on, on u of k

this is benny & i at open practice for uk down in florida.  it just so happened that we went to st. petersburg on surprise spring break and the cats were heading to tampa for the ncaa tournament.  blow our minds!  so here we are...living it up.  we took pics like the paparazzi & i thought they were appropriate to share since we are about to play to get into the final four {starting in four minutes}.  enjoy big blue nation!

this guy in the white had challenged them to a 3-point competition and was rocking them.  it was so fun to watch the guys have so much fun together!

 

we also had the extreme blessing of getting to not 1 but TWO uk games while we were there.  we watched wv v. clemson {i cheered on the tigers but they didn't make it through}, then uk v. princeton.   next we advanced to wv. v. uk.  we literally screamed our faces off.  and we're about to right now.

C-A-T-S CATS! CATS! CATS!

things i wanted to remember but didn't include originally because the game was starting:

-ben was so excited.  well first he was down because he thought we couldn't get tickets, then down because they would cost a million dollars and then down because we found reasonably priced tickets but had no address to ship them to in florida.  but then he saw on uk's site that they were giving out student tickets monday at the joe craft center.  we saw this at about 6 on monday evening and they close at 4 so we had no idea what they would tell us in the morning.  but we called and...yep...the cheapest tickets so far and we were both allowed to have one!  i'm not a student so we were worried that they wouldn' let me be in on it.  we still had to buy a 'session' so two games instead of just the one we really wanted to see, but it was still fun, just more expensive.  and then if uk won {which heck yes they did!} they would automatically charge us for the next session of the cats.  so we literally couldn't not go!

-wildcat-mania = ben's dream.  i loved that ben got to do something that he really loves, cheer on the cats to victory.  and we did cheer.  hard.  his great love for uk athletics may be a bit of a problem but we'll let it slide just this month ;)

-big blue nation was everywhere.  seriously everywhere.  it was like driving 12 hours to lexington, just with better weather.  uk fans travel so well.  there were lexington news crews running about, young people, old people all in blue.  its funny that when two people are for the same thing, its like everyone is family, everybody knows everybody {even though you definitely don't know those people}.

-at our first game i felt like i was in one of those ncaa commercials where they plug all the schools, there were hats, bags, visors, tees, hoodies, etc. all with different schools on them, lots not even in the tournament or playing at that venue - everyone decked out in their loyal garb walking through the halls of the arena.  maybe they were filming a commercial and i just didn't know about it?

-i had zero uk apparel with me.  none.  we packed in twenty minutes and i piled in the first things i could get my hands on.  the last thing i thought about was getting to go see uk play...i mean what are the chances that they'd get seeded to play in florida?  i had to go to target and pick up a blue shirt {they are harder to find than you might think}.

-the refs hated us and were awful.  i actually boo-ed someone.  i know, maybe it wasn't the 'right' thing to do.  but you know, it was the right thing to do.  also, out of a giant uk section two florida fans were seated next to us.  c'mon.  but they were very nice and maybe even clapped for us.  so it wasn't as bad as i expected.

-ben & i got to cheer on our boys who are now headed to the final four.  one of the top four teams in the nation!  what a run!  and we got to cheer them on in person: sing, dance, clap, high five, hug and hollar.  absolute bliss.  it definitely will be one of my favorite vacation memories with my hubby for a long time to come.