NaBloPoMo Day 8: Sporting events (USU football and Ogden Raptors)

NaBloPoMo Day 8.  I finished one week of blog posts.  See these links for the recap:

NaBloPoMo Day 1: USU Homecoming
NaBloPoMo Day 2: Apple Picking
NaBloPoMo Day 3: Fall Colors and Kokanee Salmon
NaBloPoMo Day 4: Hiking in Dry Canyon
NaBloPoMo Day 5: RSL Game and Apple Days
NaBloPoMo Day 6: Hiking up Logan Canyon
NaBloPoMo Day 7: Mud Run

My theme that I chose for this month of blog posting is: "past adventures that we haven't been able to blog about as well as what's happening currently."  Today's post will be about the USU Football game vs Southern Utah on August 30th and the Ogden Raptors baseball game vs the Orem Owls on September 2nd.

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Since Olsen is a Junior Aggie this year, he gets to go to all the USU football games.  And Lisa is a student so she gets to go to all and Jovie is free to them all.  I got a "Spouse Pass" (which I assume only happens at this university, or all Utah universities) so I get to go to all the games too.

The first game of the year was against Southern Utah University.  It was a pretty hot game, but the kids had fun, for the most part:










They had a pretty large crowd for the opening game against a lower division school

(I think roughly 18,00 people and the stadium holds 25,000)
Here are the rest of the pictures from the USU football game vs SUU.

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We decided to go down to Ogden to watch the Raptors play.  The Raptors are a Rookie league team in the LA Dodgers organization.  Occasionally an Aggie will get drafted by the Dodgers and will play on the Raptors for a season.

Since we have lived in Utah only three Aggies have gotten drafted by the Dodgers and we have gone to three Raptors games to see them play.  In 2007, we had just moved to Utah and Parker Dalton got drafted by the Dodgers in the 24th round.  We went to a game, he didn't play but we got to meet him and talk with him.  He was super nice and really excited to see Aggies in Utah.  In 2008, Brian Ruggiano got drafted by the Dodgers in the 23rd round.  We went to a game on July 3rd to see the fireworks and also got to meet Brian and talk with him some.  It was cool.  Both of those times were without kids.

Well, another Aggie didn't get drafted (by the Dodgers) until Ross Stripling got drafted in the 5th round.  He was pitching and doing extremely well and it was getting harder and harder to get down to a game and get to see him play (two kids and all).  I finally got everyone together to come watch a game and watch Ross pitch.

Olsen was happy to be there


The ballpark (Lindquist Field) is beautiful as always




Stripling had an extremely low ERA all year and was pitching very well when we saw him




Jovie had a great time eating graham crackers with her Momma






Olsen got to meet Oggie the Raptor


In the end, the Raptors won and Ross pitched 4.2 or 4.1 innings.  We didn't get a chance to meet him because he went to the locker room when the game ended.  That's too bad but it's probably too hard to meet a pitcher who is the starting pitcher that day.

Here are the rest of the pictures from the Ogden Raptors baseball game vs Orem.

NaBloPoMo - October 2012 (USU Homecoming)

I decided to attempt a NaBloPoMo for the month of October.  NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Posting Month and is supposed to happen in November, but in reality it's any time you can commit to a month of posting.  Here is a little more about it if you are interested, from Wise Geek.

I decided for this month that I will post about past adventures that we haven't been able to blog about as well as what's happening currently.  Today's topic will be USU Homecoming.  The homecoming game was this past Saturday, September 29th.  Since Olsen is a Junior Aggie this year, he got to ride on the Junior Aggie parade float for the Homecoming Parade.

Olsen got to ride on the float with his friends Sean and Brendan.

Jovie decided to come and and bring her cat face

Jovie and Lisa were cheering on the Junior Aggie float as it went by

When the kids got home from the parade, they decided to go crazy with their balloons

After the parade, the kids had some rest and then on to the football game!  First the kids had to get ready with their pom poms and Jovie in her USU dress.

There was a Junior Aggie tailgate outside of the stadium with all kinds of fun.  Jr Aggies got to eat for free (our food was only $3 per meal).  Olsen got to ride on a very fun ride.

Olsen also got to go nuts in a bounce house.

But the main event (besides the football game) was the Junior Aggie Stampede!  This is where all the \Jr Aggies get to run across the field before the game starts.  Lisa and Jovie had to go in through the normal entrance while Olsen and I went in through another entrance.  On the way there, we got to meet USU football legend Phil Olsen, the brother of the late Merlin Olsen.  It was pretty cool to meet a former NFL player.  Getting on through the gate was a story in itself (but that's for another time).  There was quite a wait to get to run on the field.

But running on the field was super cool and Olsen had a great time!

After getting into the stadium, Jovie had already decided that she was not going to sit still and watch a football game.  She knew that she wanted to be in full control and just wanted to eat chips.  So we found a little grassy patch for her to crawl around on and mess around.  It's funny how they are so lax on the rules here versus A&M or any big stadium.  They don't care if you stand in a stairwell to watch the game, or hang out in a walkway or really, they don't care what you do.

Nearer to halftime we found another grassy patch where we were closer to the field to hopefully watch the band.  But Olsen and Jovie just wanted to go crazy and play the whole time.

All in all it was a great day and the kids had a lot of fun.  They were super tired later.  Here is a picture of some cool clouds over the stadium.  Oh and this game was a "white out" game and the fans did great.  You can see all the white shirted people.  The stadium was nearly full and USU beat UNLV 35-13.