XLIV (part IV)

So after we realized that we were going to win, Ryan headed down to the field to take some pics of the post-game celebration!!

Before he ran down, he snapped a quick pic of me--needless to say we were SOOOO excited!

everyone was beyond excited:

this is one of our coaches, and his son who also works for the saints!

One of the College Scouts with all the confetti--the colors of the superbowl were blue and orange, as was the confetti--but it did have silver confetti mixed in that was in the shape of the lombardi trophy!

Mike Bell (any many other players) were videotaping all the celebration!

I think the pics Ryan got of Drew and his son are the sweetest and best!

Our owner (Tom Benson) with the Monday headline of The Times Picayune (New Orleans newspaper)

Coach Payton, headed to locker room with the Lombardi trophy!

Locker room celebration!

After the game, we headed back to the hotel for the team after party!  We had an entire floor of the hotel, and it was awesome!! We had a great time, but were pretty much partied out at about 3am and headed to bed!  Sadly we missed Kenny Chesney singing with Coach Payton about 3:30 am!  (honestly though, if you would have told me then Kenny was coming out in 30 minutes, I still would have went to bed--we were that tired!)

There were tons of these huge ice sculptures everywhere holding the cold food!

There was also several sushi stations, and carving stations--the food was wonderful!!!

I had at least 4 plates that looked like this--yummy-my favorite foods!

Probably my favorite thing from the party--they already had superbowl champ coke!! They had a few at the after party, and said they wold be making and selling it soon--can't wait to get some more!

Ryan & I--this was about 2am or 14 hours into our day of festivities--needless to say we look a little rough!

One of the scouts was already wearing his championship attire!

This probably shows how "uncool" I am, but I had no idea who half the "celebrities" there were...I did however know James Carville, and Harry Connick, Jr. But I had no idea who will.i.@m was until I saw all the players getting pictures with him, and had to ask someone who he was! ha!

no idea who this is ;)
**update: it's remi ayodele:one of the saints players!! 

shockey! and scott fujita is just back to his right:

one of the bands--again I have no idea who it was--better than ezra I think?? they were good!

finally back home, and it was nice to see all the signs on the causeway headed back to mandeville:

...or the "brees way" as it was renamed

We really did have so much fun!  It still hasn't sunk in yet!  Sadly both Porter and I are under the weather, so we can't make the parade, but Ryan just left with the camera so hopefully he'll get some good pics!   He gets to ride in it, so I know he'll have a great time!

Go Saints!!  It'll be a season we never forget!

XLIV (part III)

It was so exciting when we finally got to the game, and to our seats.  That's when the nerves really started to set in though!  Ryan had a field pass, and he sat with me in the stands, but went down pre and post game to take some pics for me! (He even took my big camera!! And after about 5 minutes of a quick this is how you use it, he took some great pics--it's not the easiest camera to use, and I didn't put in on manual for him, so I was very impressed!!)

Some pics of pre-game warm ups:

Emmitt Smith was just elected into the Hall of Fame and was recognized on the field with the other inductees and was down on the field pre-game as well:

A picture of most of the college scouts down on the field before the game:

I was in charge of pictures during the game, and honestly didn't get that many!  I was too nervous, and busy watching the game!

Here's a few though:

team running out:

flyover:

During the game, there were lots of stoppages in play for tv timeouts and of course half time was about twice as long.  During the 4th qtr there was a 2 point conversion play that we thought we didn't get--we were actually really close, and it looked like we didn't get it!  Well they went to commercial, and I called my dad since it was pretty quiet at that point...he answers the phone saying, "that was 2 points! they're going to overturn it!"  I didn't even know what he was talking about!! About that time, they put up "coaches challenge" on the big screen!  Noone in the stadium knew!  We felt a lot better after that, and then the interception!!

XLIV (part II)

We left New Orleans on Thursday headed to Miami! We were able to ride the charter down, so it was a quick non-stop flight!  On Thursday night, the team had a welcome party for the friends and family that flew down that day at the hotel pool!  It was a lot of fun, but a little chilly!  The pool area was on the roof, in between two buildings and it was WINDY! I mean, it was at least blowing 30-40 mph it seemed...so needless to say I didn't get many pictures!  But it was fun, and a lot of the players were there with their families!

Here is the one pic I took (I took it when we were leaving, so the "s" and "a" had melted already!):

And here is the team hotel, which was all decked out in Saints stuff everywhere!

 

At first, when we were riding the busses in, I thought it was weird that there were only Saints billboards all through Miami ??!  Then we found out that the Colts team was staying in Ft. Lauderdale, and they actually flew into that airport as well.  When we went to Ft. Lauderdale Friday night for the NFL Comissioner's party, it was only Colt's billboards!  It was really neat how they had both teams completely seperated (even down to all the billboards and signs on the interstates!)

