Tailgate Thursday! Go Bruins!!

Today's theme was a game day decision. Avery's Zoom class was scheduled to do a sports theme day and I thought, why not have a tailgate for our Thursday theme? Steve and I are both UCLA grads and we have enjoyed tailgating since the nineties. We had season tickets for years, but with kids, it gets harder every year to make it to all the games.

Our girls are also HUGE UCLA gymnastics fans and they were crushed the season ended early. So today was a nice way to honor our love for our mighty Bruins even if there are no sports to watch!

Let's face it the food, the fun, and the corn hole games are often as much fun as the actual game. Especially with some of the last few football seasons we have experienced! For the record, our blood runs blue and gold no matter the team record. For our tailgate, we set up our UCLA display like it was game day. I really wanted to find a way to drive the car into the yard but that idea was quickly over ruled. We watched some highlights of our favorite UCLA sports moments for the full vibe and the girls cheered and practiced their 8 claps.

Top 3 Favorite UCLA sports memories we watched:

1) March Madness 1995 The Missouri Miracle. Thank you Tyus Edney for making the drive in 4.8 seconds to save the season and eventually lead us to a National Championship. I watched every single game that entire season and it was an amazing ride.

2) 1996 UCLA vs. USC @ The Rose Bowl. We watched UCLA come back to win in OT after being down 17 points in the 4th quarter. One of my all time favorite moments in the Rose Bowl and the first time I had ever watched them play in OT.

3) 2018 Peng Peng Lee needed to hit a 9.75 on beam for UCLA to win the National Championship. She hit a perfect 10 as the final gymnast in the final rotation in her final event as a UCLA gymnast. The odds of every gymnast on beam hitting a personal best score was something straight out of a movie.

I didn't have a ton of educational tie ins for our theme today, after school it was all about Bruin fun. Although I did have the girls write about their favorite sport for their journal assignment today. Before our official tailgate began, the girls created some UCLA cupcakes.

The highlight of the day was our tailgate dinner in the backyard. Daddy grilled some amazing steaks, chicken and hot dogs. We set up a virtual corn hole game with some neighbors and fellow UCLA alum. This was a really fun idea that I highly recommend. We each set up one corn hole with the iPad so we could watch the other family play. The kids(and adults) were happy to have some outdoor fun and interaction with friends. The evening concluded with a victory dance party in the living room. Daddy and I even pulled out our old Strattons cups for a few cocktails.

Go BRUINS!!! U-C-L-A, UCLA fight, fight, fight

#bruinsforver #UCLAsports #gobruins