UK Football Game vs. Eastern Michigan

Over the summer I heard about a program called the Jr. Wildcat Club. This is a program that tries to get kids more involved with the different UK sports programs. After you join you get a t-shirt, towel, tickets to a football game, the blue-white basketball game, and free admission to all UK sporting events (excluding football and men's basketball). This seemed like a great way to get the kids to go and experience different sports. Our first event of the year happened to be the football game vs. Eastern Michigan. We also found out about a little play area that they had for kids before the game so we got down to the stadium about 2 hours before kickoff. 

The kids dressed in all their Kentucky gear for the game. They really had no idea what they were about to get into since they had never really seen a football game except for when they have randomly looked at the TV while I was watching at home.

Their passes for the Jr. Wildcat club. If we go to 20 events this year then we earn automatic entry into next years club. This was our first event.

The kids loved playing on all the inflatables. The play area was located in Nutter Field house.

Since the kids were having too much fun inside I went to see the Cat Walk by myself. Next time I think I will take the kids so that they can see all the band, cheerleaders, Wildcats and also high five the whole team.

Brinley ready for coach to send her in. Not sure many football players ever have worn pigtails before.

Maybe one day this little guy will actually strap on a helmet and play football. 

Coming out of the inflatable obstacle course.

This little girl was having so much fun. She didn't want to stop running and going through this obstacle course. Thankfully they deflate everything before the game starts or else I would have been stuck in the field house for the whole game.

They also had the men's and women's swim and dive teams at the field house to meet the kids and sign autographs. One of the girls asked Brinley what her favorite swim stroke was and she looked at them like they were speaking a different language. She still talks a lot about swimming so I think we are about to sign back up for more lessons at the Y.

Footballs don't look that big until you ask a little kid to hold one. We will definitely need to work on how to hold the ball because it isn't very secure with just that one finger holding onto it. 

After we got in the stadium Brinley noticed this huge picture of the wildcat and wanted to get her picture made with it.

Looking out at the field for the first time watching the players warm up.

After getting a few snacks we headed up to our seats. We started out with nachos, sprite, and the largest bag of kettle corn that we could find. As we were walking up the steps, Landon tripped and started to fall down but caught himself with his hands. Problem was that he scraped his finger up a little. After I couldn't calm him down for about 5 minutes we finally decided that a bandaid would fix it. We didn't have any with us so I went out to search for the first aid area. Thankfully they gave us some bandaids so that we I could enjoy the game. Let's be real, the kids were mostly just there for the food.

View from close to where our seats were located. These kids crack me up sometimes with their smiles.

Our seats were facing the sun and it was beginning to get extremely hot for all of us. It didn't take long for us to all take off the long sleeve shirts. We had seen that the forecast showed for low 70's so we all wore long sleeves to the game. I looked across the stadium to the other side and saw that it was in the shade. The upper level was only about half full, so I told Jennifer that after the first quarter we were going to move over there.

We moved over to the other side and the kids got their next treat of snow cones. They had seen someone selling them while on the other side of the stadium. Problem was that in the shade the temperature dropped about 30 degrees! The kids were shivering while eating their snow cones. 

Such a happy little guy! If you ever ask him what color he wants it is always gonna be blue!

My girls!

Family photo in the shade. Everyone put their long sleeved shirts back on. The kids were complaining so bad that they wanted to go home because they were so cold. I made a compromise that we could move back to the sun for the second half. Everyone agreed and we then made our way across the stadium to find our third set of seats for the day.

View from our 3rd set of seats.

Me and my little man at his 1st UK football game.

No idea what this little guy was watching or thinking about, but I would like to think he was dreaming about one day playing on that field. He was probably seeing what all everyone was eating.

About halfway through the third quarter we had to leave the game. I had to go to work and Jennifer didn't feel like wrangling the kids for the rest of the game. Maybe someday we will have season football tickets and the kids will truly enjoy coming out to the games each Saturday.

We spotted this nice little photo opportunity on the way out of the stadium. We had to get a picture with all of us in our UK gear.

We are so thankful to have had such a great experience for the kids first time at Commonwealth Stadium Kroger Field! 

Wildcat football is on the rise and I am glad that we were able to catch a game with the kids this year. So far when the Heflin kids are in attendance the Wildcats are undefeated. Maybe I should have taken them with me to the Florida game! Like I said earlier, maybe one day we will get some season tickets so that we can catch all the action every Saturday. Go Big Blue! Thanks for reading and God bless!