As you might have read, I recently had a weekend that included a road trip that my son and I took to South Bend, Indiana to catch a Notre Dame home game. As I had stated in my last post, before I deployed, I asked Conner if there was one thing he wanted or wanted to do, let me know and I would make sure that after I returned from Iraq, it happened. I am a huge Notre Dame fan and Conner is following in his dad’s footsteps. The only thing he wanted to do was to watch Notre Dame play in South Bend. I had never been to a game in South Bend and I don’t think I could have been happier with his decision.
Conner actually told me before I left that he had made his decision. I kept searching the internet while I was in Iraq so as soon as tickets were available, I found and purchased tickets to the game. The excitement started building as soon as I told him I had made the purchase.
Not only had I bought tickets to a Notre Dame game, I also bought some tickets to watch the Cleveland Browns the following day. Being Notre Dame fans and Cleveland having a great Notre Dame quarterback, Brady Quinn, we were hoping that we could see Brady play.
Being in South Bend to watch the Fightin’ Irish play the Boston College Eagles, was an experience like no other. We were able to tour the campus, eat at Legends, a campus restaurant, and even attended the pep rally on Friday evening. The weather was not outstanding. In fact, it was actually miserable, but we did not let that get our spirits down. We braved the cold and rainy weather on game day and enjoyed a very impressive win by the Irish.
The trip to Cleveland was not as impressive. At the beginning of the season, Eric Mangini had made the decision that Brady Quinn was his starting QB. I think it was about week three, he made the decision to bench Brady and start Derek Anderson. This really hindered my plans for Conner and me to see Brady play. We had really good seats at the game and could see Brady walk up and down the sidelines the entire game. The both of us knew that our Browns are far from even being decent, but it was opportunity for us to see them play at their home field. The Browns lost to Green Bay, but it didn’t damper our weekend.
Even though this weekend we were on the go constantly, it was well worth the complete and utter exhaustion that I have felt the following week. The Con-Man thoroughly enjoyed himself during our trip. I remember one time looking at him while we were touring the campus and seeing a smile on his face that can only be described as shining. Seeing him this excited and happy was worth every dollar spent and every mile driven.