Ole Miss visit

The girls had been asking if we could go and see Auburn play a basketball game. First, Auburn has never traditionally been very good at basketball. Although I grew up a huge basketball fan because of Memphis Tigers games, it was not a highlight while in college. Auburn is a football school, even in the lean years!! Secondly, it is a 6 hour drive to Auburn and not sure I wanted to trek that far to watch Auburn play basketball!! Not as much fun as tailgating and going to the game and see all the fun stuff that is in Auburn in the fall. We compromised and decided to take the girls to see Auburn play in Oxford against Ole Miss. Honestly, Ole Miss is a beautiful school with a rich history of the Old South. Oxford is a quaint southern town with an awesome square to shop, eat, and walk around.  However, with all of that being said, I have not have a very good experience there in the past and have not enjoyed really have not enjoyed the attitude spewing from the fans and the students we have encountered. (Will not recall the story of my brother getting hit in the head with an empty liquor bottle at a football game!) Gary and I have always said we really did prefer for the girls to go to Ole Miss for college and we would struggle if that was on top of their list. I think we have officially crossed that off the list for Anna after this visit!! We arrived in time to go to the square for a bit and let the girls visit Square Books Jr. and pick out a few books. Nothing like a great children's book store. We arrived on Campus and drove around a bit and then parked and walked to the game. The "Tad Pad" where the games are played has been there since the 1960's and it shows. It is not pretty or quaint, but rather very old, out dated and in need of repair.  It is not very large, which is good because Ole Miss could not even fill it up on a weekend night!! Ole Miss is not very good either!!

We took our seats which were in the center section but almost to the top of the arena. Once we took our seats, the lovely Ole Miss fans around us starting groaning and talking about us. I found that to be pretty rude because we are not obnoxious fans, did not bring pom poms and were planning to just enjoy the game, win or lose. Then the Hotty Toddy cheers started. If you are not familiar with the cheer Hotty Toddy, you should look it up. Not very pleasant words when you are in the company of a 9 year old (that picks up on every single word said!!) and a 5 year old and definitely something I would not want my young girls to recite. After hearing it 5 or 6 times before the game, Anna started catching on to the words. Her quote of the night was "This school must not be founded by Christians because they have bad words in all of their cheers". Gary and I loved it. It was hilarious. We tried to be serious but were both laughing hysterically. We told her that we were not sure about the founders and yes, that cheer, was not very nice!! All in all, we heard the cheer over 10x that night. Both teams played ok the first half and then Auburn let Ole Miss run away with it in the second half.

Aftewards we drove around for what seemed liked forever to find a parking space near the square so we could grab some dinner before heading home. We finally landed one and went to Square Pizza and then Ya Ya's (just like all of our self serve yogurt places) for dessert. The girls had a great time, slept the whole way home and were glad we went. Anna was a bit disappointed we lost and Caroline was missing Aubie (Auburn mascot) and the cheerleaders. She did not really understand why they did not go to away games.

Glad we went. Loved exposing our girls to other college campuses and glad we could cheer on Auburn in person.

sleeping on the way to oxford....this was hilarious!!

the girls with gary ready for the game and decked out in their auburn shirts!