Bucket List: Notre Dame Football Game- check!

A HUGE bucket list item checked off the list today! See a Notre Dame home football game... check! Even better that dad was there too! I had been checking the weather forecast all week and wouldn't you know it, cold and 50% chance of showers... we'll get to that.

After our lovely drive over to South Bend, with a few sprinkles and showers on the way, we made it to the home of The Fighting Irish! The skies were mostly cloudy with blue peeking through here and there. We arrived in plenty of time so we were able to walk around campus. Seriously, I have never seen a more beautiful campus before, lots of trees and older buildings. The building you see above is the golden dome which is home to the admissions and administrative offices.

Here's a look from the inside.

And we had to take a walk to see the lake... beautiful!

and to the grotto.

But this is where our story turns soggy. After we went to check out the grotto we made our way to the bookstore, I needed to stock up on some ND gear. Once we got there holy moly, nevermind, I'll shop online. Then as we stepped outside the heavens opened up and rain came pouring down, oh and the wind picked up out of nowhere. Boom. Soaked.

But don't fear! We came prepared! Well, as well as you can be prepared with a Dollar Store emergency poncho. So we poncho'd up and waited out the rain under the cover of safety and semi-warmth. But soon the rain turned to drizzle, then to a fine mist, then it was safe to venture out to our seats.

Oh hey there NBC, they were set up shop right in front of us, luckily their little tent folded down at game start, but popped back up again at halftime and blocked some of our view of the marching band.

Then something happend, you might even call it a miracle, but the clouds gave way and blue skies poked through just as the Marching Band was taking the field for their pregame performance. They began with America the Beautiful, then began the Star Spangled Banner.

As soon as the last line of the Star Spangled Banner hit, the roar of six Navy Blue Angels jets came in from above. This is seriously one of the coolest things I have experienced in some time. It was just that awesome.

It's a full house!

Those fellas in the blue pants are the pilots that did the fly over

Notre Dame touch down! Time for push ups!

The Navy mascot, he's a goat

Here's the band at halftime, you can see the Irish Guard and the NBC tent in our way

It may have been cold, it may have been rainy, but it was still totally an amazing experience to be at Notre Dame on game day. I would gladly go again. I will say some days it's better to be a home in your comfy warm clothes and watch the game at home. But nothing will ever beat the experience of sitting on a little piece of wood bleacher soaked from the rain, with a soaked butt watching from row 7, seat 10, section 23 for my first Notre Dame game. There aren't even words capable of describing the feeling. Glad you could be there dad, sorry Navy lost, it was close. ;) 

Notre Dame - 38
Navy - 34

Go Irish!