Peyton's 1st Football Season

This weekend kicked off Peyton's very 1st football season. Peyton was technically around, just in utero, during last football season. She even went to the National Championship game! Football season is basically our favorite season here in the Roche household. It's a big deal. Especially when you are the reigning National Champs! I am most excited about spending this time of the year with Peyton, dressing her up in adorable garnet and gold outfits and teaching her how to cheer on the Noles! I can't wait to take Peyton to her first game in Doak Campbell Stadium, but that probably won't be until next year.

Last night, FSU played Oklahoma State at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Surprisingly, it was a pretty close game, but luckily the Noles pulled out a win 37-31. The win was exciting, but I'm not going to lie, my favorite part was getting Peyton all dressed up for the game. Does that make me a boring old lady? Oh well. Mommy problems.

Peyton and I just watched the game at home with Grandma DeeDee and Auntie Erika. I didn't want to mess up Peyton's bedtime routine since the game was starting so late. Therefore, the girls opted to stay home and play with Miss P while watching the game and the boys went to Ale House. My how our Gamedays sure have changed over the years. Don't worry, I enjoyed a few pumpkin beers for good measure. Some things will never change.

Peyton loved watching the game...yes, we broke the rules and let her watch the TV...but FSU games are an exception. We even taught her how to do the Chop! That game was a little too close for comfort, but thankfully we managed to squeeze out a win. I'm so excited that college football is finally back! Yesterday was wonderful and I can already feel the glorious goodness of fall in the air.

Thank you to mommy's Phi Mu little sister, Elisa, for our adorable Gameday outfit!

Peyton's new friend, Cimarron. 

Daddy's little girl loves the Seminoles too!

Peyton's says, "turn me around, I want to watch my Noles play!"

Happy Football Season and Go Noles!

BCS National Championship

This has been a very exciting season for our 'Noles and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to go to the BCS National Championship game this year! I'm so glad that the game was in the Rose Bowl so that we got to experience attending a game in this historic stadium. Plus, it was a good excuse for a little vacation to California.

The Rose Bowl actually seems pretty small considering it is such an important stadium. It also has poor acoustics so it wasn't really that loud in there compared to other college football stadiums I've attended games in. I did enjoy the atmosphere of it though especially since it was the 100 year anniversary of the Rose Bowl. It was a stadium that I have always wanted to visit and now I get to check it off my list!

I have encountered a lot of college football fans in my day, some good and some very, very bad. I must say that I was absolutely impressed with the Auburn fans. Not once the entire time we were in Pasadena did I encounter a single rude or disrespectful Auburn fan. In fact, tons of Auburn fans came up to us after the game and congratulated us on a good game. Now, that's good sportsmanship. I'm sure there are probably some obnoxious ones out there just like there are at every other school, but I didn't run across a single one while I was there. After the game, we walked back towards downtown Pasadena in a huge crowd all mixed of Auburn and FSU fans. I thought this was going to be a recipe for disaster. However, I was shocked that no one said anything rude to any other fans. We all just walked together in a perfectly civil manner. That's the way college football should be. Just because you are drunk and your team just won or lost, doesn't give you the right to act like an arrogant a-hole to the other fans. I was really impressed by the respectful attitudes displayed by both FSU and Auburn fans at this game. It made for a great gameday experience.

We purchased tickets to an FSU alumni tailgate which ended up being a great deal because it was all you could eat and drink and the area was really nice for tailgating. Considering there were 10,000 people there, the FSU Alumni Association did a great job of coordinating the entire event. I never had to wait in a single line for food, drinks or the bathroom. They had plenty of facilities for everything.

I loved having the mountains in the backdrop of the stadium and our tailgate. Such a cool view. 

The first half of the game was pretty rough. I was getting a little nervous thinking about how if we lose this game then I just flew 3,000 miles for my husband to be in a bad mood for the rest of our trip. Luckily, things started to turn around for us late in the game, but it wasn't until the very last second of the game that I felt relieved. The excitement and joy of such a big win was so overwhelming. After so many disappointing seasons as an FSU fan, it's great to finally be on top!

I am so thrilled that the 'Noles will be #1 when baby girl makes her grand entrance into this world. Plus, how many people can say that they attended their very first National Championship game in utero? Probably very few. I kept saying all season long how baby girl was our Seminole good luck charm and that we were going to go all the way this year undefeated. Looks like I was right :) Go Noles!

FSU Homecoming

We went to Tallahassee this past weekend for FSU Homecoming. While I was excited about going to the football game, I was most excited about getting to see my Phi Mu sisters! FSU beat Syracuse 59-3 on Saturday, they are still undefeated, and still ranked #2 in the country. Go Noles!

