FSU vs. UF

There is no better way to kick off the holiday season and to close out football season than with the ever anticipated FSU vs. UF game. This is one intense rivalry of which FSU has been rather unsuccessful in the last 6 years. However, a new football era has begun at Florida State and what better way to kick it off than by breaking the Gators 6 year winning streak. I hate trash talking football fans, no matter what the team. I even get mad at FSU fans who are trash talking in the stands because its just rude. Just cheer for your own team and leave everyone else alone. Anyways, I put up with trash talking from friends and other random people who for some reason think that its entertaining to make a comment about how the Seminoles suck to me just because I'm wearing an FSU shirt. Yet, for some reason I can put up with trash talking from adults, but not kids. Since I teach in Jacksonville (pretty much the breeding ground for Gator fans) most of my students are Gator fans. If you think being taunted about your team by an adult is bad, try being taunted about it by a 12 year old. So after our big win on Saturday who was I most excited to brag to it about? My students. I didn't even say anything to them about it. All I did was hang my little score poster from the game in my classroom and wear my FSU shirt to school on Monday. So I quietly and gracefully flaunted our victory, and of course my students still managed to come up with a thousand reasons as to why FSU apparently still sucks. Not that I paid attention to them or even cared, as no one could ruin my Seminole victory bliss :)

We headed to Tallahassee on Friday night and it was quite the adventure. I am normally a big fan of diesel trucks (like Jared's F-250); however, I am not a fan of them when you are almost out of diesel and there is no gas station that has diesel in sight. Jared and I were driving along I-10 through Madison County in a pitch black rain shower. If you have ever driven on I-10, you would recognize Madison as that huge stretch of highway where there is literally nothing. So we are driving along (apparently running low on diesel...a fact unknown to me) and we pass an exit with a truck stop and Jared gets mad that we missed the exit because we are running really low. After a few miles of nothing we come to an exit with one gas station, but that gas station doesn't carry diesel so we keep driving. We see a sign for the next exit; it is 16 miles away and we have 18 miles left of diesel. We get to the exit and pull in the gas station, no diesel. So I tell Jared to go inside and ask where we can get some diesel. The clerk tells us to go 2 miles down this county road and over the railroad tracks. We start driving down this pitch black road in the middle of nowhere and I start feeling like I am in a Stephen King novel. Thankfully, after what felt like the longest 2 miles of my life we crossed the railroad tracks and I saw the sign for diesel. I have never been so happy to see a gas station in my entire life.

After that mild heart attack, we made our way to Tallahassee. Of course, once we arrived in Tallahassee it was off to Ken's. We were lucky to get to Ken's early enough that it wasn't exploding with people yet. We met up with our normal tailgating crew and kicked off our football weekend festivities!

 
Saturday began with a gameday wake up call from Mark as usual. We started our tailgating early, around 9:30am and it was only 40 degrees outside. Bundled up and ready to tailgate, we kicked off with our typical gameday festivities of mimosas and cornhole. Erika and I were on a cornhole team together and needless to say, we dominated. Team Roche!

In honor of our dear friends from the University of Florida, we decided to cook up some gator meat as the main course for our tailgate :) So Jared and I were in charge of bringing our deep fryer (yes we own a deep fryer, don't act shocked) to fry up the gator. However, Jared being the tailgating-over-doer that he his decided that he was going to make gator nuggets, chicken nuggets, and hushpuppies.

Mark and Jared battered and prepared all the meat and hushpuppies. Finally, it was time for frying!

Hot from the fryer, all the food was delicious! Everyone at the tailgate enjoyed it so much that there was none left, especially the fried gator :)

As our final tailgate of the season came to a close, it was almost gametime. We headed to the game early becasue the game was sold out and we wanted to see the traditional kickoff festivities. FSU provided "Go Noles" signs and pom poms for everyone at the game. I must say, I was furiously shaking my pom pom for the entire game. Although the game was super crowded, we had a great time. The Seminole fans were awesome, standing and cheering for the entire game, the stadium was roaring. Even though the game wasn't that close in score, I was on edge the entire time. I couldn't believe that it was actually happening, we were winning, and I was so excited. 

At the end of the game, Seminole fans were ecstatic! There was hugging, crying, cheering and fireworks. The players even ran over to the stands and were hugging and high-fiving the fans.

We bombarded the lady selling the score posters because we all had to have one! Then we headed back to our tailgating spot for some celebrating.

After the traffic died down, we went to El Jalisco for some mexican and margaritas. Afterward, while the rest of Tallahassee was partying, we went home and rested from a long day of tailgating.

The next morning, we joined Mark, Christina and Matt at Po'Boys for some brunch and enjoyed the glorious photos in the Sunday morning newspaper. We went to the toy store (aka: Garnet and Gold) before leaving town for some new Seminole goodies :)

Overall, we had a fantastic weekend. With another Seminole victory and trip to the ACC Championship this upcoming weekend, its a great day to be a Seminole! Go Noles :)