WE LOVE IOWA!

 Really though...I love this place.

Have I said that enough?

You know what else we like? Iowa football. If you remember, I posted about going to a football game last year here. We thought that would be the only game we would get to go to while living here. Tickets aren't cheap. End of story. 

Well, last Saturday Skyler woke up and checked his school email. The was a faculty member who sent out and email out at 6am saying they had a few FREE tickets to the game that day. She said she would be at the school until 10am come get them if you want them. WHAT??? Crazy right? It was 9:30 though. It takes at least 25min to get to the school, but we figured we would give it a shot. We bolted to the school thinking we either wouldn't make it in time, or she wouldn't have any tickets left. A few minutes later Skyler came back to the car with 4 ticket in his hand. AHHH we were so excited!

Another Iowa football game and this time with our boys!

Wesley LOVED IT! He was up cheering and shouting pretty much the whole time. Our seats ended up being right below the lady that gave us the tickets. I hope it was fun for her to see how much fun the boys were having. We took her a thank you card a few days later to make sure she knew how grateful we were. 

The game was pretty slow. If I recall we were tied at half time, then down until the last quarter. With 7 minutes left in the game hundreds of people just got up and left. Iowa was losing and nothing seemed to be happening. All the sudden Iowa tied it up with 3 minutes left. The crowd started going crazy, which made Prest and Wes start getting excited too. Literally less than 1 minute left in the game we pulled ahead and WON IT! Great way to end the game.   

Our {creepy} little Herky.

Check out the tailgaters. This is no joke. Every large parking lot in like a 5mile radius from the stadium is full of tailgaters...in huge RV's. They get there at like 8am and seriously party all day. Before the game, then they go to the game, then they go back and hang out after the game. This town has some strong school spirit. It's probably like that in other towns, but we have heard Iowa is pretty crazy when it comes to their football team....which we agree. It's slightly awesome to actually experience it. 

We had such a fun time at the game and are very grateful for all of the incredibly nice people there are in this world. We were able to do something with our family we would have never been able to afford right now. 

Skyler and I decided that we needed to go to (at least) one Iowa Hawkeye football game before we get out of school.

And we finally got the chance.

We were completely excited for the game, because if you have ever lived in a college town you know the excitement that runs through the blood of every person on game day. Seriously, if you leave your house on a Saturday you better be wearing black and gold or you will be the odd ball. It really is incredible how much "unity" (if that's what you can call it) the town has when it come to Hawkeye Football.

The stadium sits right smack in the middle of everything. The building you see behind the stadium is the University Of Iowa Hospital (where Wesley was born) and in the picture below you can (kind of, in the distance) see the Dental School.

It was such a fun game to be at. Iowa stomped Western Michigan 59-3, so we actually got to see lots of running and plenty of touch downs (always makes for a good game).

Skyler and I loved every second of it...best date of the season :)