Ingram the Conqueror: Sunday March 17th, Mississippi State Tri Deltas!

We hopped in the car and drove down to Mississippi State University to meet the Tri Deltas and share our St. Jude story with them. We were so excited to be able to do this first off just because they're Tri Deltas and are doing do much for St. Jude, but we were even more excited because of two special Tri Deltas: Savannah Berry and Ashton Taylor! Savannah is the oldest daughter of Lindsey's current teachers and we ran into them (Mrs. Berry and Ms. Berry Junior as Lindsey calls them) at TCBY too last night while we were getting a treat. Ashton and her family go to church with us and her mother Trisha was Madison's kindergarten teacher at ECS; a little side note is that Mrs. Taylor called Madison her "shadow" during kindergarten because she always seemed to be right behind her. Once we got there, we were greeted by Shelby (we met her in Dallas last month at the conference), Savannah, and Molly. The three of them were taking us out to lunch and by the time we left the house (after a quick tour), Emma and Katie also joined us for lunch at Sweet Peppers!

After a fun lunch and watching the end of the Florida/Ole Miss basketball game, we headed back to their house so we could switch out people and everyone could pile into our car for a tour of the campus with our unofficial, yet official, tour guides Emma and Anna. The first stop after checking out all the Fraternity and Sorority houses, was all the Sports Complexes and Fields followed by all the academic buildings and the Drill Field. Ingram was most interested in the baseball field and asked if that was where Mr. Brent was going to play baseball. Lindsey's favorite place was a tie between the "food" building and the soccer field; she was very excited because they had Chick Fil A and about 5 other restaurants in the "food building:" there was also a Subway on campus too. Madison's favorite place was the library which was filled with 5 floors if books; she actually took off running to it as soon as we told her what it was! It was obvious that all three of them loved the Drill Field which was the best play to play tag. The girls had Emma doing races with them and Ingram had Molly playing tag since there wasn't really any place for hide and seek in a huge open field. It was definitely a much needed "running around like crazy" break on the Drill Field!

When we came back to the Tri Delta house, it was filled with the whole chapter and they were inside singing for us! It was so cute and reminded Craig and I of being in college at my Chi Omega parties with all the cute songs we sang. Several times during our day, we both talked about how much we missed college; we even said how we excited we are for our girls to be able to make such sweet memories when they're in college too. Once we were in, Savannah introduced us to the chapter then Madison started telling our story. Ingram did his thing and wound up running around a little playing with his new motorcycle the Tri Deltas gave him. After Madison talked, Lindsey talked too and thanked them for all the money they had raised so far. Of course being the entertainer that she is, she hopped up on the chair so everyone could see her. Ingram followed suit and did the same but he was a little slower than her and we got his picture! This time all of us talked a bit and then we had a question/answer time and the kids had fun answering questions too.

Next up was picture time! After a few throws up high in the air, Ingram was ready to smile for some pictures. The whole chapter was outside and they had spots for us in the front. The kids were on the ground and Craig and I were in the front row. But since Craig was the only guy and taller than everyone else there, he moved to the back row. Even in the back row, he joined in doing the Delta sign for some of the pictures, but the girls next to me told me to do my Chi Omega sign instead of doing a Delta sign. After taking several big pictures, the girls and Ingram took pictures with a few girls at a time until Ingram just couldn't take any more.

Before we left campus, the girls wanted to go to the soccer fields and play; after we had a soccer ball in the car so why not use it? There were these thingies on the tops of the iron fence around the field that we didn't think would feel too good if someone fell so we just ran around the bleachers and took some pictures. I guess the tall fence was there for a purpose and we didn't need to mess up their field. Both of the girls said they'd love to be a Tri Delta at Mississippi State and they'd love to play soccer there too! Madison added that they could go to the athletic building "not to meet guys" but to do their school work and eat with other athletes. Of course they both said they wanted to live with at the Tri Delta house. Oh well, I guess we have our work cut out for the next several years with the girls before they hit the road for college life that will include academics, sports, friends,...and of course, boys.