So I shall breeze through this day rather quickly, because I realize that most of you are not Gator Fans.
But it was a cool day- so I will include a bit before continuing on with the Disney portion.
As I said before, Mighty Good Man graduated from UF. And as you also know, the Homecoming football game was a huge part of our trip to Florida. He got one day of the vacation, I got 9.
No really- we all love Florida football and we had so much fun wearing our Gator gear proudly. You wouldn't believe how many people in the parks would yell out to us "Go Gators!" to which we'd yell back "Go Gators!" and then everyone would yell "Woo-Hoo!" The Gator Nation is a wonderful thing.
We had planned on waking early and being out the door of the resort by 6 am to be in Gainesville by 8. At 6:45, Mighty Good Man jumped up and woke me. We were late.
We finally got into the car and went speeding through the nasty wet stuff- ( I felt like Noah at this point), hoping we'd outrun the rain. As luck would have it- the skies cleared and we were finally dry!!
We got to Mighty Good Man's cousin's house which is one block from the stadium at 9:30, parked the car and greeted the cousins and my SIL and her boyfriend. We grabbed all of our stuff and ran for University Ave. to watch Gator Walk, where the Players arrive on buses and walk the street towards the stadium amidst the cheering fans.
The side of the street that the players walk by, slapping the hands of the fans was completely full- no squeeze in room, but there were cops blocking off the middle of the street and we were able to sqeeze in right up to them. Then the sirens began and the busses pulled up- and here came the players.
It is here that I must give a small smidge of background to all who don't know much about me. Our son, Drew is a Gator football fanatic. He knows every player by position, stats, etc. We had tix for the AR/FL football game when the Gators came to Fayetteville to play and were lucky enough to see the players after the game and get autographs and pics with some of them.
Drew's favorite player in the whole world is Percy Harvin (his # is #1) and when he saw him after the AR/FL game, Drew just about died. Percy wasn't signing autographs, but Drew was yelling his name with all his little might, just to get Percy's attention. When Percy heard Drew, he stopped, looked at him and patted Drew's leg (he was on Mighty Good Man's shoulders to get a better look)- and pointed at him yelled up to Drew "Little Man!!!" like they were long lost buddies.
I asked him if we could get a picture and he nodded yes, so I snapped a pic of them together. It has been blown up and is in Drew's room. Sooooo Cool. My heart melted and Drew and I talk often about that day.
Now, FF to Gator Walk- here the players come, and they weren't close to us- but Drew named every single player as they walked past slapping hands with the fans on the other side. In a second I heard Drew suck in his breath and yell "There he is, Mom, there's Percy!" and he started yelling once again with all his might "Percy! Percy!!!" but the crowds were too loud and Percy couldn't hear him. So I lowered the camera from my face and then both Drew and I started yelling to him "Percy! PERCY!!!!!!" as loud as we could. Percy's head snapped around facing us, he stopped, scanned the crowds- looking-- and as his eyes landed on Drew- he glanced up at me and back down to Drew, a BIG grin all over his face- you know how someone's expression changes when they recognize you?
And he pointed to Drew and yelled out "Little Man!!!"
OMG.
I cried.
My baby's wish, once again coming true.
So that was that.
We saw Tebow, the Heisman trophy winner and all the girls drooled on themselves as he passed by. Here, have a napkin.
Percy is the first guy in the lineup with the white shirt on- taken just before he saw us--, Tebow is the last in the grey suit. *sigh*
Then we went to the game and had awesome seats, only b/c we paid an arm and a leg for them (Thank you stub hub!)
Tebow taking the snap-
And afterwards we went to dinner with the family at a local hang out. There were 17 of us- and that's only a tiny portion of the family. All together with kids, grands and great grands there are right at 60 of us- (this is Mighty Good Man's mom's side of the family-) we tend to overtake a place when we arrive. LOL.
We were back in the car and at the resort by 10 pm, ready for a new day at Disney!
Up next---
TinkerBell's surprise-
costumes and tickets to
MNSSHP and...
"That doesn't look like the Love Boat to me."