Homecoming

Last weekend was the University's homecoming.  Like everything down here that has to do with football, it was a pretty big deal.  Though the evening started with a couple cranky kids, we decided to brave the crowds on the quad to attend the festivities.

First was the pep-rally on the steps of the main administrative building in the quad.  The band, cheerleaders and dancers performed for hundreds of people standing around watching while university administration and football staff revved up the crowd.  

As you can imagine the pep-rally wasn't very exciting for a two-year-old, so we squeezed through the crowds to the big open field where he could run around with others his age while waiting for the bonfire.    Needless to say, the bonfire was the main attraction!  Our whole family enjoyed it.  It was HUGE.  The fire department lit it with giant blow torches.  The crowd had to stand back at least 50 feet, but you still feel the immense heat radiating from it on the cool evening.

The fraternities and sororities pair together and create these floats for the saturday afternoon parade but they display them in front of the sorority houses (on "sorority row") the night of the bonfire.  They were pretty impressive. 

 Some were made out of the traditional tissue paper pom-poms, but many were made with these little balls of tissue paper (I had never seen these before). The detail was amazing!

 We didn't make it to the parade or game on Saturday because we were busy picking up Grandma W from the airport and spending time with her instead.  Totally worth it!!!  We had an amazing time with her.  Plus, we've got many years to come for UA homecoming.