saturday was a fun day.\u00a0 we set our alarm early for saturday morning so we could crawl out of bed and head down town to the raleigh christmas parade.\u00a0 strange, i know – a christmas parade in november.\u00a0 the funny thing is that i was just telling will earlier in the week that i wanted to make sure we did not miss the raleigh parade since we were not aware of it last year.\u00a0 then thursday night i turned on the news and the weather man announced that saturday was going to be a perfect day for the parade!\u00a0 wowsie!\u00a0 well, thankfully we caught it – early or not.<\/p>\n
we arrived down town, gathered our mocha\u00a0 latte, and headed into the crowd to find a cozy stance to watch the bands, balloons, floats, and animals parade down the street.\u00a0\u00a0 we found a pretty good spot in front of the wachovia building and settled in.\u00a0 there was a myriad of different floats, a couple balloons, stunt artists, dance crews, collections of horses\/tractors\/harleys\/cars, bands, and some amazing jump ropers.\u00a0 we really had a good time watching all of this craziness going down the road.\u00a0 after the parade we had to run some errands before we could gear up for the roller derby that evening.<\/p>\n
around 4pm we headed back downtown to the dorton arena to watch our first roller derby.\u00a0 i’ve been drawn to these bad asses for some time now.\u00a0 there is just something amazing to me about these gals gearing up and laying it all out to skate their butts off.\u00a0 we prepped for the event by going to see “whip it” a couple months ago and were ready by knowing the rules and what the point was before we got there.\u00a0 one thing we later learned was that we could sit on the floor right beside the track.\u00a0 we figured this out during the first part of the game, but the good spots were all taken, so we shuffled in behind some other people and kept inching forward as people moved, or got up to get a funnel cake.\u00a0 next time, i will be there front row with my lawn chair – on the front line.\u00a0 yeah, you run the risk of getting a skate to the face, but its a really intense game – and if you are gonna go you should make it the best.<\/p>\n
we were a wee bit disappointed with the first match between the raleigh bootleggers and the alabama dixie derby allstars.\u00a0\u00a0 we got creamed by the dixie derby gals, and the moves were not so dramatic as we had hoped for.\u00a0 however, the second match between the raleigh allstars and the pennsylvania steel city derby demons started out very similarly.\u00a0 the first jammer to break out was for the pa team and she raked in a fast 25 points.\u00a0 scary indeed.\u00a0 however, it was not too long before the raleigh gals made a come back.\u00a0 for a while the raleigh team was on top, and then we lost it again back to pa.\u00a0 it bounced back and forth a couple times.\u00a0 however, with 4 minutes left in the game the raleigh girls were down 20 points.\u00a0 we thought we were in the crapper.\u00a0 however, just when all hope was lost we made a come back, an amazing comeback.\u00a0 everyone in the auditorium stood up and cheered as our girl “holly wanna crakya” kept breaking through time and time again.\u00a0 then, with seconds to spare she scored the last series of points that pushed the score for the win – 144 to 143!\u00a0 it was unbelievable!\u00a0 everyone was going nuts!\u00a0 after the game the raleigh roller girls do a spin by to give you a high five (sort of like you did when you played little league in elementary school), but i was super jazzed to be able to high five all of these kick ass skater chicks.\u00a0 super cool.<\/p>\n
after the roller derby we headed to five star down town for some dinner.\u00a0 we’ve wanted to try it out for a while now, and had not found a good time to go, so we figured with all of the turkey coming up next week we should go ethnic for the dinner.\u00a0 we really enjoyed the atmosphere and the food.\u00a0 will definitely go back!<\/p>\n
we definitely had an amazingly fun day!<\/p>\n\n\t\t