I'm still really committed to not getting behind on this blog despite the insanity of my schedule over the course of the next few weeks. Thus, I am already digging into my summary of this weekend even before Matt's flight has taken off. I will say from the get go that I am not going to comment on the details of the recent Penn State scandal. That seems weird to just sprinkle into a blog about a fun weekend and perhaps more appropriate as its own post at a later date.

Despite what you may think at the end of this post, this weekend was actually specifically chosen as Matt's date of visit so that we could go to see the band Deer Tick at the Majestic Theater.  The opportunity to be seeing our favorite bands together again (a la our days in Columbia) and the cheap tickets made it kind of a no brainer as far as we were concerned. The venue was beautiful! It looks exactly like you would picture a well-preserved (or well-restored) old theater. . . complete with a lot of beautiful moldings and chandeliers. The video is a little blurry, I know. . . and the sound is a little weird as would be expected for an iphone but I knew that Becca & Lacey would for sure want to hear the really lovely rendition of Crying Shame that the band did (well, about 2.5 minutes of it, anyway. . . ).

Section 123, Row 12

The reason that I think you might tend up skeptical that Deer Tick inspired this weekend is that the rest of the weekend really centered on football. College football on Saturday, hunting down the Bengals game on Sunday, and then teaming up with Peter and Paula for the Packers-Vikings game on Monday night. As luck with have it, Paula (well, now all of us, I guess) knows someone who knows someone who has really awesome Packers season tickets.   Four of these alleged tickets became available for Monday night's game, and we jumped at the chance.  Well, actually, in true fashion, we contemplated the decision for quite a while and then eventually talked ourselves into it.

But we ended up being super glad that we did so.  We already knew that we probably were nto going to get a chance to visit Lambeau again - I mean, really, how often does that offer fall into your lap? -
but we had no idea how awesome the seats

Lambeau Field

were. Literally where Matt and I are standing in that picture was the row that our seats were in. Crazy. According to the attendance count, there were about 70,000 people in attendance, which means there were about 40,000 fewer people than were typically at a Penn State game. That was a little bit surreal. I knew that Beaver Stadium was big for a college stadium, but hand't really thought about it in comparison to the fields for professional football. This, combined with the fact that the actual playing field isn't below ground the same way that it is at Penn State gave the game a much more intimate feeling.  We were right behind the MN sideline - Matt sat almost smack dab on the 30-yard line, so without the up-down offset, people felt much closer (and looked much bigger) than we were used to.

Monday Night Football

The most noticeable difference, though, was the pace of the game. Every play seemed to go quicker than what we remembered from the college games. That and the abrupt changes in direction that seem kind of pointless when you are watching them on tv are a lot more interesting. Players are just moving so much more quickly than you think they are. . . despite being so big. It must defy some law of Physics.  Or at least laws of normal running. I am planning on posting a more complete collection of our photos on facebook, and after looking through them I wish we would have gotten some action shots of Adrian Peterson or Charles Woodson. They were both pretty fun to watch move. And kind of mind boggling at the same time.

Today was kind of a lazy recovery day (i.e., got home late and then slept in) before I took Matt to the airport in Milwaukee. Aside from a busy schedule for both of us over the next couple of weeks, this is a pretty short break. Following two trips to Iowa for me and a boatload of work-related meetings and deadlines for Matt, we'll be heading to Texas at the end of the month to see Josh and Becca and finally meet Cole. Yay! I am an equal amount of anxious about the things that I need to get done and excited about what promises to be an awesome trip!

Have a great rest of the week, everyone. Hopefully more updates and pictures for you next week :)