that's my girl..."yaaaah hockey!"

yes, you guessed it. Hockey season is upon us finally. We were lucky enough to be given tickets to the exhibition game the Avalanche played against Dallas on Tuesday the 25th. Needless to say, daddy was thrilled to be taking his child to her first game (of any kind). We had bought a 2T Avalanche cheerleader outfit before referral (hehe) and so ms. Autumn wore that and her Avs sweatshirt/jacket to the game. Since we were excited we told her that we were all going to go watch hockey. "Hockey!" she blurts out. "yes, hockey." "yaaaah hockey" she says. So it's "hockey" all the way to the Pepsi Center. We got there alittle after the game started and Autumn was excited and was looking around at everything and pointing. I told her the boys were playing hockey on the ice..."Ice!" she said. "hockey!"

and then the Avs scored....

with the crowd cheering and clapping...the horn sounding...the music blasting...you know it: Autumn got frightened. Too much stimulation...too much of everything at once. and suddenly. She started whining and and fussing and grabbing onto mom. She finally wanted over with me and I held her...her standing in my lap and her laying her head on my shoulder. She soon fell asleep...basically 'shutting down' after all that racket. About 15 minutes later she woke up and then was fine. She stayed in my lap most of the rest of the evening and clapped and cheered "yahhh" and danced/wiggled when the music played. Then next time the Avs scored she tensed up but I reassured her that it was good and she was fine. After looking around at everyone else around us and realising that mum (that's what she calls G now...no more 'mama' unless she's not feeling well) and daddy were cheering and clapping she relaxed and was fine the rest of the night. She had mum take some more photos of her and daddy. I pointed out some things and Autumn followed along.

My favourite part was during the second intermission when the zambonis were on the ice. "Car!" she says pointing to one. "no babe, that's a zamboni." I say. She attempts to try to say zamboni with no luck. I ask her "can you say 'zamboni'?" to which she inhales and stops...looking at me as if to say.."ummm no". So I told her "okay, how about just 'boni'?" "BONI!" she blurts out. Soon the zambonis were almost done. One of them starts to head off the ice and I point out to her that it was leaving. Autumn begins waving and saying "bye-bye!"...and then "bye-bye boni!". it was just adorable.

I was pretty much on Cloud 9 the rest of the night and into the following day. :)