Cherrie Jones Tailgate Party September 25, 2011

The 5th Annual Cherrie Jones Tailgate Party was a complete success last Sunday.  The weather was sunny and a little chilly in the morning but it warmed up to a beautiful 72 degrees by late afternoon.  We got out there at 8 am and people were arriving all the way through the 11 am hour.  By best estimates, we had around 115 people there, maybe even more and we even represented fans from each team in our division.  In honor of playing the Detroit Lions, it only seemed appropriate that we eat lion.  Yep, we cooked up some African Lion meat for everyone to try.  And yes, it's legal.  And no, it doesn't taste like chicken...more like a lower quality ground beef/steak of some sort.  Special thanks to M's niece Tiana and her husband Craig who were kind enough to donate tickets to one of the men's Gopher hockey games so we had a raffle for those to raise some money for liver cancer.  Special thanks to Greg Jones, Cherrie's husband who donated burgers and if you wanted one, a $1 donation was suggested.  M also sold some of the pins that were left over from previous Cherry Rides and in total of all income efforts, over $300 was raised.  We normally don't raise money for this party but just the Cherry Ride so it was awesome more money was raised. Special thanks to Chris Zenner who made a Cherry tailgate banner and special thanks to M's parents who attended their first tailgating experience. It was a surprise and M didn't know about it until they showed up at our house in the morning, despite M's dad shattering his heel earlier this week and having to be in a wheelchair.  We had a couple other special guests come out including Syd, AKA 100% Cheese Free, the Vikings mascot Viktor and even a pig was there! Most of us went into the game to watch the Lions beat the Vikings in overtime, 26-23, which turned out to the first loss for the Vikings against Detroit at home since 1997 and obviously the first loss for the tailgate party.  In fact, Detroit has never scored anything other than 10 points for the last 4 years.  Maybe it would have been better to have stayed outside the dome and party with a smaller group that watched the game outside with another special guest, former Vikings QB Tommy Kramer.  He hung out with about 15 of the people that stayed in the lot to watch the game on the TV they brought and ate and drank with them.

The game was secondary this day and all focus was on Cherrie and our efforts to celebrate her and her life.  Special thanks to my family peeps that came to the party!  Thank you Dennis, Pat, John, Jen, Troy, Tara, Chris and Laura!  ♥

There are tons of pictures that I took through the morning and here are just a couple but please take a look at the slideshow below that I created that has all of the pictures from the day.

I can't wait until next year's party and I hope you can join us.  Let's cross our fingers it's not a December game!

My family!

Check out the slideshow of the other photos from the day: