I think we have a winner. Calli has decided Ole Miss is the place for her to spend her college life. We visited it in May and she liked the campus, liked the big greek life, liked the people and felt like it was as good of a place to call home as she was going to find. The reason Ole Miss was even an option is because she had followed their cheer program for a while and really liked it. Her 2 requirements were 1. Has to have a good game day environment and 2. has to have cute uniforms. I think a 3rd would be to have a competitive team. Ole Miss has all 3.
But before she tries out in May, I wanted her to see a game day experience so she could know if she really wanted to cheer. What better game to go to then the Ole Miss versus A&M game? We were delayed in planning this trip because we had to see if Willis was going to make the playoffs. About 1 month prior we determined that wasn't going to happen which freed up the entire weekend for us. My sister wanted to go and Calli's friend Mallory. Mallory's sister Madison goes to Ole Miss and a friend of Calli's. Mallory is a Junior and is also thinking she may want to attend there. Because flights were outrageous...we loaded up the car and drove the 9.5 hours to the cute little town of Oxford.
We met Madison at her cottage and all loaded in the car to get something to eat. My friend had told me about this great place called Taylor's Grocery. ITs' known to be packed on the weekends but Madison said it was good and she could get us there. Well she took us to someplace else and I just played along. The food was still good and it was fun catching up with Madison. I knew quickly that I didn't have to worry about any mischievous college behavior that weekend. Madison is sweet, focused and a great young lady to be a role model for Calli.
We dropped the girls back off at Madison's where they were going to stay both nights and my sister and I drove 30 minutes to where we were staying. It was a strange set up but ended up being ok. We were laughing because we thought we might get kidnapped or chopped up by our guests. In this arrangement you share a common living space with what could be the guests in the 4 other rooms. In our case we only had one other guest who had spread out in the commons area but wasn't home when we got in. So we unlocked our room and tucked ourselves in for the night. The next day our guests had already left by the time we got up and left about 10 AM. We were gone all day and came home after the game. When we walked in our new friends were watching tv on the couch and had eyes of saucers when they saw us walk in. They had no idea we had been staying with them and had no idea of the arrangement. We chatted and laughed for a few minutes but got in our room and got to bed fairly quickly so we could make our drive back the next day
We met the girls for lunch on the square in Oxford and did a little shopping. It's a really cute town and Aggies were everywhere checking out the sights as well.
We got our picture in the famous telephone booth on the square because you really haven't lived until you've done that right?
I loved this girl and am thankful for her influence on Calli over the last 4 years. It was good to see them reunited again.
Christina and I made our way to campus early and walked around. It really is a pretty campus. And we also made our way to the grove. We had planned to meet the girls at the spot where the cheerleaders make an appearance for the football players and then do a performance. We found the spot and did some people watching while we waited for the girls. And instead of the girls coming, torrential rains came. It started pouring.....and apparently just as the girls were getting in the car to come our way. We met a nice Rebel Alum who let us hang out in his tent. The girls joined us although Calli was bitter. lol. They ended up diverting the football players and the cheerleaders did minimal cheering so we didn't get the true experience we were hoping for. But we made the best of it.
Along with the rain came a pretty severe temperature drop. We stuck it out as long as we could and made it to the 4th quarter. Aggies were up but only by 3 when we left. But my toes couldn't handle it anymore. Aggies did end up winning so Gig Em!
The student section was pretty low because of the temperatures and most of the students had gone home for Thanksgiving break. Since they have a lot of out of state kids, they give them the whole week off which is nice.
