Raising a Wildcat.

Included in my goals for this year was taking the kids to see the greatest college basketball tradition that ever played. I have been a fan for as long as I have been alive. I was raised in the great state of Kentucky and I would like nothing more than for Brinley and Landon to grow up loving this school too. Having actually graduated from and currently being an employee at the University of Kentucky has just made my love for this school even greater. During my years as a UK student I was able to attend many basketball games and enjoyed the standing room only eRUPPtion zone. The only problem was that I was a student during the last year of Tubby Smith, the Gillispie Era and the first season of Calipari. This didn't make for the best years as a Kentucky fan, but I enjoyed going and cheering on the boys in blue. Luckily my little brother was able to secure me some more tickets after I graduated so that I could still get in to see the wildcats play.

Not until last year was I informed about the process of how to apply for season tickets. I was just under the assumption that there was some list somewhere that had so many names on it that you couldn't get tickets until you were in your 80s. However, a friend of mine informed me that I was wrong and that a simple postcard was all it took to enter the lottery to get season tickets. I was lucky enough to get selected the first time I sent in my request and I couldn't be more excited about this season. Since I have the season tickets I decided that it would be nice to maybe take the kids seperately so that it would be more manageable and hopefully enjoyable for everyone.

It just so happens that on the opening night of the UK basketball season Jennifer signed up to work. This left me with an extra ticket and the best excuse to have our 1st ever daddy daughter date. I tried to get Brinley excited about the game all day long. I tried to say all the cool things that we would get to see during our night. I told her we would get to see basketball (minimal excitement), cheerleaders (slightly more excitement) and lastly fireworks (huge excitement). Too bad the fireworks are only during the announcement of the starting lineup. We left for the game and dropped Landon off at MiMi's house. This created our first dilemma because Brinley then did not want to go to the game because she wanted to stay at MiMi's house. Again I had to reel her back in to the exciting things that we were going to do and this time I might have actually dropped the P word. Thats right, popcorn. Jennifer has turned both kids into popcorn lovers and this got Brinley excited again about our night out.

We parked and walked to Rupp and decided to make a stop at the facepainting table. I didn't think Brinley would do good with paint so we opted for the face stickers. We grabbed a box of popcorn and then made our way up to our seats.

Heading to our seats. Maybe next time we won't show up 45 minutes early.  

My little lady. She did so good and was so observant of everything going on around her. She would point out things to me all the time that were going on.

I still can't believe how well she did for the whole game. Especially for a game that didn't start until 8 pm, which is only an hour before her normal bedtime. 

Popcorn was the best decision of the night. She sat and ate popcorn like a little lady.

I only had a few missteps during our night. The first was I accidentally brought back up MiMi by saying she could show her the face stickers after the game. At that point we were only halfway through the first half and she was saying that she wanted to leave now. I thankfully calmed her back down and we enjoyed the rest of the game. 

  

She was also a big clapper during the game. Every time something big happened and the crowd went wild Brinley started to clap along with them. 

The other mistake that I made was that I didn't take any of her sippy cups into the game because I was unaware if you could bring drinks into the arena. (FYI: You are able to bring drinks in for kids.) Sometime in the second half Brinley started saying that she was thirsty. However, with all the stuff that we had brought I knew that if we got up and went down to get something we were not making the trek back up to the seats. Thankfully I again calmed her down.

With about 4 minutes left in the game we started down and made our way to the lower level. I had known from previous visits to the games that Coach Cal comes out and does a radio interview after the game. So, we found some spots close to the broadcast booth and waited to see if we could get lucky enough for Coach Cal to sign our ball.

Coach Cal signing our ball.

Brinley was so excited, but she mostly wanted to play with the ball.

Brinley also got to walk out on the court for a picture too. How are you going to tell this little lady no?

One last picture of Brinley and I on our 1st ever daddy daughter date.

 I still can't believe that our little baby girl has turned into such a amazing young lady. I can't wait to see her grow over the years and I hope she is never too ashamed or embarrassed to go out and do things with her daddy. I am so proud to be her dad! Thanks for reading and God Bless!