Reunited with my Phi Mu family!

Only 4/9 of our Phi Mu family actually. One of these days we will all be together at the same time. 

Everyone had fun meeting the bump! Prom posing with my great-great-great-grand-little Kate!

With my grand-little Chelsea! The bump is very popular at tailgates :) 

Our final football season as Roche, party of 2!

Ava's 1st Birthday

We spent this past weekend in Ft. Lauderdale celebrating our friends, The McGuires, and their daughter Ava! Her birthday was on Saturday, November 2nd which also happened to be the day of the FSU vs. Miami football game, so of course we had to celebrate with a gameday brunch in her honor.

Before the party started, I was given the last minute task of "sprucing up" the bar stool that was going to be used as Ava's birthday chair. A little tulle and about 10 minutes later...Ava was ready to party from her birthday throne.

We had so much fun celebrating Miss Ava's first birthday with her!

After the birthday brunch, we geared up for an exciting afternoon of college football. We watched the FSU vs. Miami game that night at a local FSU sports bar free from Miami fans (which is hard to come by in South Florida). The game was fantastic! A great victory (41-14) for the Seminoles over one of our most hated rivals. FSU is now currently ranked #2 in the county and continuing on their undefeated winning streak for the season!  

Go Noles!

FSU vs. Maryland

This past weekend we made a road trip to Tallahassee to watch the Noles play! Our friends from Fort Lauderdale, The McGuires, came up to Jacksonville on Friday night to stay with us and then rode over to Tallahassee with us on Saturday for the game.

It was a noon game so we had to get up super early to make the drive over and start tailgating. Noon games mean mimosa tailgates!

We were trying to take group pictures of the girls and Mark kept messing around with the camera taking silly pictures which of course was making me pissy because I'm insane about my pictures and want to be assured that they will come out good. I'm ridiculous, I know.

 At least we got some entertaining pictures of Erika enjoying her Andre :) 

 Enjoying our 7th Florida State football season together :)

 Jared and his Kappa Sigma brothers

The game started...and we kept tailgating. We didn't feel like sitting in the noon heat in the stadium just yet, so we continued the party in the parking lot for the entire 1st quarter.

The Noles managed to defeat Maryland in a shutout 63-0! 

We enjoyed a great weekend with our friends! 

Go Noles!

Hello October

We have had a pretty awesome start to the month of October here in the Roche household! It's finally starting to look and feel like fall out there, as much as that is actually possible in Florida. Football is in full swing, FSU is 4-0 thus far this season and I am currently in 1st place in my Fantasy Football league. I've got my house covered in fall decor and my "pumpkin roll" scent in my Scentsy so it smells like non-stop fall/pumpkin/baking around here all the time. I'm a little excited for this time of year. Can you tell?

We have so many exciting things to look forward to this fall, starting with this weekend! Our friends, Mark and Christina, are coming in town to stay with us and go over to Tallahassee with us on Saturday for the FSU game vs. Maryland. There is a lot of fun to be had in the month of October on our calendar and I can't wait for the cooler weather to kick in so I can start wearing my boots! I am determined to do some fun, fall-festive activities this month as well. There are some local farms in our area that host pumpkin patches, corn mazes, fall festivals, etc. and I plan on taking full opportunity of these events. Usually by the time November rolls around, I'm disappointed because I didn't get to do a bunch of the fun, fall things that I wanted to. I love me some football, but sometimes it does get in the way. So this year, I'm researching ahead of time and planning early. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful fall! Enjoy the beautiful weather and great opportunities to get outside and have fun with your family! Happy October!

Weekend Shenanigans

This past weekend was all about football, football, and more football. Which is basically what every weekend in the fall revolves around in my household. Football and tailgating food. Forget "holiday weight", I have to deal with "football season weight". This means that I pack on the extra pounds not just during the holidays, but from September to January. Thank goodness football season and bikini season don't overlap.

On Saturday, I made sure I was up by 9am so I could watch College Gameday...from my bed. Then we spent the day watching a variety of other college games leading up to the FSU game that evening.

We had a little game watching party at Ben and Nicole's new house where we had to use ESPN 3 on our laptop and rig it up to the TV since our game was not being televised. I guess FSU vs. Bethune-Cookman was not a TV worthy match-up. I'm so glad that Jared and I decided not to go to Tallahassee for the game because it was raining there and the game was a severely boring blowout. Final Score: 54-6

Even though the game was anything but exciting, we really enjoyed spending time with our friends cheering on the Noles and eating delicious game day food.

