotbed of prestige. And we watched the largest Baylor Line in history take the field and an amazing intro video package. Chills, tears, excitement all over the place.

Once the game started, we had to wrangle Cara a lot. She was happy to watch the game, but she also wanted to climb the stairs and move too much for our seat neighbors to be happy. So we took lots of trips to the bathroom (no success, ha!) and ate lots of snacks. She loved my strawberry slushie sno cone and had some chicken tenders and french fries. We managed to hang tight until after halftime, but then it was getting late and we were all sweaty and restless. Since the game was locked up, we headed out.

To our dismay, we found out the shuttles didn't start running until 4th quarter, so we had to walk from the stadium, over the footbridge, down the path to the shuttles, then down University Parks to the Ferrell Center and in to the middle of the parking lot to our car. With a 2-year-old who walked some but had to be carried a lot. Not fun. Baylor didn't make it easy on families to travel in and out of the stadium area very easily.

Despite our fatigue from walking, we made it to our car, and Cara was excitedly talking about the "Baylor football game" and the "Baylor Bears" the whole ride home. I guess we made a memory!

The stadium is just amazing, and we had so much fun in spite of the awful heat and dicey logistics. We decided to get a babysitter for the next game and leave Cara at home, and we had a lot of fun experiencing it in a different way! I'm so excited the stadium is here and we get to enjoy the amenities and success of the football program for the next several decades!