Go Bears!

Theo registered for us to be considered for free Bear's tickets from the USO. For each game, the USO has seats for soldiers, and other servicemembers. On Wednesday night, as we drove home from purchasing our new vehicle, we got a cell phone call notifying us we had tickets to the Thursday night pre-season Bears game. We were so excited. We had never been to Soldier Field before. We left our house around 2:30pm and it took us about 2 hours to get into traffic near O'Hare, not from the airport, but from the both Bear's and Cub's games beginning at 7pm. We scarved down tacos on or way, and sat in traffic until less than hour before the game; we were very worried we would not make it in time to see kick-off, and the starters were only playing the first few plays. We parked in the North Grant Park parking lot, and emerged on Michigan Ave to catch a "free shuttle" to the game (free if you pay the $20.00 to park in the lot, which beats paying $40.00 to park at the stadium). Instead, we found we had to walk to Columbus & Randolph, a hike away when you're in a hurry, and have 23 lb. Hunter in the baby frontpack. When we found the school busses that would take us to the game there were no drivers. The game started in a half hour now, and we were miles from the stadium. We found a bus with a driver another block away, boarded, and were taken all over the city's underground to get to Soldier Field. We nearly ran to Gate 2 where we were to receive our tickets. There we found our tickets: if we had purchased the 4 tickets they would have been $235.o each, totalling a nearly $1000 adventure! Yikes. We were pumped, but still had to get in the stadium... you know, pass through the lines that say "No large backpacks or strollers." Haha. We had both. We ditched the umbrella stroller by a trash can, and hoped our backpack/diaper bag would be allowed in. It was. We ran to a family restroom where we group-peed, and then ran to our seats just in time to see the National Anthem played. Sigh. Our seats were in the Cadillac Club, and aside from the other servicemen and women, we were surrounded by some rich folks. There was a huge expensive buffet with white table cloth seating, and expensive desserts for sale. I have never seen anything quite like it. We breezed past it all to get to our wonderful seats. I loved the angle at which we were to view the game. Incredible.

Here we are in our seats:

These folks parachuted in during the anthem.

This is the chick from "Wicked" for those of you who are fans.

Here comes the team:

Warm-ups:

Just some random shots of the game:

Orton was in by the start of the 2nd quarter, and with him came all of the frustrations of season's past. He's talented, but makes a lot of frustrating mistakes. Needless to say, the Bear's were losing by half time, well, earlier...

This is the field without my zoom, but it looks farther away than it was... we could really see the ball and the players numbers very well.

During half time we decided the kids were tired enough for us to leave. The 3rd string was in anyway, and I had noticed Hunter had a fever. Good thing we had our heart's set on leaving b/c as we began looking around the stadium Hunter puked all over himself, and me. Poor thing. We went back to the lovely family restroom, cleaned up, and headed out. On our way our we had someone snap this picture of us by the front entrance. The lens was smudged, so it didn't come out. But, it would have been very very nice.

Some drummers were playing in the hall, and Ben did a happy little river dance on our way out.

Overall, and incredible experience, even with the traffic, chaos and the sickness. Hunter's still sick, and now Theo has it, too. But we're grateful to have gone to this game, and hope to go to more... just this time perhaps without the kids?