Time Capsule

We are finally getting the house back together again after all the renovating. Most of the "important" stuff is back where it belongs, which leaves the stuff that is not so important. The stuff I don't really care about, yet don't want to throw away. Some of those things were on this very top shelf in our laundry room coat closet. One of those items was a humongeous blue diaper bag--the very first diaper bag I ever had! I think I used for maybe a month or 2 with Nathan, back when I used to carry everything plus the kitchen sink around. I quickly graduated to a much smaller bag, and since then I occasionally used this blue one as luggage for Nathan on camping trips, or for when we were flying and I wanted to carry a ton of snacks and toys. It really is big!

The main thing I used it for was Air Force Academy football games. We would load that thing up with toys, food, sunscreen, and so on, and it worked well for several seasons of football! Now we haven't been to an AFA football game since the season in 2000, right before we moved to Ohio. And evidently I haven't used this diaper bag for anything else since that time, since it was a perfectly preserved speciman of game day preparation! I can't believe we moved it like that 3 different times! It contained:

--several granola bars of various types
--several strawberry fruit rollups
--an almost empty bottle of SPF 45 sunscreen
--several bandaids
--several Shout wipes
--a travel bottle of Motrin
--one diaper of indeterminate size
--a travel pack of kleenex
--chapstick
--a spanking stick
--one big green garbage bag, for use as an emergency poncho
--3 "Air Force" zipper pulls that were some sort of giveaway
--1 USAFA "terrible towel"
--2 USAFA blue/white little pompoms
--a small wooden spoon that I remember Nathan loving to play with and chew on
--this cute little airplane that is connected by a wire to a plastic "remote control". You can make it go forward and backward, but that's about it, and since it is connected by this wire, it can't get away from you! Nathan loved playing with this during games. Of course we had never taken out the batteries, so they were really corroded, but Bob was able to get the little guy going again! That REALLY brought back the memories for me!

We used to have such a great time at the USAFA football games! We would tailgate with the L's beforehand, and then we would pack up our leftover breakfast burritoes or whatever and eat those inside the stadium. I was not such a good nurser back then as I am now, so I would not have dreamed of actually nursing right there, surrounded by several thousand of my fellow Falcon fans. I would bring frozen bags of breast milk, and on hot days we would all take turns helping to thaw them by putting them on the backs of our necks, LOL. Refreshing!

Of course, that was all pre-9/11. Now they have really tightened things down, and you can't bring any food or drinks inside the stadium. You can't even bring bags inside! So the big blue diaper bag would be a definite no-no. When Bob was an AOC, we (well, he at least) HAD to be at the games. I feel sorry for the moms now who have to bring their wiggly babies and toddlers without a big diaper bag of snacks and toys to keep them occupied! Fun memories for us, though. I finally threw a bunch of stuff away, keeping the airplane, pompoms, zipper pulls, and terrible towel, of course, and the diaper bag is in the "donate" pile in the garage. Time for someone else to make some memories with the thing!