The Adventures of Joe and Britt: 45 hours in Texas

*Joe here - I didn't want to write this post, thinking it would jinx the Cougars. Well it looks like they did a good enough job jinxing themselves. It doesn't take anything away from the Oklahoma game, which is the most fun I've had at a sporting event in my life. Now onto Britt's write up...

So we went to this football game over Labor Day weekend...you might have heard of it...

We were greeted at our gate in Dallas by Greg and Tiffany, then took take the shuttle to the Avis desk and are told were cars are available. Bummer.

I asked Tiffany to check avis.com on her iPhone while Greg looked for taxi numbers on his. Guess what? We made a reservation on avis. com, and I walked back to the same desk 5 minutes after being told no cars were available. I casually looked at the desk and realized my reservation had JUST printed off. "Oh, that's me!" I exclaimed. How convenient. As a Preferred Member, you just flash your ID and you're off. I was in and out in 2 minutes. I pulled out and picked up Joe, Tiff and Greg on the street. A pretty awesome start to the weekend.

Greg did all the legwork to find a motel that was really close to the game. They offered a free shuttle, and we got to the (gorgeous) new Cowboys Stadium around 4:30. It was pretty hot, so we tried to stay in the shade while saying hi to other friends before going inside. Eventually we got to our great seats (thanks Jack & Greg!) in a mostly BYU section. We enjoyed our $7 hot dogs and $5 drinks, stared in awe at the 60-yard-wide screen, and watched the stands fill up with Oklahoma fans.

The game was really fun; the fans in our section were pretty pumped up. A few plays brought us to our feet, but I was nervous Oklahoma would just stomp all over us at some point. Nope! The stadium got SO LOUD, each side yelling at the others' offense. I really couldn't believe we pulled it off, but am so happy we did. We stayed around in the stadium for quite a while after the game, just jumping up and down and taking pictures. We sang the fight song and watched the players do the Haka. Walking out of the stadium, we had tons of Oklahoma fans come up and congratulate us. We finished off the night with cheap Mexican food next to the motel and called it good.

Sunday morning Greg and Tiffany went back to Iowa, and we went to Austin with Liz and Reed. We caught up on a little sleep, played with Eva, and enjoyed some great ribs courtesy of Reed. As good as dinner was, Eva was definitely the highlight of the Austin portion of our trip. She is a very happy girl, and was taking out every book from her room and stacking them in the hall. Joe would put his shoe on top of the stack while she was gone, and she would just throw it back at him and continue her tower. After a while, she went back into her room and we heard a rustling sound. I looked in to see her grab a Costco-sized bag of Cheerios stashed behind her crib. She was hiding food in her room! She was very cute and walked around with her bag for awhile.

The trip was way too short! We had to come back to real life, but are SO happy we got to spend some quality time with family. Go Cougs!

p.s. Does anyone else think that the week after Labor Day was the LONGEST week in the history of life? Geez.

PHOTOS...