Celebrating the Big 1-8 Railhawks Style

This week has been a whirlwind for me. I go from one emotional high to an emotional low. Happy that the little baby that you bought home from the hospital is now an adult and a low realizing that your baby is not your little baby anymore but a grown-up who next year will be leaving home to attend another college going in as a Transfer student in her Junior Year. That is quite an accomplishment considering she just graduated last year. As I said before, I am so proud of my daughter and the mature young lady that she has grown up to be but in the back of the mind she is still that little bundle of joy that I was scared to bring home for the first night alone. New parents know the feeling that I am talking about and parents who have had their first child become an adult as well. You stop and wonder where the time has gone. Today is one of those days, it finally hit me after all the festivities of this weekend, that I have an 18 year old daughter. WOW!!! As I am sitting her in my blogging corner my eyes fill with tears as I reflect on the wonderful young lady Maddie has become.

So onto the celebration. As I have mentioned before we decided to take Maddie and a group of her friends to the Carolina Railhawks game to celebrate her birthday. She decided to do this and we agreed. We bought a group of 15 people with us. We decided to tailgate before the game. The plan was to leave around 4 to get to the gates as soon as they opened. Tailgate and play soccer in the parking lot and then go watch the team warm up before the game. First we ended up leaving late getting to Wake Med Soccer Park at around 6 and then the person put in charge of putting the soccer ball in the car forgot it lol. Raul decided that we needed to go sign up for the Chevrolet shirts before they were all gone. Seriously. They weren’t even gone during the game because he got another one. We did have fun tailgating for the little time that we did. Then it was on to the game and watching the Railhawks. There were times I questioned what they were doing, Mikaela thinks it was because Elizondo didn’t start lol, but they ended up pulling off a tie to end the game.

I will have to say that I am totally impressed with the wonderful way that Jessie, from the Carolina Railhawks, the person I contacted about the tickets, took care of all our birthday needs. She was very patient with my never ending questions. Letting me know what I could do for my daughter’s birthday. She had the team sign a shirt and had that and the tickets waiting for me at will call. There was even a birthday shout out for Maddie which unfortunately she missed because she was going up to the concession stand at halftime. LOL I almost missed it as well.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words then all of these pictures would be worth a million.

This is our little group tailgating before the game.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Cupcakes Anyone??

Our group of 15 in our usual seats in section 304.

The team took the field.  I love how that at the beginning of each game players walk out onto the field holding the hand of a young child. You never know  how much of a difference it can make in a child’s life. The Railhawks ended up walking away from the game with tie 2-2. The game tying goal was made Austin Da Luz, the captain of the Railhawks. After the game we once again stuck around for autographs.

Mikaela was again able to take a picture with her favorite player, Cesar Elizondo. Remember she said because he didn’t start was the reason the Railhawks did not play as well in her eyes. LOL He was very sweet making sure to come by and tell her hi and thanking her for coming to the game.

I was also able to take this picture of Nick Adderly. This was the first time that we had contact with him but he was very sweet and funny even though he would not do the cricket dance for us.

Maddie’s friend, MAria had to take a picture with fellow Colombian Breiner Ortiz. If you remember he was the one that stole my girls’ heart when he asked to borrow the sharpie.

Maddie was able to get a picture with her favorite player, Akira Fitzgerald. I tried to get him to sing Happy Birthday to her but he said we didn’t want to hear him sing. I will have to say I don’t think that it could be any worse than the serenades that Maddie gave us on the drive home. It sounded like she was killing something . Even her friends agreed.

Of course, no birthday celebration would not be complete without our adopted daughter, Bri. Remember she told Paul Hamilton that she was coming back for him in 2 years. And he said that he didn’t know what his wife would say about that. Well Bri asked Hamilton if he remembered her and he said yea you are the one who tweets about me all the time.  I am so glad that he mentioned that to her. It made her day. I will have to say I don’t know what she tweeted but with Bri there is no telling.

In  a previous story, Hamilton said he was married but the guy behind him said he would wait for her. This is Bri’s back up man, Nick Zimmerman. He was so sweet and told Bri that he would still wait for her. He even wished Maddie a Happy Birthday and asked her how old she was. She said 18. He said that is the big one and everything goes down hill after that. After he said that, Maddie dropped her sign and he said see what I mean.

MAria had to get a picture with her now favorite player, Jordan Graye. Graye did not play that night because he was injured in the last game we attended but said he would be back hopefully for the next home game. I was a little disappointed that more players did not make it down the whole row before they went in the locker room. Justin Willis who Gracie has decided is her favorite player was there but on crutches because he is out with an injury Gracie really wanted a picture with him. Neither the captain Austin DaLuz or Brian Shriver seemed to be able to make their way down our side of the stands, which I admit was a little disappointing because DaLuz is one of my favorite players  but the girls don’t like him, so I am trying to prove them wrong but unfortunately things like that only proves them right. But I quickly got over this disappointment because of the next picture.

Julius James is a favorite of ours and is quickly becoming like family. The older girls have even asked him to train them. He had to talk to the media but promised to come back and share in the birthday celebration with us. One of the boys that we took with us asked if he could touch his head and he said yea because he asked politely. Julius will soon be featured on the blog in my leaps of faith series because his story is so inspiring.

We brought 15 people to the Railhawks game with us, out of the fifteen six of us were already fans but because of how friendly the players are they now have 11 new fans to add to their followers.

All in all, a good time was had by all.

Real quick if you haven’t voted for Mikaela’s picture in the Railhawks contest  please go and do so. You can only vote once a day. Make sure to vote everyday. She is trying to win a signed jersey, 2 tickets and a scarf. So please vote for her if you can.

 

 

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