The Orange and Jackie Bowl

During the last week of my brother's Christmas visit (he spent two weeks in South Florida), he planned for our family and several buddies to go to the Orange Bowl in Miami since Clemson made it through the ACC Championships this year! We were excited since we hadn't seen them play in over 5 years probably. It's weird being surrounded by so much team spirit for so many years since my childhood and college days were in and around Clemson, and then to be away from it. At first you resent the cheesy-ness of it all and then you love it and it's so much part of the social culture. Anyway - Brandon hooked it up to say the least so that we could all go and watch the game from a fancy super fun and nice club level box at the stadium. As you can see - it was a fantastic and very comfortable view. What made it even better was our friend, Jackie, was able to come down for a few days to come to the game with us. It was so awesome to see my ole college roommate - though - to be honest - we speak almost every week so in some regards, she doesn't feel so far away-ish as some people in SC to me feel. Jackie and I started the day off by making festive cookies (and quickly realizing that neither of us was yet seasoned in sugar cookie decorating, but regardless it was fun) and getting the tailgate items ready. On our way to the stadium, we picked up our always fun friend, Keith, had lunch, and then headed down and got to the parking lot around 3pm to meet up with some of Brandon's other pals and co-workers. We hung out and checked out the pre-game party onsite (where I clearly found and purchased the most awesome tiger hat EVER). My parents arrived late afternoon, and then we all went to the box to start getting comfy...we had an amazing time that day. We even got to see Train perform during the halfway time which was pretty fun actually. Unfortunately the long tailgating paired with the not so wonderful plays by Clemson and subsequent loss made it hard to sit through the whole game. I think we left halfway through the 4th quarter because we were just so sad and tired by that point and Jackie had an early flight in the morning. No late night club after party us haha. Wonderful time and wonderful people to say the least. Thanks to Brandon for setting the entire event up for us! And please notice that this may be the most times Brandon has EVER smiled in pictures during one event. WHOA!