I'm pretty sure that Jared thinks that my wanting to play Fantasy Football is the best idea I've ever had. In addition to watching college football on Saturdays (which I've always done), I now also willingly watch NFL football with him on Thursday nights, all day Sunday and Monday nights. So on Sundays, we hang out on the couch together with our laptops and watch NFL Red Zone all day. Plus, all this football watching has taught me a lot more about the game than I knew before. So now, not only does Jared have someone to watch all the games with, but someone who can actually hold an intelligent conversation about it all day as well. 

Side note: I am actually surprised at how easy it has been for me to do football season without alcohol thus far. I haven't had a single alcoholic or caffeinated beverage in 3 weeks and I haven't even felt like I wanted one at any time. It just shows what you are willing to do when you desperately want something to work. Trust me, being on the pregnancy diet when you aren't actually pregnant takes a lot of will power.  

Yesterday, I also made pulled pork in the CrockPot and it was so delicious. Don't worry there will be a blog post about this one coming soon. It was so easy to do and made enough that we have leftovers for a few days. Yummy. I hope everyone had a great weekend enjoying the beginning of fall!

FSU vs. Nevada

This weekend was the first FSU home football game of the season! Which of course meant that we had to make the trip to Tallahassee for the occasion. Even though we played Nevada and the game was a blowout, it was so awesome to be back on campus celebrating game day once again!

We are still tailgating in our same Booster lot on the top deck of the medical school parking garage. We had a pretty low-key tailgate this week and I experienced a tailgating first for myself yesterday. It was the first FSU tailgate I've ever attended where I have not had a single alcoholic beverage all day. Oh IVF, how you run my life nowadays. No worries, hopefully it will all be worth it in the end :)

Could this be our last FSU home game as Roche, party of two? I sure hope so :)  

We moved our Season Ticket seats this year and I am in love with our new seats. We are now on the home side (aka: where the rich, old people sit) and on the shady side of the stadium. Our seats were in the shade throughout the entire game and it was glorious. Plus, we are now surrounded by people who know how to act like actual adults instead of drunk a-holes. It's so much better. I guess this means we are really growing up now...when I'd rather sit with the calm, old people than with the fun, rowdy crowd at the game. It was so great to be back in Doak Campbell Stadium, especially since FSU beat Nevada 62-7. Fall is officially in full swing now and I can't wait for more fun gamedays in Tallahassee this season! Go Noles!

Fantasy Football

Jared has been participating in the phenomenon that is fantasy football for the past few years now. Neither of us are huge NFL fans, but we do love football overall so we watch it anyways. Last football season, I realized that I was spending a significant amount of my Sunday watching the NFL Red Zone channel with him while I graded papers on the couch. Since I don't have a NFL team that a cheer for (I do live in Jacksonville, but it's really hard to cheer for the Jaguars sometimes), I would cheer for the guys on Jared's fantasy roster. It was actually fun and I was sad that I didn't have a fantasy team of my own.

This past July, I came up with this crazy idea. Maybe I should start my own fantasy league for this season? I knew the boys would never let me join their league so I would have to recruit people for my own league. Were my girlfriends going to think that this was a totally weird and stupid idea? So I asked Jared's fraternity brother's wives, friends, and my sister-in-law if they wanted to join me. Everyone was eager to get on board even though they had no clue what they were doing. No problem. I had no idea what the heck I was doing either and I'm the commissioner of our league. 

The eight of us created our league "Belles of the Ball" and prepped ourselves for a great season. 

I think we were all a little apprehensive when it came time for our draft. However, once it got rolling we were having a great time. Even though we were all in our separate houses, it felt like we were all together. Drafting on our laptops, group texting some smack talk back and forth, snap chatting pictures of our draft beverages (giant glasses of wine) and our draft assistants (fur babies) while our husbands sat by and offered their advice or mocked us when we made poor draft choices.

It really was a good time. Especially because we are literally playing for fun, not really competitively. We have no money on the line in our league. The buy in for our league is a bottle of wine so at the end of the season, the winner of our league will have 8 bottles of wine bestowed upon her. Now that's one heck of a deal.

As this is the first week of the season, I am already so excited for what is to come. This crazy idea of mine might turn into an annual tradition!

My first match-up this week is Jared's sister. We're only one game into the week and her and I are already all tied up. I'm a little nervous about setting the rest of my line up, but for once I am actually excited for Sunday afternoon to get here! 

Grab a fall-festive beer and enjoy your weekend full of football!