National Champs

I know this is long overdue, but I wanted to give this blog post its due diligence. Wow, what a fun football season we had at Auburn this past fall! Little did we know, when we started the season ranked 24th that we would go on to win the SEC, have a Heisman Trophy winner, and go on to claim the BCS National Championship?! I joke with people that Auburn sporting events are our entertainment. We love tailgating and supporting all Auburn athletic teams win or lose, but man it sure is fun when we're winning! :)
This first picture was actually from the SEC Championship game in Atlanta. Thanks to my parents for keeping the kids so that Tim and I could go not only celebrate the SEC championship, but also our 6th wedding anniversary. Kinda ironic that the last time Auburn played in the championship in 2004 was also on our wedding day! Yes, can you believe as big of Auburn fans that we are that we got married during an Auburn game?!

We were fortunate enough to attend the game out in Glendale. Thanks to Tim's dad and sisters and cousins for helping to keep our kids so we could go enjoy all the festivities! As you might know, ticket prices were outrageous and we figured eventually ticket prices would go down, but they didn't. Thankfully, our friends found some tickets on ebay in mid December and we went ahead and bought them, even though I thought we were crazy to spend that kind of money on tickets. We had no idea that ticket prices would get so high. We could have sold our tickets for triple the price we paid for them. At one point, we were wondering who was crazier, the people paying that much money for tickets or the people like us not willing to sell our tickets! :) There was no way we could sell our tickets. We knew this was such a special opportunity and we couldn't pass it up! We flew out of ATL early Sunday morning (my birthday) and couldn't get over all the AU fans in the airport. We arrived in Phoenix and met up with Walt and Cat and toured Arizona State's campus and ate at a really cool local brew pub called Four Peaks. We also attended the pep rally which was really crowded. I laughed when Lindsay called and wanted to try to meet up with us. Didn't she realize there were thousands of fans...we would never find her and David. Sure enough, after being at the pep rally for 5 minutes, we run into Lindsay. Later that night we headed out to Old Town and met up with Brian and Joy. We went to the Westgate City Center near the stadium and ate at a fun saloon type restaurant.
Monday morning, Tim and I headed back to Old Town Scottsdale and did some shopping and sightseeing. As you can see in the next two photos, the scenery was beautiful!
This was camelback mountain that we drove past on the way to the stadium.
Tim and I were giddy as we arrived and hung out around the stadium. Check out the slideshow for all the funny signs we saw around the stadium. We tailgated and ran into so many friends outside the stadium. There were so many people trying to get into the stadium as soon as the gates opened. We were relieved once we made it inside. Words cannot describe the atmosphere and how much fun we had just trying to soak in all the memories. After a thrilling game, Auburn won the game 22-19 against Oregon on a last second fieldgoal by Wes Byrum.
We love Auburn athletics, but more importanly, we love the city of Auburn and the University. Auburn is such a special place for us...it's where we met, where we live, where we make memories with our kids. I was just thrilled that the Auburn football team could showcase the town and University in such a positive manner! War Eagle!