Sometime during the early COVID days when I was feeling really lonely and sad I realized that I'd never been to Lameau to see a game and I made a comment to Mom and Dad - "before you die I want to go see a Packer game with you at Lameau". Dad quickly responded "Do you know something I don't know...?" which of course got a good laugh and it's become a joke since then. But I meant it! I wanted to go see a game there with my parents. To see what it was all about and to experience it alongside them.
In the fall of 2020 they decided to run football games without fans - just cardboard cutouts in the stands and then in June(ish) of 2021 I logged in the day tickets went on sale and actually tried to purchase 4 tickets to see Bears/Packers. I had them in my cart, I hit buy and we would have gone if Chase hadn't declined the purchase thinking it was fraudulent. I tried a few times that night and then got frustrated and gave up.
Fast forward to 2023, a different time, a happier, less stressful time and I tried to coordinate a game again for the family. This time I opted for inexpensive pre-season tickets where we could go before it got too cold, we could camp, and bring the kids along for the whole experience, all for around $60 per person - it was the prefect combination.
The game was scheduled for noon on Saturday so instead of the traditional tailgate of brats and burgers we brought the Blackstone and did eggs/hashbrowns/sausage and pancakes for the kids. The real pro's put us to shame though. We didn't bring Bloodies or Mimosas (a big miss!) and we forgot a few key things, like a garbage bag and maybe a table to eat at. It was a little cooler than we expected, the first smell of fall and it drizzled for most of the morning, but it didn't stop us from having a great time before the game started.
Dad did some scouting before we got there and found us the perfect tailgating location - with the perfect background for pictures.
We hung out by the truck for awhile and the decided to explore the Titletown area (made for kids!) and did a walk around the stadium. Mom and Dad bought the girls cheese hats and long sleeve shirts - they were decked out for the game!
The biggest bummer of the day? Mom was sick and didn't feel like joining us for the actual game. She stayed back at the camper and slept and watched some of the game from the TV in the camper. Copper was happy to have someone there to hang out with, but she was very missed at the game!
The game was fun - we stayed til nearly the end. The Packers won and I even snuck away for a bit to go check out the pro-shop solo. The kids did a great job and didn't complain about being at the game. At one point Dad asked Abby if she understood what was happening in the game. She responded "Not really, but why do they have such big butts?". It made us all laugh and was very reminiscent of when they took us to go so a baseball game as kids. When the parents asked us what the score was one of us kids responded "205 to 307" (turns out those were runs, hits and errors...or something like that). Hey - we were kids! What did you expect?!
It was a very fun weekend and we might try to make it happen again next year. We ended the day back at the campground so we could hang out with Mom too. The campground in Green Bay is actually just a few minutes walk to a zoo so when we got back we did a cool ropes course/walk in the trees that took us through parts of the zoo. The kids loved it - I'm not sure if we'd do that exact part a second time around, but we'd go back and visit the zoo next time for sure!
The summer of 2023 will officially be known as the summer that I ate more 'smores then I've eaten in my LIFE! I can't even count how many bags of marshmallows we went through this year. It was for sure more than 3 - ek! But...we've got some great memories and truly, who is sad about a 'smore?!
No comments:
Post a Comment