Final Four; Bracket Town, well sort of

I write this post with a lot of discouragement. You see, the hubs and my sis-in-law left Butler and headed downtown to enjoy some of the Bracket Town festivities. We took over 100 awesome photos and almost all of them from today came out like this:


I am trying not to get to down on myself because we did end up with a few other cool photos, so here goes the rest of our awesome day.

As we left Butler we were able to catch a glimpse of the Butler excitement outside of campus. Buildings had special notes and signs and some even made their own Final Four decorations:



We found some great parking and made our way into the convention center to check out the Final Four festivities at Bracket Town. The hubs and sis were able to play lots of pop-to-shot, we checked out the new 3D LG TV, ate lots of junk food and took many silly photos ::frown:: but we did have to spend time finding all the statues that represented our schools.


We also made a stop to the huge Bracket Town Bracket, the hubs and sister had a little trouble finding their schools on the map (Purdue & Indiana) but don't worry, Butler was easy to spot:


After we saw everything that we could, we made our way over to Lucas Oil Stadium to check out the Senior All Star Game. We saw this guy a few times throughout the weekend:


Before we made it into Lucas Oil, we made a quick pit stop by the hotel where our friend was staying. We helped her carry in some of our items. It was here that the hubs was carrying in one of our friends dresses. Butler player Veasley told the hubs that he didn't have the legs for that dress (ohhh burn) It was funnier than I write it, I promise. On our way out of the room we ran into Coach Stevens who looked exhausted. He asked where we were headed and when we told him back out to the streets he warned us of the craziness. From there, we continued to the All Star game.

It was our first time in the new stadium. The inside was as big of a beast as the outside, check it out:


We made our way to some empty seats and started watching team Reeces take on team Herseys. Obviously, we had to cheer on team Reeces since the hubs player was representing, check the stats for Kramer below. It was also nice to have a little time with a dear friend and the sis.


During the halftime performance, we got to see a little dance off between the Indiana mascots.


Butler got knocked out early but Purdue Pete held his own. He made it to the finals where he lost to what I believe was the ISU mascot?


After the game we were pooped but we did manage to find a hubs look-a-like, or so he thinks anyway:


We drove the sis back home but had to make a dinner pit stop at the hubs favorite dinner location, Chilis. We consumed lots of their famous skillet queso dip. Fromt here we made our way to a friends house to dog sit and prep for the big game the next day.

Butler University President's Perspective — April 2010

As I struggle where to go next with my blog about the Final Four experience, I thought I would share an amazing email that all the Butler students & Alumni received today. I know there is lots of laughter and jokes about my expensive Butler education that float around our house and their are financial struggles every day but reading this confirms everything I believed in as a student and now as an alum. I couldn't be happier to be part of Butler University and I can only hope that people feel as connected to their Alma Mater as I do. I may not have played for this Butler basketball team, but that's ok. I feel just the same and I feel like the connections that Dr. Fong speaks of I can relate to in my own Butler Way. You can see the entire page by clicking here.

Excerpt from Dr. Bobby Fong:

"at in the midst of this week’s pandemonium you still attended classes has become a byword of how excellence in athletics and academics is compatible. College presidents have written about how your example stands for all the schools that seek to do right by their students. Commentator Pat Forde wrote this morning, “But Butler wins, too. And the maligned sport of college basketball, a greasy enterprise in recent times, wins a renewed level of nobility. And every small school wins the license to dream Butler dreams.”

"And finally, you have permanently altered the profile of your University. Vice President for Enrollment Tom Weede said, “One hundred percent of students will never apply to a university of whom they’ve never heard.” Going forward, far fewer people will ask, “In what state is Butler located?” Because of what you have done, Butler has become an example of academic and athletic excellence. Because of what you have done, in the years to come, many more students will aspire to come to Butler, some to be athletes, others to be artists, and scientists, and educators. Because of what you have done, more people will better appreciate achieving difficult things by doing the right thing, by doing them the Butler Way. "

Final Four, 1st Stop BU!

