A Little Family Rivalry

It's that time of year again: the leaves start to change colors, the weather starts to feel cool and crisp, holidays are just around the corner, and college football season is in full swing. The last part I really don't care about at all. It does still affect me however. Spencer and Ayden bleed blue, Cougar Blue to be exact. They religiously follow their team and cheer, yell, rally, and yes sometimes cry for their team! They record and watch every game so they can agonize over the loss or cheer over the victory. It's quite comical how serious it can get.
When we found out that BYU was playing Utah State University (my alma mater) in Logan, we thought it would be fun to attend the game as a family. Over the weeks leading up to the game, there was friendly banter back and forth about whose team would actually win. My Aggies have actually had a decent year so I thought we'd have a good chance of beating Spencer and Ayden's inconsistent Cougars.
As is typical Utah fall weather, the weather leading up to the Friday night game was crazy. One day it was in the 70s and the next it was freezing. On Friday morning, we actually woke up to a few inches of snow on the ground. So we prepared ourselves for a very cold game. We packed lots of blankets, coats, hats and gloves. And to throw another hitch in the plans, Tate ended up being very sick with a nasty cold and cough. We decided with the cold weather, he probably shouldn't go. Thankfully Aunt Dani came to the rescue and let Tate stay with her for the afternoon and night.
We drove up to Logan and arrived at 3:30pm for the 6pm game. We thought we'd be there early to get good seats for our general admission tickets. Wrong! There were huge lines already formed with fans for both teams waiting to get in. There were lines that wrapped down the street and around the corner of the stadium. It was fun to talk with people in line and banter with them about what team would win. Most found it funny that we were a "house divided" between BYU and USU. At the start of the game Spencer, Steve and Ayden were cheering for BYU and Ellie, Carson (Ayden's friend) and I were cheering for USU.

Watching the teams warm up before the game

We didn't have any Aggie gear for Ellie so we had to improvise and turn her BYU shirt inside out and tape an 'A' on it.  We actually ended up with pretty good seats in the end zone. Of course, we were surrounded by Aggie fans. That didn't deter Spencer from being an overly exuberant BYU fan! He was pretty loud and at one point Ellie covered her ears and ducked her head and said "Dad, you're embarrassing me!" After the first 2 BYU touchdowns, Ellie betrayed me and switched her loyalties to BYU. She had Spencer turn her shirt back out and cheered for BYU the rest of the game.

But I forgave her quickly and we enjoyed teasing each other about our teams.

Ayden and his buddy Carson had a blast watching the game and being boys. They ate everything in sight and went to the bathroom 5 times, not kidding. They had smaller bladders than the 34 week pregnant lady!

I'm glad we went to the game. It was so much fun to be at the stadium and to be in that environment. We all had fun teasing and bantering about the teams. Even though my team lost substantially, 31 to 14, I am so glad we went. It honestly is best that the Aggies lost because I don't think the car ride home would have been endurable if BYU lost. They would have been pouting and mad!