The Waterstraut Waterspout: NFL Kickoff 2021

You guys! Football is back! Which, makes me a very happy football fan. The off-season did seem shorter than normal, but that's probably because the Bucs played past the end of the season... ALL THE WAY TO THE SUPER BOWL (It never gets old).

But, Covid was not great here in February. In fact, it was at record highs. And I couldn't do all the fun Super Bowl things in Tampa, like the NFL Experience, and such. (Now, I wasn't completely deprived of enjoying the Home Super Bowl, I did check out the stadium, and take a boat trip down the Hillsborough River.

But here we were 7 months and two days later, and because the Bucs are the Super Bowl Champions, we got the Thursday Night NFL Kickoff Game, right here in Tampa, too! And, that apparently also comes with some perks- like the NFL Kickoff Experience- which is basically the exact same thing as the Super Bowl Experience!

And, now Covid is... Well, still running rampant and at all time highs (though we are on the way down from our third wave- thanks Delta variant). However, I now have the added protection of a vaccine. Couple that with everything we know about outdoor transmission, and I get to feel safe going to the event I missed out on 7 months ago. YAY!

I actually found out about the whole NFL Kickoff Experience the night before. That's a little unusual for me, I usually know about these things way ahead of time. The only bummer about finding out so late was Calib didn't have time to request off work (and, you can't just call in sick these days--- they make you take off like a week in Covid times, another sad Pandemic casualty.)

So, it was just me and Asa heading onto Tampa on Thursday afternoon to get a little bit back of what Covid took from me.

The weather was not great. In fact, we drove through pretty torrential rain and heavy storms to get there, but we packed our rain jackets and by the time we parked along the Riverwalk down by Waterworks Park, it seemed to be clearing. Still, they weren't letting people in just quite yet.

It was just a matter of time though, there were blue skies on the way!

In case you were unaware, the Bucs were kicking of the 2021 Season at home against the Cowboys.

It wasn't long before they opened the gates and in we went!

There were all the helmets lined up for the week 1 matchups.

Later that evening, Ed Sheeran would be performing on that stage. Some people got there really early and set up chairs-- but man that ground was soggy!

We also got to check out all of the Championship Rings- including the Bucs one from February. You didn't get to see that one during the NFL Experience for the Super Bowl.

And we also got to visit with the Lombardi Trophy!

A couple of local places had a food court out of tents, so we nabbed some bbq.

Despite the cloud cover, it was a hot one. You have to stay hydrated, of course.

Then we happened upon the Verizon Up Lounge, and got to go in and check that out. They had games (we played boccee ball and connect four, and I won both!)...

And they also had some free snacks and drinks, so we had some of that.

All with a distant view of what was going on up at the stage. They had some old Bucs players up there, like Derrick Brooks, and some trivia contests.

Asa was hoping to win the Madden giveaway, but no such luck.

Along one of the walkways they had all of the football uniforms for photos...

And they had an area with the football drills, including the field goal kicks, and the 40 yard dash.

Of course, they had lots of merchandise trailers too.

Since Calib couldn't come we did get him a kickoff pennant, too.

Then, as it started to sprinkle again we headed back to the car.

Even in the sprinkles it was a nice walk along the Riverwalk- and hey, I spotted a Bolt's sign! Let's go Champa Bay!

There was much discussion about what to have for dinner on Thursday night before/during the game. We threw around ideas from the playoffs: Hungry Harry's BBQ, NFL Pizzas, the giant pizza, all good options- and good luck since the Bucs won all those games!

But you know what we ate the last time the Bucs won a game IN Raymond James Stadium? Well, that would be the Raymond James Snackadium! I still had a lot of the stuff from then, so it wouldn't be too hard to get it all out. I decided just this ONE time we could have the snackadium outside of Super Bowl Sunday.

I grabbed all my decorations, and then had to decide what to fill it with.

I didn't go all out, and I phoned in some things...

..like the field...

Asa picked up a couple of Publix subs we had cut into 8 pieces each, and Calib brough home guacamole and chips from Chipotle and swung by Cheddars to pick up the family meal (we've never had Cheddars before, but $25 bucks for two family sides, 16 chicken tenders, and six croissants was too good a deal for me to pass up).

I did do some work and print out a picture of what the side of the stadium looks like these days, and I made a peanut butter ball that I put out with some apples and graham crackers.

Not bad for a hastily thrown together snackadium if I do say so myself!

Everyone was pretty pleased with the results. (Hayden was like 'can you even believe it, you didn't wake up this morning thinking you'd be eating the snackadium for dinner, and now here we are!' I told him I'd been thinking about it for a few days, but I didn't want to suggest it until I was sure I wanted to put all that effort in).

Not sure if it was the snackadium or the matching shirts... but something was good luck. Because despite playing like absolute crap at times, the Bucs pulled out a last minute win against the Cowboys.

With the Bucs playing on Thursday night we got to tune into Red Zone for '7 hours of Commercial-free Football"! No need to tune into one game when you can tune into them all at once!

And of course, the return of NFL Sundays = the return of the Taco Bar.

I made sure we had ALL the toppings for week one.

And while Peyton and Hayden are not all about seven hours of football, they are all about the taco bar.

We plan on keeping track of how many tacos we eat this season. After one Sunday the count stands at 26. Impressive for one day.

In other September news, we also played Labor Day True American.

Hayden and I worked on setting it all up- and while Hayden had apple juice...

the rest of us went a little stronger.

Peyton not so much a fan of what we had.

Calib and Asa, meanwhile, went stronger.

I don't know how old Calib was when I invented this game, but it's been a minute. And now look, he's taking shots like a grown up!

All in all, a good game of True American.

And, I came out the winner (per the usual). Come on, I had some easy guys.

Also, with Labor Day, it's time to get back to a normal school work load.

With a few new additons... like a word of the week.

And Driver's Ed even!

We are going to do one last year long project, and this time we're changing focus. Old white guys have gotten enough due in the Waterstraut household.

Finer Things is tying into that too.

We're also going to be crafting up a storm. Hayden didn't make it to this year's fair in Fremont, but he entered a few things anyway and got a decent check of $37 for his efforts.

We've also started a new board for dinner requests. It's actually going pretty well, and we're not eating the same old stuff over and over again.

Calib even asked for steamed buns, so Asa tried his hand at those.

And they didn't turn out too bad!

I would like the temperature to cool down here now that we are nearing the end of summer. But, we are in that part of the year where you go outside and the feels like is 95 and you think 'hey, this isn't too bad'.