Let's Go Jackets!

Disclaimer: cell phone pictures in this post. Some are pretty blurry.

The W. family got a very nice surprise tonight in the form of free hockey tickets! Duane and I have talked about taking the boys to a game for quite a while, but when even the upper bowl tickets run close to $50, it's hard to justify taking the kids. However, when Uncle Doug offered us four lower bowl tickets for this evening, we jumped at the opportunity.

Wesley and Ryan were so excited about going. They were shouting "Blue Jackets!" on the way to the arena. Wesley practically sprinted from the parking lot to the arena. Ryan hitched a ride on Daddy's shoulders, and exclaimed "I'm even bigger than my brother Danny!"  Um...here I thought Wesley was his brother and Danny was his buddy. Guess Danny is a brother from another mother.

As soon as we entered the arena we crossed paths with some of the Jackets girls/ Power Patrol girls. They gave Wesley and Ryan each a balloon - which turned out to be a blessing and a curse. The boys LOVED the balloons, but they turned them into weapons throughout the game.



We pigged out on arena food

Watched some of the game

And generally had a great time. For me, there were two highlights of the night. The first came when the Jackets scored their first goal. The arena erupted into cheers, the buzzer went off and a moment later, the cannon fired. Wesley looked utterly terrified for brief moment. I was fairly certain he was about to pee his pants. It was so over the top it was comical. Luckily he didn't freak out nearly as badly when they scored their second goal.

The other highlight came when Wesley decided to give his balloon to the baby sitting in the row in front of us. For several minutes following the exchange, Wesley make faces at the baby boy and talked sweet to him. It was so cute. I'm not sure I've ever met a six-year-old boy who loves babies as much as Wesley does.

We made it to the second intermission before deciding it was time to leave. After all, it is a school night. We all sprinted to the car and Ryan wore his balloon hat the whole way home. What a great treat tonight turned out to be.