The Big Date

Jared had wanted to surprise me on the night of our big date, but since certain arrangements have to be made for things like that, he had to tell me a couple of days before Valentine's Day. He had been trying to arrange this date for months. Things kept falling through. This time, however, it was going to work out. He has connections to a Utah Jazz ball boy, who could get us some super sweet seats! PLUS we would be eating dinner downstairs in the V.I.P. Room. It was going to be so fun!

The day of the game, it was windy. Like, CRAZY windy. One of those winds that feels like it's trying to blow your minivan right off I-15. I just kept thinking, "hopefully we'll be able to park pretty close." No such luck on that one! It took us a little bit to find a spot to park, then it was a bit of a walk. We were meeting Jared's friend and his daughter about a block away from the Energy Solutions Arena, and I seriously thought my hair was going to blow off my head! Things weren't looking too promising as far as the "sweet seats" go, but we weren't going to let that get us down. They don't know until right before the game whether the tickets are a sure thing or not, and apparently a lady who was with the opposing team, had asked for a TON of tickets, which meant that there may possibly not be anymore of those close seats left for us. We had bought upper bowl tickets just in case that happened, and it was looking like we were going to be hanging out in the rafters. Luckily, dinner was super delish. Our dinner tickets allowed us to eat in the V.I.P room with a really yummy buffet, and the opportunity to come back down during half-time for snacks.

After dinner, we headed up to our nose-bleed seats, but found out that the ball boy had gotten two tickets. Jared's friend and his daughter would take them for the first half, then when we met at half-time for snacks, we would take them. The view from the top is CRAZY! And I don't mean crazy awesome, I mean crazy as in "How many miles up are we?" We were literally on the very back row. (Obviously, only two of the pictures in this collage were taken from the upper seats. The other two were from our close seats!)

After a quick snack back down in the V.I.P room, we headed back upstairs... thankfully not as FAR upstairs this time. The seats were pretty good. Nice and close (which is more than we can say for the final score. The Jazz ended up losing... but what's new this year? It's kinda sad!) We still had a fun time. This was Deron Williams' last game at the Energy Solutions Arena. Shortly after this game was the All Star Game, then he got traded to New Jersey.

I'm kinda like a kid when it comes to the Jazz Bear. I love seeing the crazy things he does, and I just think that whoever is inside that costume has a pretty fun job. Not one that I could ever do, but seriously he must have the time of his life. I would prefer the job of the Jazz Dancers, personally. It looks fun, but you would never catch me in any of their little outfits!!

It was fun, even though the Jazz lost. Jared and I have had some fun times attending basketball games this year. But... I love hanging out with Jared no matter what we are doing. He just makes things fun. We did get a phone call at one point from our kids, asking us where all the flashlights were. The storm was bad, and the power was out in Lehi. They were afraid it might happen at our house, too. Luckily the power stayed on for them. It was a mega-blizzard when we went outside to walk to our car. There was already about a foot of snow on the ground, so we called the kids to let them know that we were on our way, but that it might take a while since the storm was pretty bad. We made it home okay, and the kids had survived the storm and were sound asleep.

Thanks for the fun/crazy/unpredictible date, Jared. I love being with you no matter where we are or what we are doing ;)