Are you ready for some football?!

My next October vacation was back to some familiar territory - Kansas City. I actually also went to Des Moines on this one too, yes both.

Mere and I tailgating

Since I've moved out to Colorado, I haven't been able to make it to many K-State football games.....which bums me out. This year, K-State was playing at Iowa State, and as it turns out - that's about halfway between Kansas City and Madison, Wisconsin - where my good friends Meredith and Jake moved to! That game also happened to land on Jake's big 30th birthday.....so you can see where this is going. Yup! Road trip for the Iowa State game!

After looking at some prices on flights, I decided to extend the trip by a couple of days, fly into KC instead so that I could see some other friends, and then drive up to Iowa with some other folks who were going. It was a bit of a whirlwind, especially since I never could unpack - but it was worth the extra days!

I spent my time in Kansas City pretty much just vegging out and relaxing. Since I accepted my new position within ACS (yup! I got a promotion back in August!), things had felt a little crazy!

Becky, her hubby, Andy and I

Friday, after a couple friends got off of work, we started the drive to Des Moines. I was so excited to see lots of friends at the game, but especially to see my friend, Becky who had recently moved to Des Moines. Becky is my oldest friend as we grew up next to each other and have been friends since we were one. We used to be able to see each other a lot, but between her moving to Des Moines, and myself to Colorado - it never works out! And even better, I finally got to see her husband for the second time. Pretty depressing that such a good friend of mine and I hardly even know her hubby! :)

Since I never get to see them, I spent Friday night at their house just catching up. I even managed to talk them into joining us Saturday night after the football game for some drinks! Always good to see such a great friend!

Saturday morning, our tailgating crew met up at the hotel and drove to Ames for the football game. We were a little worried the weather was going to continue to stay so crappy - luckily it finally 'warmed' up so we could enjoy the pre-game!

Birthday boy!

As you should all know from K-State's great season they've had - we won the game! That always makes for post-celebrations that much more exciting! We all went to downtown Des Moines to celebrate the K-State victory, and Jake's 30th! Our mission was to make sure he drank every girly drink on the menu....and he was such a good sport to go along with it!

On Sunday, I was lucky to have my dad driving through for work, so he took me out for brunch - gotta love it when that happens! After that, we needed to recover from the game! We made the trip back to KC and I got up way too early to fly home on Monday morning. All in all, it was just what the doctor ordered for some R and R and R - rest and relaxation and reunions!