Super Bowl Fun - from Kim

Hi,

I just thought I'd share some of our photos from this weekend with you.
We had great fun with everyone, it didn't seem to be as well organized this time we're not sure why . . . Katie heard some rumors from a TSA guy at the airport who had worked security at the game. The stadium in Tampa is smaller than the one in Detroit and it was crowded, at one point while we were trying to get to our seats we had to walk through a narrow spot because they had set up a temporary wall to protect something (a press box??) and there was a great-many-lot of people trying to get through, it was a little scary, once we got so far and realized that we were caught in this mass of humanity trying to squeeze through a cattle gate. I started thinking about the man killed at the Wal-Mart store in the stampede of 'Christmas' shoppers. One guy came up behind us and said. "Excuse me, I have to get through". I just looked at him and said, "You're joking, right?". I could only move where the crowd moved.
The Cardinal fans and the Steeler fans that we came across were great, all of the razzing that I came subjected to was in good fun, all though I'm sure someone somewhere was being a jerk. But my impressions in general were good of all the folks who were there.
Before getting inside the stadium we walked a gauntlet of really obsessive 'Born Again' types, and on our way out too. Tamsyn, Katie and I were together when we were leaving and the 'very nice christian man' with the bull horn stated that women should be at home in the kitchen washing dishes, and having babies (not all at the same time I hope) and not at football games. The Steeler fan in front of us yelled out, "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!" I looked at him and said, "Good thing your wife isn't here". His friend, says, "Oh don't mind him . . . he's a mormon." "So are we", I replied. . . . silence . . . then I said "You were kidding, but we weren't." I don't know if that was good or bad. There is a definite internal (and possibly eternal) struggle that comes with this opportunity of Chris', regarding going to games on Sunday. We try to go to the Monday and Thursday games and keep Sunday to a minimum, it's hard, we apologize.
Ed, and I, Ryan, Aaron, Cathy and Frank all had seats together at about the 25 yard line, we sat next to the Keisel family on one side and James Harrison's brother was on my left, Ed was on my right, I was a little squished. You should have heard James' brother when he made his run with the interception, I think he was pretty incredulous. He started out fairly soft and got to a crescendo. "Go . . . go . . . go baby brother . . . go!" That was so fun . . . I didn't see the interception because I had my eyes closed, I thought the Cardinals were going to score and I didn't want to see it.
Katie, Tamsyn, Shaun, Cameron, Jordan and Zach were sitting together in the end zone so they got to see James come running towards them. Jaimee and the two boys were on the 50 yard line (usually we get seats together but with the Super Bowl it works out different). Right in front of Jaimee were the guys who play Dwight and Kevin on the office. Near by was Hayden Panitierre (or whatever), the Baldwins brothers and Ashton Kutcher was in a nearby box seat wearing a straw hat. Anyway pretty fun.
At the end of the game at the Super Bowl in Detroit Chris was able to come to where we were sitting and point us out and the security guards let us climb over on to the field, they even helped us. This time it was crazy. They wouldn't let anyone climb over (well . . . some did), which is probably for liability reasons. They forced us to go to the stairs, people were pushing. Santonio Holmes' mother was right behind me with his three children trying to get them to him. She had the youngest a girl and there were two boys maybe about 7 and 5 years old. The 5 year old ended up by Ed and the 7 year old was with me, I didn't want to let him go because I knew who he belonged to (not because of who his dad is . . . but because I knew . . . well do you know what I mean?) Anyway Santonio came up to the wall got his daughter, then we were able to get the other two down to him. That kid was solid and at first his jacket was caught on something and it was crowded but I finally got him up and told him to lift his legs over the rail and sit down. Then his dad came and I started to lift him down, some one next to me helped, I'm sure they thought I might drop him but I wouldn't have. Ed and I and Cathy and Frank were all separated by the crush of people (Aaron and Ryan had jumped). When I finally got to the stairs, I could see Chris reach for Cathy and grab her hand then a tug of war ensued between Chris and a security guard . . . geesh. Where was the respect? Chris won but . . . what the heck. Poor Cathy. Katie and Tamsyn were there too which I was glad of except that Katie was really getting squished around, one guard would say that we could go down the stairs with our Steeler family passes and then another would say, no you have to have a security pass. One by one Chris got all of us down except for Ed . . . he was trying to come but he was being stopped . . . you should have seen the look on Chris' face! He started after the guy but luckily another security guard was observant and took control and got Ed down. Once we were on the field it was fine and calm. Crazy, crazy, crazy.
Anyway the RUMOR, that Katie overheard was that there had been a bomb threat at half-time and not all of the security force was aware of it and that's why it was so disorganized. She spoke to the guy to make sure she had heard him correctly. Still it could just be nothing more than a RUMOR.
All in all it was very exciting.
The people in Tampa (generally speaking) seem to really like honking their horns at the slightest provocation (I mean people honk at Ed all the time, but this was really crazy) and generally speaking the people working as clerks are very impatient with their customers. We met one guy that was really friendly at a Nestle Toll House Cookie Store (maybe it's the cookies that make him nice) but we would guess that he was born in India and had been raised in Britain . . . great accent!

Love you!

Kim

Tamsyn also has some fun insights and pictures here.