Clemson vs. FSU Reunion Weekend

Once a year my wonderful college roommates (along with significant others, family, current roommates and other friends) get together in the place that feels like home to us.... Clemson, of course. This year we picked the Clemson vs. FSU weekend of Oct 18th which also happened to be a weekend Clemson had ESPN College GameDay.

Eric and I took a half day Friday and drove down. After dropping our stuff at the apartment we rented, we went straight to downtown which was already packed. We met up with The Morgan gang and Brooke to do some shopping and then made our way over to Bowman where the game day crew was getting everything ready. I will say as someone who really appreciates processes and planning, they must have it all down pat to roll in with dozens of big trucks, set up the whole stage, surrounding areas, crowd cameras on wires, Heisman house, line up all the special stories and speakers and guests all in 6 days notice!

Vickie and I spotted Danni, the winner of the Biggest Loser and Clemson alum, on Bowman field and took a photo with her and Tom (an FSU alum).We both enjoy the show and they still looked fantastic.

 

Next we headed over to Mellow Mushroom for dinner, delicious as usual.

 



 

Then in keeping with our tradition we had drinks and watched football that night at Tiger Town Tavern. The UCF game was on (strangely often when we have reunion weekend UCF is playing that Friday night) which works out nicely since Kelly went to UCF and Vickie went to grad school there. This is when many others for our reunion arrive in Clemson too and meet us at TTT.

 

The next morning we were up bright and early, out at the tailgate at 7:45am. Yep, more than 12 hours before gametime. If you didn't know, tailgating in Clemson is epic. We had 3 tailgating spots in Strom this year and set up 3 tents which was needed as it was sort of drizzly for the first couple hours.

We started off with breakfast foods and mimosas. I packed mini muffins into a baking disk so I could use my festive casserole carrier. Is it just great?

And you may have already read about the burlap banner I made.

These are the wonderful girls I spent 4 years with and I love that we all come together once a year. Also mimosas are so fun in mason jars don't you think? Or any drink for that matter.

Megan and Keith came to the tailgate this year too.

Clemson love :)

This was our sweet set up

We headed over to Bowman field for the gameday stuff around 10:30. We didn't want to stand out there for all 3 hours but we caught all the picks which is the best part. We were pretty close to the crowd camera line of sight so we may have even been on tv.

There was certainly a good showing with lots of creative signs. The tiger on the wrecking ball was great. There was a rather inappropriate sign some FSU fans made that I will not post a photo of here but it was only up for about 2 minutes before they were made to take it down. It's something you don't know about unless you are in person but ESPN does regulate the signs for anything inappropriate.

After gameday ended we headed back to the tailgate.

We played lots of cornhole and had lunch. This year we did a sign up on facebook for bringing food and I think it worked out really well.

It is rare that I get to see both of my littles together but due to a last minute trip decision both Jessica and Christa were in Clemson.

Emily and Justin joined us at the tailgate later in the day too so we were able to get a group shot of that group of friends/family.

The LaForce couples

A shot of all the girls that lived in Tillman 920. Always awesome to have all 5 of us.

We had an early dinner so we could pack up most of the tailgate and walk to the stadium to be in there with plenty of time for kickoff as we knew the walk there would be packed with people as well as the stadium with it being a sold out game.

There is just something special about the walk to the stadium with thousands of fans all packed together and hyped up. It is really hard to capture in a photo but those of you who have experienced this in person know what I mean.

Then it was gametime!

You can really see how packed the stadium is. I am sure it was close to record attendance and it was super loud.

Wall to wall student section on the hill. Everyone was so excited and jumping around but shortly after that all the fun ended when Clemson just was not prepared to play FSU and made many mistakes even right off the bat and then lost the game 14-51.

Even though that was not the outcome we were looking for and it ended my perfect streak of FSU losing whenever I was in attendance, we had a such wonderful weekend leading up to the first play.

 

We have great memories to hold us over until the 2014 reunion weekend. Love you ladies!