South Bend Adventures

Now that I'm finally done blogging about our trip to Europe, I can blog about what we did the rest of the year! 2012 is officially over and it's time for me to play catch up.

October 19th and 20th David and I ended up in South Bend to see the BYU vs. Notre Dame game. David had to fly into Chicago and I drove out with T&B (the in laws) and bro-in-law, Michael and we picked David up when we drove by Chicago.

This is the only pic I have of our uneventful drive there. Iowa. What a terrible state. We stopped and a rest stop and the smell of pig feces was so overpowering that you could hardly breath. When we all made it back in the car I noticed the smell was not going away. I smelled my hair and gagged. Everyones hair smelled like pig feces. All I could do was stick my head out of the window and let the cleaner air down the freeway try to whisk it away. I hate Iowa.

After we picked up David south of Chicago we got to our hotel about an hour outside of South Bend. We spent the night and headed out to SB early so Tom could revel in the College Football Hall of Fame.

I was more interested in this shop right next door.

While people were in the museum I snuck over to look at what "they" claimed was the world's largest chocolate store. It was large, but not nearly what I thought it would be like. They did however make a good hot chocolate and serve huge solid chocolate slabs on their brownies.

Back at the hall of fame David was excited to EAT STATE.

and hold the football up for Michael to score an extra point.

This area where you could throw and kick the football was fun.

And we enjoyed learning about the bands.

BYU and Nebraska side by side. A match made in McCune heaven.

Soon it was off to Notre Dame's campus. It was super pretty. We went to the bookstore (holy crowded) and one of the cathedrals.

We stopped by the grotto to offer prayers and light a candle about the game with all the Notre Dame fans. Just kidding. We just watched...and talked on cell phones.

Then we headed over to see the band play and see the band get inspected by these guys in kilts.

It was at this point in the day that I bit into a caramel and a crown popped off. Lovely. Luckily I didn't swallow it. David and I found a bathroom (were let into a dorm bathroom by a nice drunk Notre Dame student) and I rinsed off the tooth and put it back on. It didn't hurt after that. Later that night (after calling our dentist) we bought some temp tooth cement at a Walgreens and I glued the crown back on until I could go to the dentist back in Omaha. I didn't even know they sold tooth cement at stores! Very handy. Worked like a charm.

At the game in our seats. One Notre Dame fan behind us got really mad a David for cheering for BYU. Really mad. After the game all the Notre Dame fans around us were apologizing for the guy. Everyone was super nice.

BYU did okay for little bit, then imploded as usual for this season.

After the game.

That night we started the drive back, but David and I got dropped off at a hotel by the Chicago airport instead of going back to Nebraska. David had a "surprise" trip planned for me for my birthday that we were leaving for the next morning. So exciting! I say "surprise" because I had figured out where he was taking me long before going. I was right too...but was still surprised by something. Find out in the next post!