On Friday night, we got to go to the NFL Commisioner's party, which was held in Ft. Lauderdale.  Besides our bus driver getting LOST on the way there, it was a great party!!  It really was a lot of fun!  I didn't bring my big camera (I was in a cocktail dress, and Ryan was wearing a suit, so I just brought the little one ;)), so my pics aren't that great:

The Pointer Sisters were the entertainment and they were awesome!  I coudln't believe it was actually them, since they looked really young!

I wish I had gotten more pics of the food, it was great!  They had tons of mini stations set up throughout with different regions food (New York was a deli with sandwiches and Coney Dogs, Japen had sushi, and then there was Mexican, Cuban, Indian, etc....TONS of food!)

On Saturday, the Scouts and their families met down at our pool area, for some relaxing fun! 

Ryan and the some of the other Scouts (a few are missing from this pic):

Ryan & I:

(again, it was WINDY between the buildings--and I quickly put my jacket back on after this pic!)

Don't get me wrong, I loved the weather in miami, but 80 degrees there seemed a lot cooler than here! (I was wrapped up in a towel about 2 seconds after I took this pic ;))

 

Late Saturday afternoon, we headed down to South Beach to walk around and eat.

I was not really a fan of SB...we couldn't really find anywhere nice to eat, so we ended up coming back to eat!  But there were a few neat things over there:

(football sculptures: I LOVED the Saints one, of course)

We actually ordered room service and rented a movie in the hotel Saturday night, since we knew Sunday was going to be a LONG day!!  It was great!!

Game day Morning

superbowl tickets:

A few hours before the game, there was a family/friends tailgate!  It was a lot of fun!  Sadly Ryan deleted most of the pictures that I took of it :(  I can't be too mad, since I forgot to get a larger memory card and he DID take my camera down to the field post-game to get pics for me! But here is the ONE that he didn't delete!

After the tailgate, we boarded 38!!! buses and headed to the stadium...the seperated us into 2 groups, and we were the lead bus in the 2nd group, so we were in a police escorted convoy of about 15 buses.  The escort could only take us to the stadium exit then they were not allowed to escort us any further.  So we get to the first stadium exit and traffic is backed up...our driver (which was the lead bus driver--since we were bus #1) gets on his cell phone with someone and we get back out of traffic on the interstate and proceed to the next exit...driver is still on phone at this point and everything seems a bit confused!  We hear him yelling about what exit to take and it looks like we're taking the last stadium exit when he quickly swerves the bus back onto the interstate (I seriously thought we were going to tip over and crash!!).  Yep, you guessed it that was supposed to be the exit we were taking!! So we end up driving about 20 more minutes NORTH away from the stadium, and ended up in Hollywood, FL.  We ended up being so lucky that all the Scouts were on our bus, and one of the Scouts actually LIVES in Miami!  He actually had to go sit in the front with the bus driver and get us back to the stadium!!  Needless to say it was an adventure!  But it was all worth it when we got to the stadium (finally--we just took a 45 min detour!):

XLIV (part I)!!!

WE WON THE SUPERBOWL!!!  

I don't think it's sunk in yet!  We are waaayyyy too sleep deprived to fully appreciate it!!  We were at the team post-party until about 3am (and who knows how long it lasted--we missed Kenny Chesney and Coach Payton singing by about 45 minues =)), then were back home in Mandeville less than 12 hours later!  So needless to say, we need some sleep!

I have tons of pictures, and stories from the week to post!  I really want to be able to remember everything, so I'll try and do several posts with some of the things/events we went to in the next few days before I forget!

But I'm probably about to fall over typing right now, so here's my favorite pic that my sweet husband took (he had a field pass so he was so nice to take my rather large camera and take pictures for us)

***and I just have to say one thing from today: Kim K@rdashian was on our family/friend charter flight back to New Orleans, and it is so not fair that she looked AMAZING on no sleep, while the rest of us were struggling! And, she has got to be the tiniest person up close (she sat two rows in front of us)! I always thinks she looks so big in pics, so I would hate to see how I would look!!

miami, here we come!

We (Ryan & I--sadly Porter will not be making the trip!) are getting ready to head to Miami tomorrow morning for a fun 4 days and SUPERBOWL XLIV!!

I am bringing both of my cameras, and my video camera, so I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures to post (and hopefully some pics of the Saints with the Lombardi trophy;))

south beach

i heart starkville

Ryan had to make a quick trip to Starkville last weekend, and he let me & Porter tag along!  Even though we weren't even there 24 hours, we had a great time! I really miss living there!!

This was the highlight of the trip:

Porter got his Christmas present from Yaya, and needless to say he LOVES it!  We take his 'puter EVERYWHERE and he has slept with it every night since he got it =)

he had a hard time deciding between the computer and saturday morning cartoons!

Porter LOVES Emilia & John (even if he doesn't always love having his picture taken)

he also LOVES Coley =)

not sure if Coley feels the same way, but Porter loves giving hugs!

I'm hoping that Porter and I can take another trip back when Ryan heads to the Combine in a few weeks...especially since I didn't get to eat at about 5 places I wanted to!!