Week #3- Oakland vs. Buffalo

This past Sunday the Raiders came into town. Once again, it was raining. For the first half I was on the Raiders' sideline. You can see me in the picture below. I'm just to the left of the 50 yard line. I'm wearing a vest with a big orange X. I'm the taller one.



Here I am again, this time on the Bills' sideline.



These are the people Brianna was sitting with. They are some of Jeff's family (my boss) and Trent Edwards' family (the quarterback). Notice everyone is wearing a #5 jersey in the picture. That's Trent's number. They were really nice and very welcoming to Brianna.



Here are some more pictures from the Bills' website. This one is of the Raiders' quarterback Jamarcus Russell. He's huge! I stood next to him on the Raiders' sideline. He's bigger than most of their linemen.



Here's a picture of Trent about to pass the ball. There's also a Raiders' guy walking on his hands. The Raiders are multi talented. Too bad they're not very talented at football...



They did play us pretty close. We needed a field goal in the last seconds to pull off the victory. Here's a picture of the winning kick:



The final score was Buffalo 24, Oakland 23.



The next two weeks (St. Louis & Arizona) I won't be traveling with the team and after that we'll have a bye week. It'll be nice to have a few weekends off.

Week #2- Buffalo vs. Jacksonville

Saturday we flew down to Jacksonville, Florida to prepare for our game against the Jaguars. I had a really bad cold, so the trip was miserable.



Here are some pictures that I took on Sunday morning:





The stadium is pretty big. They had to block a couple of sections with some covers (seen below). I think it was because it didn't completely sell out. There were a lot of Buffalo fans there too.




The weather was really really hot. It was over 100 degrees on the field. The camera kept fogging up because of the heat....



Yeah. Because of the heat.....

It was really hot, but the scenery was decent....



Anyways... the game went well. It was really close and it came down to the very end. We scored a touchdown towards the end of the game to put us ahead once and for all.

Here are some pictures from the Bills' website:





This is Donte Whitner (#20). He lost his helmet during the play, but he still tried to make the tackle (not a good idea).



This is why you wear a helmet (Mindy, don't look).



The final score was Buffalo 20, Jacksonville 16.



Next Week: Warren's Raiders come to Buffalo.

Week #1- Seattle vs. Buffalo

For the first game of the season we played the Seattle Seahawks. The forecast said the weather was supposed to be nice, but right before game time it started to rain... and it didn't stop the whole game. It was wet and cold. This is a picture Brianna took at the beginning of the game. It is during the coin toss.



The game was fast paced and exciting. There were lots of big hits. The pictures below are taken from the Bills website.






One of the best parts of the game was when Roscoe Parrish (#11) returned a punt for a touchdown.



Former BYU standout, Ryan Denney, scored a touchdown on a fake field goal. He's in our ward and he's a great guy. I knew him from when he played at BYU. His senior year was 2001, which was my freshman year with the team.




This is a picture Brianna took after the game:




Here's the final score: Buffalo 34, Seattle 10.



It was a good way to start off the season. Next week I'll be traveling with the team to Jacksonville to play the Jaguars.

National Buffalo Wing Festival

I guess that we became official Buffalonians this past weekend because we attended the National Buffalo Wing Festival. We went downtown to Dunn Tire Park where the Bisons play. We joined about 100,000 people who came from all over the country to celebrate the food that originated here...Buffalo Wings.

Buffalo Wings are in fact chicken wings (sorry Jessica Simpson, they do NOT come from flying buffalo) covered in a hot barbecue-like sauce. It began at Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York in 1964. And since then have become a favorite of men across the country. It is usually served at bars and during sporting events.

We met up with a girl named Cortney that I met in hospital orientation. She brought her boyfriend, Andrew, and we enjoyed the Wing Fest. You pay to get in and then have tickets to use at each booth. Two tickets gets you three wings (although some booths would give you more). At one booth the lady liked Spence and Andrew so much that we got six! There is an average of half a million wings served every year at Wing Fest. The booths come from all across the country and compete in the competition. There was even a booth from Utah! People come from all over to attend Wing Fest, too. We overheard someone saying that they drove all the way from New Mexico to attend Wing Fest!

Each booth had multiple flavors. We tried almost all of them until we were just stuffed. It was interesting and fun.

Cortney's cousin competed in the Miss Buffalo Wing Contest. They have to answer buffalo wing trivia questions and taste test buffalo wings.

They had other events like the wing eating contest. Last year, a tiny girl ate 173 wings in fifteen minutes and set a world record! It's crazy. They also have a 0.5K run. You get prizes for being the fastest and the slowest. It's silly but fun. People dress up like chickens and wear buffalo wing hats and all sorts of silly stuff.

This is the ballpark logo.






This is the entrance. I guess it is supposed to look like a chicken wing somehow.



Here I am at the entrance.



Here is Spencer getting tickets. The guy is wearing a chicken hat. Awesome!



This is me and Cortney with a buffalo mascot.



This is the last place that we ate wings at, Legend Larry's. They have won best wings for the last three years. The line was really long. We went and ate some wings. Andrew is in the picture holding a napkin to his tongue to try to cool it down. He tried a DOA wing, which are definitely the hottest wings there. Spencer and I didn't even try it. We just tried the hot garlic wings and about died! Some people were crazy and would ask for six or more DOA wings and ask for EXTRA sauce! They are just crazy!!



Here are some images of what is was like.



My mouth, my mouth, my mouth is on FIRE!



We seriously thought that we could blow flames!



My lips and my tongue were just burning. It burnt all through our sinuses and made our ear tubes burn!

We headed for the ice cream. Our salvation was Dippin' Dots. That's right. The ice cream of the future. You've all tried it.



We got some Cookie Dough Dippin' Dots and I stuck my lips straight into the bowl. It was such a relief. I don't know what we would have done without them. Although they did have a Blue Cheese booth with celery and carrots and...you guessed it...blue cheese. I had a hot wing earlier in the day, and that was my sanctuary.



Overall, we had a good time. It wasn't very fun to have to eat wings standing up. Spencer said that he felt like he was part of a herd of cattle going from trough to trough. But it was neat to try all the different flavor of wings. We still like Duff's wings the best, which we discovered before the Buffalo Wing Festival. They are freakin' good.

And it was really fun to hang out with my new friend Cortney. I hope that we can do more things with her in the future. She was a good guide for our first time at Wing Fest.