Cowboys & Indians

The work week was pretty quiet this week.  We watched our normal TV shows and just caught up from a pretty big weekend.  We did a fair amount of laying around and just taking it easy.

(Mo made sure to take it extra easy this week)

(This is actually Dexter taking it easy)

Ben has been taking the bus both ways as he recovers from a flag football injury that makes running seem like a bad idea.  This has given him extra time to reflect on the shortcomings of the DC bus system.  It has also given him extra time to read, which is nice.

On Friday and Saturday, we kept up our theme of taking it easy for the week.  We also knocked out a variety of life chores and did some cooking.  With several hours of golf scheduled for the television, Ben decided to run to the store by himself.  While he was gone, Kelly made a couple loaves of bread and a delicious batch of pretzels.  A new addition to our kitchen experience was a Mac & Cheese casserole that was later coupled with left over chili for homemade chili mac.

(Move over Velveeta)

Well rested, we were ready to take Sunday by storm.  The Cowboys were in town, so we decided this historic rivalry would be a good time to see our first Redskins game.

(All of my culturally sensitive, but still rowdy friends are coming over tonight!)

Unfortunately, we are not season ticket holders and no one decided to give us tickets to the game. Fortunately, Ben enjoys haggling with ticket brokers (or scalpers, but we are not sure if Redskins fans are ok with that term).  Kelly enjoys reaping the benefits of this process, but has not fully developed the patience it sometimes takes.

(In DC Sunday is not the day to be PC)

Anyway, years of wondering around 3rd world markets has allowed Ben to eventually break the will of most ticket brokers.  Sometimes it doesn't work out (2011 NCAA Football National Championship/Opening Ceremony at the 2010 Winter Olympics), but most of the time it does (pretty much every other event we have been to).  The Redskins game was going to be a little tricky.  Making tickets harder to get was the fact that this is a rivalry game.  However, the Redskins are bad this year and Fed Ex Field has the largest capacity in the NFL - so we had that going for us.

After Ben and Kelly walked around the stadium to check out the general range of ticket prices, Ben began making outrageously low offers to a variety of people and often left them feeling insulted.  As game time drew closer, they began to be more willing to talk, but still somewhat determined to make some money.  At this point, Kelly came into the picture for a good cop/bad cop routine that conveyed 'she is really the one who controls the money' and 'that stills seems a little high.'  Eventually, after earning a somewhat questionable reputation, Ben got someone to cave.  We ended up with great seats for 35% of face value and under our budgeted goal.  With tickets in hand, we were off to see the game!

(Those are the smiles of victory in our pursuit of reasonably priced tickets)

Once we settled into our seats, we got to watch a great game.  The Cowboys jumped out to an early lead.

(We came for the football game, but stayed for the 'gun show' - Thank you Ed Hochuli)

But the Redskins played very well and came back.  We went through a few lead changes and ended up in overtime.

The Redskins won the coin toss for overtime and drove the ball down the field.  They had a chance for the win, but their kicker just missed the field goal wide right. 

The Cowboys took over and managed to get into field goal position and their kicker brought home the win.

 

After the game we and several thousand others made the trek to the Metro.  Back at home, we had dinner and called it a weekend.  We are looking forward to the short work week and lots of potential blog material from the Thanksgiving break.  Stay tuned and have a happy Thanksgiving!