everything's coming up roses....or is it?

when my husband asked if we wanted to go to LA for new years, i thought, that sounds amazing. when he mentioned that it was to watch a football game, i was like, "maybe we should think about this." now, there's two levels of football in my book - pre-marriage football and post-marriage football. pre-marriage, i had the luxury of deciding when to watch football and when to change the channel to reruns of the housewives of [insert a city] on bravo. then there is post-marriage football -- real football, the kind that lasts ALL DAY LONG (or at least what seems like it). but when you marry a football lover, that's what you signed up for....so deal with it. in this case, it's a trip to LA in december. yeah i'll take that. rose bowl here we come!

so we head to LA -- sunshine, warmth, palm trees, and (my favorite) celebrities.  we arrive at the airport early friday morning. we tried to check into our flight the previous day only to be told the seats were under airport control. basically that means, we'd have to pray for seats when we got to the gate. luckily, we scored seats as soon as we arrived at our gate....unfortunately, we were in the very last row of the airplane (also known as the row with rowdy kids and irritated parents). that's ok, i'll just watch the movie. note to everyone, watching "dinner for schmucks" is worse then listening to a 4 year old scream that she wants her mommy to look at her drawing. i lasted about 30 minutes at which point i threw off my headphones and tried to lull myself into a 4 hour coma.

i guess LA didn't get the memo that it's located in california because it was about 40 degrees. we met up with my bestie who lives in LA, grabbed a late lunch, and walked around the city for a bit. then it was time to get ready for nye dinner. a nice long dinner with plenty of wine. afterwards, we headed back to the hotel to drink some pink champagne out of coffee mugs and countdown to 2011. it was glam and i'm sure you all want to know the deets but that all you get because this post is about the ROSE BOWL!

cue saturday morning. 6am, we were up, dressed, and picked up by the limo to head to the rose bowl parade....um,that's right, i said limo. that's really the only way to do the rosebowl. but why i thought i had to see the parade is a mystery to me. clearly i didn't think through the whole 6 am aspect. oh well. we headed to the parade where we got to see mrs. paula deen herself along with about 300 bands... who knew there were that many bands in the parade? i'm glad we went and i got to "experience" the parade but once is good enough for me.  i eventually sought shelter in the limo, had a couple glasses of champagne, and scarfed down a delicious donut. mmmmmmm.

go badgers!

next stop, the sponsored tailgate. a sea of red and wisconsin badger pride. upon arriving, we went to get wristbands (i guess i thought i'd get carded??) and the guy asked, so what do you think the final score will be? i said, i don't know (true). i'm a wisconsin fan by marriage (also true). he said, well what does that mean? (why the 20 questions, i'm not sure. i thought i was in line for a wristband. not an exclusive interview.) so i said, that means, i don't know anything about anything. (translation - give me my band and let me go on my way).

we soaked in the wisconsin love at the tailgate for a few hours before heading to the main event.  we make our way to the stadium and find our seats. wisconsin comes running out and i'm snapping as many pics as i can! ohhh, there's bucky badger! why is he covering his eyes while running?

then it's kickoff!

look closely....it's bucky running with his hands over his eyes? maybe he knew what was awaiting us?

now i know i'm not 100 years old, but i'm also not 19 or 21 or whatever young age you need to be to want to stand during an entire football game. i need to rest my old lady bones. the good news was that it had warmed up so i was no longer trembling. i watched the game (standing up) and cheered and groaned and then in the last 2 minutes, i watched wisconsin blow their shot. final score, 21-19....bummer. didn't they know i woke up at 5 am? that i flew across the country? didn't they realize that i am wiscosnin fan by marriage and i have expectations and hopes and dreams for them? geez.

we made our way to the limo (and by made our way i mean that we walked around the entire stadium) and sulked/passed out the entire way back to the hotel....well some of us sulked. some of us were wondering what happened to the rest of those donuts!

the next day, one by one the fam made their way back to their respective cities. the hubs and i stayed in town as we had another big night awaiting us. nobu. all i knew was that after flying out here and witnessing a loss, i better be witnessing some "celebs are like us" activities. so we arrive at nobu that evening and after taking a couple min to figure out how the door to restaurant even opens, we walk in. nobu is not for dummies apparently.

we're seated, i take off my jacket, look up and see BRENDAN FRASER. come on, you know who i'm talking about...encino man? um...hmmmm...what else has he been in? seriously, that's my best brendan fraser association?

all i know is that i had donuts, pink champagne, and squeezed in a celeb siting. official LA success. badgers - that's how it's done, you set a goal and you win, i mean you achieve it. take notes. and oh yeah,  there's always next year!