LSU...

****THIS POST IS WRITTEN BY DAN!!!!****
(it was part of the deal, "you want to take a trip too see LSU, you WILL take pictures (not hard to get him to do) and you WILL be blogging about it!" he took the trip so, after a great deal of begging, here's the blog post...)

This past weekend was somewhat of an historic event in the Hoover home. Peyton and I went on a guys only vacation with my brother Shawn and his son Trey to Seattle Washington to see our beloved LSU (Louisiana State University) Tigers play the Washington Huskies. We decided to take a roadie and spend a few days doing and seeing all the fun things in Seattle. We hit the road bright and early on Friday morning at about 4:30 a.m. I was really excited to drive through this part of the country because I had never been up this way and I like seeing different parts of the country. I thought that we would see a lot of cool things. But come to find out the route we took was lame. There was literally nothing cool to see until we got about 60 miles out of Seattle. I can't even put into words how awesome that first day was. We pulled into our hotel around 5 p.m. We then wanted to go down to what is called the Pike's Place Market to check out the scenery and find a place to eat dinner. We ate at Lowell's Family Restaurant, they served the most delicious fresh fish, caught that day, and we got to eat looking out at the amazing view of Lake Washington. It was awesome.

After dinner, we decided to walk around and sight see. The part that I will remember the most, is walking around downtown Seattle with my son and my brother and his son in our LSU attire and sending shout outs to all of the other Tiger fans that were roaming the streets. It was so awesome to see all the purple and gold flooding the streets. Even the locals were saying things like, "You guys are everywhere". We called it the Cajun Invasion of Seattle. After we were done walking around we decided to go back to the hotel because Peyton really wanted to swim in the hotel pool. The next day was game day, we were so excited. In the morning we took a ferry ride to Bainbridge Island and back. That was really cool.

Then we went to the Seattle Aquarium which was fun for the kids as well.

Then to top off the day we went to the game. I have to admit, when the LSU tigers came running out on the field and the band was playing our music and the LSU fans erupted in cheers, as I looked at Peyton as we were screaming L-S-U....L-S-U......L-S-U, I got a little choked up.

I know, I am a dork but it's true. That moment will forever be etched in my memory. I hadn't been to an LSU game since I was a teenager, and to be able to take my son to one and start his LSU experience off in that way with Shawn and Trey is something that I wouldn't trade for anything. The game ended up being closer than we would have liked but it was good nonetheless. The Tigers won so that is all that mattered. The next day we had to go to the Space Needle. You don't come up to Seattle and not do what we ended up calling "THE NEEDLE!!!!" It actually was a lot cooler than I thought it was going to be.

(The view of Husky Stadium from the Space Needle)

After "THE NEEDLE!!!!", we ended up leaving Seattle around 2 p.m. taking a much more scenic route along the Columbia river through Portland.

(Waterfall along the Columbia River on the way Home)

We drove through the night and got home on Monday morning at about 6 a.m. I am so grateful that I was able to do this trip with my son. He was so cool with his LSU jersey on and all the fans there were just eating up how cute he was, even Washington fans. I also thank Shawn and Trey for coming with us and helping us get done all that we did. I will never forget this trip, and I hope it's not the last.