Happy New Year!! 2010

Todd and I had a very special New Years this year. We were able to go down to Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. We had so much fun despite the Ducks loss it was a great experience and who doesn't love spending the winter outside in sunglasses and a t-shirt!

The mission was divide and conquer, we split the kids up the youngers ( what we frequently refer to them as) at my Mom's in Eugene and the older girls in Medford with Mimi and Gpa. Then it was drive, drive, drive. They had closed the pass the night before we left which also happened to be the same night Todd had his near death experience through the gorge. Luckily for us Todd made it to Eugene safely and they re-opened the pass just in time to let us through onto Redding. In Redding we dropped the van off with our friend Nick since it is on it's last leg, and then rented a car to continue our trip. It was so much fun driving down the freeway with all the green and yellow flags flying!

We stayed in Hacienda Heights and it was so nice. It had EVERYTHING including a Krispy Kreme down the street from our hotel. We got in late so we crashed and the next day it was off to check out where we needed to be for the game. It was great to walk around and see all the duck fans, we even got to see a few floats being worked on. We figured out our game plan for the next day (metro in) and it was back to Hacienda Heights. At 9:30pm on New Years Eve we decided to go see Avatar, we had just missed the regular showing and Todd surprised me by bucking up the extra $8 to see it in IMAX. AMAZING!! It was so cool, I don't know if I can ever see a normal movie again and I would recommend going to see Avatar in IMAX no matter the cost or drive it's worth it! So we walked into the movie in 2009 and walked out in 2010 not a super eventful New Years but it worked for me since I was feeling a little weird about not being with the kids for New Years, it was a great distraction.

New Years Day- GAME DAY
We slept through our alarm which freaked me out but luckily we hit no traffic and made it in time to get 1 of the last 20 spots in the parking garage for the metro. Since we made great time we had a little picnic out of the trunk and had fun watching the other parking garage "tailgaters"
We chose to walk from the metro to the stadium instead of the shuttle since the line for the shuttle was almost as long as the walk. Within 5 min of being there we ran into our friend Brent, it was crazy and I'm kicking myself that I didn't get a pic of Todd and him together. We met up with Jeff and Louise at our seats which were at the very TOP of the stadium. I was a little freaked out when I saw our tickets but really they were great seats, we had our own back rests and it limited the amount of crazies we would have to deal with. The game itself was a bummer, but we got out in really great time when it was all said and done. We decided to drive to my aunts and stay the night in the bay area.