A Day Of Greatness!

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Our son's birthday is right after Thanksgiving, and as he is almost an adult, things are changing in the celebration department. For years we would have massive parties on the farm, complete with endless cake, pinatas, air soft battles, etc..., but, the the boy is growing up.

So a couple months ago, I asked him what he would like to do for his birthday, and he said, I'd like to go to the ISU-U of I game down in Moscow.

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Done

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A short while later I had us some splendid field side seats, the Vandal Scholarship Fund had more than a few of my hard earned dollars, and we all had November 18th circled in our calendars.

And before you could say, fumble the date had arrived.

Now, I have been more than a bit ill, so I saved all my Kat-credits for the event. Since the whole thing involved more than a bit of sitting, I figured I would survive it, and on last Saturday morning I found myself stuffed in our blue car with the hubs as the boy and his bud chauffeured us two hours south to Moscow.

Moscow is a pretty cool town. It has that Palouse farm town vibe that I really dig, that, and like most college towns it possesses a myriad of cool food options.

My son is a foodie like myself, and we had already scoped out the joint we were to partake of special birthday lunch in, Maialina.

Come to find out the place is owned by the childhood friend of one of the hubs rifle team parent's. Heh, small world.

Anyway, Maialina was to be our second stop after collecting another one of our son's buddies from the U of I dorm. Actually, G is kinda like one of our kids, he quite literally comes home from college and spends most of his breaks at our house. We joke with his parents about our joint custody all the time.

Anyway, Maialina is a Naples-style wood-fired pizza joint. And they focus on using local food stuffs. Even the apple and cherry wood used in the oven comes from local orchard. They make their own prosciutto , mozzarella, etc.

Right off the bat we started drooling as we strolled through the heavy curtains lining the entrance and smelled the ambrosia within. Black outfitted waitstaff whirled by us as we waited for our table, their arms laden with wood-fired pizza gloriousness.

One reason I was ecstatic about going to Maialina is that they had gluten-free pizza, which meant that I actually could eat something! (I have been in a bit of a food depression state lately with all of my new food restrictions).

And let me tell you, the restaurant did not disappoint! Every one of us ate ALL of our pizza! Mine was called the pesto and contained this:

prosciutto di parma, seasonal greens pesto, caramelized
onions, goat cheese, saba reduction, toasted pine nuts

I cannot even describe to you how amazing it was. It was the best gluten-free pizza I have ever had! It even had a chew to it that I don't know how they achieved, but will be eternally grateful for.

The hubs and the boy got a meat fest of a pizza full of salami and pepperoni, and my son's pal was adventurous and got a pie that had potatoes on it, the patate:

roasted fingerling potatoes, peppers al forno, kalamata olives,
house mozzarella, tomato sauce, garlic, sage leaves, salted
capers, chili flake

Seriously, if you are even in Moscow, pop into Maialina, it's amazing!

We then went up to the Kibbie Dome and parked for a bit of a tailgate wait as I like to call it. The boys all wandered around the tailgating festivities, they even won a commemorative cup and drink cozy from one of our local credit unions. We even ran into the boys' school principal and his daughter. It's fun when you go to local shindigs.

After they opened the dome doors, we walked down ALL the stairs to our front row seats and proceeded to watch one of the best displays of football I have ever seen.

It has been four years since I watched the Vandals play at home, and lets just say they have improved their game A LOT during that time. The score at the end of the first half was 56-0!

There were full field kickoff touchdown run returns, amazing double reverse plays, a fantastic hit (JJ took out a photographer in the most spectacular way! She was okay.) by my favorite player ever Jermaine Jackson (represent for the short people my man!), the Vandals scored on every possession, their energy was just insane.

In fact, I felt for the Bengals. My daughter attends ISU and had told me that they were an academic school, not a sports school. Let's just say I witnessed that first hand. Both the Bengals offensive and defensive line could do nothing in the face of the Vandals well-oiled execution machine.

Another super cool thing is a kid who has thrown shotput and discus with my son for the last several years is on the U of I team, and it made my whole day getting to see him all suited up and doing his football thing. He's put on 40lbs of muscle since I had last saw him this spring, that mammoth freshman is going places I tell ya!

The second half was a bit less exciting as the Vandals pulled their first string and put other kids into play. Honestly that was pretty cool as it gave ISU a chance to score a few touchdowns and such. The final score ended up being 63-21.

I also enjoyed the marching band a ton! U of I has a fantastic band, a fantastic fan base, and we all agreed we had a glorious time! Plus, it's only a two hour drive home, so that was fantastic too!

And you can bet that we will probably be doing the same thing this time next year! In fact, you can count on it!

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And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's always guilty of being offsides iPhone.

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