Big BLUE Christmas

PLEASE NOTE:
This picture is not current.
It is included here purely
to emphasize the
hellishness of our nite
at UNC.

After the HELL that was last December's trip to Chapel Hill, Jeremy and I decided that we'd got to THIS year's Kentucky / Carolina game WITHOUT the boys.

Here's what happened (because I'm pretty sure that's ANOTHER post that never got written):

It was raining the day of the game. Our hotel (the Carolina Inn) was AWESOME, and although I'd called ahead to confirm that there'd be a shuttle from there to the game, we had NO.IDEA how full that shuttle would be - or that we'd have to wait through stand still traffic to ultimately be dropped off more than a block away from the Dean Dome.

Finally, we got in. We climbed to our seats, which were on the VERY LAST ROW (that is NOT an exaggeration), and while they were GREAT seats (I'm a "just-get-me-in-the-building" kind of fan who could care less where my seats actually are), I was nine months pregnant and climbing more than the short step into my bathtub turned me into a one-woman wind machine.

The fact that a picture this bad is the best I could get on the
trip should've been my first clue to just call it a nite.

Just after the ball was tipped, Jones started to freak out. No. Scratch that. He started to FREAK.OUT. Like he had never FREAKED.OUT before. So I took him out into the concourse where he proceeded to FREAK.OUT INCONSOLABLY for the first 17 minutes (clock time, not actual time) of the game. He'd never done anything even remotely like this, so I had no idea how to handle it. Whatever I DID do, though, didn't work.

So I'm in the concourse of the Dean Dome - a woman nine months pregnant carrying a fourteen month old who is not only freaking out but who also refuses to walk - and finally, I gave up. I walked to the entranceway of our section - no way in Heaven I was walking up those stairs again. Because cell phones next to never work in stadiums, I was forced to communicate the old fashioned way. I made eye contact with my dad and motioned that Jeremy needed to come down and meet me. When he did, I told him that I was going to head back to the hotel, because Jones was a train wreck. Plus - and I didn't mention this then - the Cats were playing horribly, so I wasn't feeling all that great myself.

Jeremy said he was coming with me. I didn't fight him too hard on this point, because deep down, I WANTED him to share in my misery.  Had he not, the hellish-ness would've lasted way longer than just that nite.

So we left the game that we'd been anticipating for a year and stepped out into a downpour on the 45 degree evening. As instructed by the driver of the van that'd brought us to the game, we called the hotel and asked for a return ride to the Carolina Inn. The kid who answered said we'd be better off to get a cab. Since this was North Carolina and not New York, cabs were about as easy to come by as a basket for the UK offense.

So we started walking. And fighting. And walking some more. But mostly, we were fighting. And worrying about the facts that I was nine months pregnant and that Jones was starting to wheeze in the cold, wet weather. At one point, we passed the UNC Medical Center, and I asked if we should just go in and get a room for the two of us, as I was convinced I'd go in to labor, and Jeremy thought Jones was one block away from pneumonia. If I weren't totally opposed to my child being born on the campus of UNC, I'd have gone with the idea, if for no other reason than to get off of my feet.

Finally - after a lot more fighting (this for a couple that doesn't EVER fight) - we made it back to the hotel; the Cats lost the game, and we got a great nite's sleep.

But neither one of us survived the experience unscathed, which made our decision to make the 2014 meeting an adult-only experience an easy one.

Then Daddy told me that he some extra tickets for this year's game. It speaks to how wonderful my in-laws are that I immediately forgot the hellishness of the previous year and suggested that we take them with us. Not many of my friends actually WANT their in-laws around, but I absolutely do. They are the best.

So suddenly, the weekend we'd planned to leave the boys with them and spend some time alone WATCHING a game instead of hiking through the aptly-named Chapel HILL carrying a toddler, turned into Jeremy and I driving to Lexington with the Pressleys, Jones, Freddie, and a babysitter.

Plans changed again when Daddy called to say we were invited to his company's Christmas party. Typically, I'd have zero interest in attending something like that.  Things changed, however, when he mentioned that the party would be held in the UK locker room and on the court at Rupp Arena. Then, our Friday evening departure changed into a Friday morning one.

So.

We got there. We toured the locker room where the Wildcats suit up - even got some pictures of Freddie, wearing Willie Cauley Stein's number, sitting in Willie Cauley Stein's locker! - and then we shot some hoops on the court at Rupp Arena. To say the least, it was fantastic.

The next morning, after hardly sleeping (Jones woke up dry heaving, for some reason. I'm thinking it was the air return in the hotel room, which was right by his Pack and Play, because he was totally fine by breakfast time), we took the boys and the babysitter (Haylee Floyd - or "Heehee," as Jones calls her) to Daddy's condo. They stayed there, while their daddy, their grandparents, and I watched the Wildcats win.

Oh, what a weekend!