sweet sixteen and southern charm.

so this is not a very "fashiony" post for friday, but I was really excited to get these pictures on the blog none the less. if you follow my tweets, facebook, or other random social networking sites, you know that I'm a HUGE college basketball fan. I spent all of my college career being a dancer and a cheerleader for my school and I am deeply passionate about our team.
our little school, saint mary's college of california, gained national attention this past month when we made it to the sweet sixteen. this was a colossal deal for a school with only 2,500 to 3,000 students and a small alumni base. it was even more of a deal because no one picked us to be in the tournament, and no one picked us to even win a first round game. well, not only did we win the first round, but we went on to beat the number 2 seed, villanova. this was a crazy upset in the tournament because many people had villanova going at least to the elite eight, if not further. when our team officially made it to the top 16 teams, we decided to hop on a plane (well a few planes) to houston.

while I was in california I made sure to stop by the saint mary's campus and pick up one of the brand new shirts to celebrate our moment in history.

in our hotel room in houston, getting ready to go watch the southern regional finals.

cowgirl boots seemed appropriate for the south. and can I just say that everyone during the trip was incredibly hospitable and friendly? I can't tell you how many times I heard "welcome to texas, darling." this was especially nice of them, seeing as the team that saint mary's was set to play was baylor. a small school in texas that is only a few hours drive from houston, where the game was being played.

I am SO proud of our team. I bleed SMC red and blue.

the hubby looking good in his saint mary's attire. while logan didn't go to SMC, he is like an honorary gael because we were dating the entire time we were in college and he pretty much lived on our campus. he was my biggest fan back in my dancing and cheer days. he came to ALL of my games.

it is all about the G, baby.

some of our players parents getting interviewed by ESPN. we were deemed one of the many "cinderella" stories of the tournament.

this, if you were wondering, is a giant cardboard head on a stick. its Omar Samhan, one of our best players. he will be heading to the NBA draft this year, so wish him luck!
my last year on the squad, Omar was a baby freshman who was "red shirting" (sitting out a year) and I can't believe that in 4 years he has turned into the all star player that he is. what an incredible journey for him.

this is where the story gets a little sad. here is the enormous reliant stadium. our boys are used to playing in what is deemed a "high school sized gym" that only holds around 3,000 people at most. this stadium? holds 90,000 people. it was a bit of an overwhelming and daunting stage for these guys.

my mama and I. love her so much. she and my dad were also gaels. since saint mary's is a school based on tradition, I think its wonderful that many of the things she did there were the same for me. her and my dad went to the same dances as logan and I did. we lived in the same dorms, ate in the same cafeteria, and lounged in the same quad. did I mention that my dad also played basketball at SMC? see, we have deep roots here people.

down by the court showing our team some love.

um, how cute is she? when she walked into the stadium and saw "saint mary's" up on the giant scoreboards and signs, she started to cry. I can't express how important this was to us. it was a once in a life time kind of moment for our school.

our little contigent of fans. moraga, california is a long way from houston, texas. being such a small school already we struggle to fill out an arena of that size and magnitude. we had 500 past, present, and future gaels in our cheering section. while our numbers didn't dominate, our spirit far outweighed that of the other schools. we had face paint, colored hair spray, signs galore, megaphones, beaded necklaces, the works. we were decked out in our SMC best.

but still.

baylor : 30,000 fans

SMC : 500 fans

our cheer and dance girls doing what they do. :)

but alas, we lost the game. and it was a difficult night for the gael nation. after a loss like that, its important to get some distance from the game to really be able to appreciate the magical season that we had. that glass slipper sure did fit well for the time we had it. our gaels danced the big dance this year.

on our way home. you have to love the fact that the houston airport has many of these life size cowboy boots lying around. anyways, time to tackle painting the kitchen. I hope you all have wonderful weekends and come back next week for my

MAILBOX MAVENS WEEK EXTRAVAGANZA

cheers.