NCAA Final Four

When I was in high school, I watched a lot of college basketball with my parents and really enjoyed March Madness.  In the years since, I haven't paid much attention to it, but this year Leighton was interested in watching the games on TV and would ask about certain teams.  It was also exciting that the semifinals and final were being held here in Houston!  I knew there were several kid-friendly activities going on but hadn't made any real plans to attend anything.

When Villanova made the Final Four, I emailed my friend John (who went to Villanova and who is a huge college sports fan and follower) to congratulate him.  Instead of emailing back as he usually does, he ended up calling because Chris managed to get them tickets to come down for the games on Saturday night!  We planned to meet up with them at FanFest during the day on Saturday before they went to the tailgating and games.  It was super fun to see them!  They came to visit in October 2014, and Leighton remembered them but Riley didn't.

The FanFest wasn't packed, which was great. And what was even better was that it was totally geared towards kids and families.  There was so much to do! (FYI I stole some of these photos from John's phone and some were from mine!)

Here is a link to the 360 view of this picture:

http://capitalonecam.com/finalfour/040216C121159&e

And our photo booth pictures - photo 1 we planned to smile, photo 2 we planned a silly face, and photo 3 was pirates!

We walked a few blocks to Niko's Niko's for lunch outside.  There even happened to be a giant inflatable basketball there!

Then we all headed to the train together.

We got off a few stops before them and they got this funny picture of us dancing on the platform while waving goodbye!

And then we got in the car to drive home, and Riley was quickly like this:

The kids were so excited about the games that John and Chris were going to, so when we got home we watched it on the laptop while also watching the Spelling Bee on TV that we had recorded (the boy who won when Leighton participated in January went on to win the district and was now in the televised regionals!).  We let them stay up late to watch the game because they were so interested.  Here was the picture we sent to John after Villanova won.  V is for victory and Villanova!

To follow up our fun free FanFest day on Saturday, we had gotten free tickets to the Cheez-Its Much Madness Celebrity game for Sunday.  We had also tried to register for the Kids Dribble, but I think we were too late because I kept getting errors and then it said it was full.  It would have been a lot of fun, but it also would have meant rushing to the game.

Before the game, we had to run an errand to choose some floor tiles in Sugar Land.  Since we were already that direction for the tile store and the game, we just HAD to go to Grimaldi's for lunch!

The game was being held at a really small sports complex on the outskirts of Houston towards Sugar Land.  Roy was doubtful that any celebrities would really be showing up!  There were some giant chairs with hoops for the kids to play on while we waited to go in.  And they had a hoola hoop contest (Leighton and another girl were both going so long they declared them both winners!).  They were also passing out water and Powerade and Cheez-Its and towels (convenient to cover Roy's head so it didn't burn!), sweat bands, etc.  So, needless to say, the kids were thoroughly enjoying themselves!

Inside was really casual and small and there weren't that many people there, so Roy still questioned whether the supposed headliners really would appear!  But they did!  Shaq and Hakeem Olajuwon were there as coaches (along with two older men who appeared to have been well known at some point, but I couldn't understand their names when they were announced!) and then there were some other players of various stages of their retirement (some now are coaches), but we also weren't sure of most of their names at the time because it was too hard to understand on the microphone they were using!  One was Damon Stoudamire, who played for the Raptors and won Rookie of the Year in 95-96.  The best player of the day was probably Rachel DeMita - she can shoot!  Some google searches show that some other players were: Dan Majerle, Rex Walters, and Rick Aaron.  There were a couple non-basketball celebrities as well.  Some sports casters - Desmond Howard and Sam Ponder.  And then a couple from the entertainment industry - Terry Crews and Chris Harrison ( I am a very big fan of the Bachelor/ette shows so this was pretty exciting for me!!).  Towards the end, Shaq  threw out 2 shirts and 2 balls into the crowd.  Leighton got one of the shirts, but it was just a plain Cheez-Its shirt and not signed by him or anything, unfortunately.

Here is a little clip of Shaq coming in:

He also got onto the court to dance while the other team was taking a foul shot:

And he did sneak into the game a couple times.  Once was for this dunk and I could tell he was setting up for it, so I managed to get my phone ready in time:

I found these pictures online and you can see us in the stands!  Roy is wearing a yellow shirt so we are easy to spot!

You can see Roy's yellow shirt near Shaq's right shoulder.  Leighton is on Roy's left and Riley is on his right.  I am next to Riley in a white shirt.

Roy is right by Terry Crews' forearm.  Leighton's hair is peeking out behind it and Riley is right at the edge of the photo next to Roy.

I found this write up online with a couple videos on it as well:
http://ballislife.com/shaq-terry-crews/

It was a really fun weekend of basketball!  And it was great to end it with the exciting Villanova win last night!