The hubs, Minne and I drove back down to Indiana Thursday post work. I say back because we were just there the weekend before, I spoke about it here.

We woke up early Friday and the hubs, my big sis (in law) and I headed to Indy to meet my girlfriend and her new beau! I just realized I didn't get any photo of this occurrence which instantly made me super sad ::sigh::

After some yummy coffee at Starbucks, the hubs, his sister and I made our way to Butler University. I should add, my hubs went to Purdue and his sister to Indiana University, so we are Team Indiana School all the way. Our first stop once we arrived on campus was to visit the Butler Bookstore. Licencing for Butler gear is strict so finding items to suit our needs could only be done here. We did quite a bit of shopping as you can see here (you would be amazed at how many items can fit into each of those big bags):



Outside of the Bookstore was an awesome good luck banner for the Bulldogs, I had to sign it:


Right after we saw the banner we notice a boy setting up a table with lots of Bulldogs "decorated" and some plain. I asked what they were doing and he said that they were in a business class working on a business project. I looked at the hubs and said, can we buy one? His response was that we just spent lots of money in the bookstore so did we really need a stuffed animal. I obviously said yes, so we ended up with BlueGirl:


The last time the big sis was on campus, she recalled the star fountain, so we made a quick stop there. To our surprise we saw that all the fountains were filled with blue water! It was fun till the wind kicked in and the hubs and I got sprayed, hence the super goofy photo. When we brought Minne girl down, all she cared about was the food she could smell from Atherton, hahaha:



The next stop at Butler was a "Butler Have To Do" we made our way to the bulldog statue in front of Atherton to get some photos. Minne girl didn't make the trip down with us Thursday, but over the course of the weekend she got her photo op too:



From here, we crossed the street over to the Kappa house, since my sis in law was a Kappa at IU, it was only fitting to check out the Butler chapter. She immediately fell in love with the Kappa Bulldog outside the house:


While we were at Butler with Minne, we went to try to get a photo with one of the custom bricks that Butler sold when they did the construction on the new rec center.My awesome parents got me one as part of my graduation gift, cool right? Unfortunately, it started pouring so we didn't get the brick photo and Minne didn't have many photo ops on campus. However, she loved looking out the window as we drove into campus, especially at the TKE house. It must have been those loud boys hahah

Still Stalling

Ahh I need more time to get you the recaps of the Final Four Festivities that you deserve.

Check out Butler's very own, Blue II. He has his own blog and gave an awesome recap from the festivities from his view right here!

Photo found here



And another found here

Bulldawg Videos to Make You Smile

While I try to buy myself some time on getting my recaps together from this weekends festivities, here's some great video clips.

The hubs and I were at Hinkle to witness this live


Blue 2 takes on Sparty!


This is in response to "Too Big Yo" which can be heard here

It's 7am and I Want To Go To Bed

As many of you know this weekend was an incredible weekend to be a Butler Alumni. I have so many photos and wonderful stories to share with you about our family trip to the Final Four in Indianapolis. I just don't know when I'll get to it. The hubs, Minne and I strolled into our home around 4 am, hit the bed for a few hours and got up just in time to make it to work. I am living on an Iced Grande Skinny French Vanilla Latte from Starbucks and plan on jumping to Redbull next. This week is a busy week between events at the United Center and Banana Republic. I promise I will update you as soon as I can.

In the meantime, hop on over to my girl laura's blog. I have no doubt that she will do some great recapping before I have the chance.

Real anxious

Photo from Blue2 himself, found here


I am writing this post a few days early. I know that a few minutes before game time my nervousness for tonight's game will be multiplied to the max. If tonight's game is anything like the games from the Elite 8 and the Sweet 16, I am guessing my stomache will be in knots, my limbs will be jittery, I may be struggling to keep myself from getting physically sick and my eyes will be watering with a mix of excitement and sickness all at the same time. I can only imagine how the players are handling the pressure of their first ever Final Four in their home city. If you're a friend of mine, please be a friend of the dawgs and send all your good luck wishes to their hometown, Indianapolis.

Cheers,