Happy Birthday Brad

Standing on the South Side of the Stadium

"Happy birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Brad, Happy Birthday to you"

Happy 28th Birthday to Brad.  Today we had a great day in honor of him.  We stared off the day by doing a stadium tour at Mile High.  It was a great tour where you get to walk through the whole stadium and learn lots of fun facts about all sports in Colorado but most importantly the Denver Bronco's.  It was a chilly day with some snow flurry's but most of the tour was inside so we weren't too cold.  Before the tour started they had a museum where you could look around and they had a photo booth area where you could take picture with the different sports gear on.  It was fun to try everything on and feel like "players".

We learned lots of interesting facts about the Bronco's, Players, the owner and even Couch McDaniel's.  The first week that he was on the job he ordered for all of the Mike Shanahan's photos to come down immediately. Also the stadium sits on an old dump that later was the first baseball field for the minor league Colorado Baseball team.  If you look in one of the parking lots they left the original home base.  It was in the middle of a parking space and from the stadium looked like a piece of trash.  We also got to go into the Fox Sports press room and had a view of the stadium from there.  This is where they produce their show and all the big wigs sit to give all the stats that we hear back at home.  They still had the tape cues on the the floor for the sports caster from the last home game!!

Later in the tour we were able to go through the visiting teams locker room and enter out to the field just like the professionals.

We ended the tour by walking around the outside looking at the statue that Pat Bowlen had designed with his own money(2 million dollars) just for the stadium.  There are 7 Bronco's running with crystal clear water underneath.  The water is circulated by the same piping system that keeps the grass watered and green in the winter on the field.  The water is 67 degrees so in the cold weather you could see steam coming from the horses feet.  Another fun fact Pat Bowlen's lucky number is... you guessed it 7.  His owner suite number is 7, he sits in seat number 7, he only enters through the 7th gate and there are 7 horses in the statue.  Pretty interesting, he sounds like a neat guy that really has done a lot for Denver and the Denver Broncos.  We then went to the Bronco's team store to look at all the new Bronco's gear.  They had some great throwback items.  Brad got a hat and I got a shirt.  We have sooooo much Bronco gear I can't believe we bought more.  Brad also decided to model the new retro jacket and hat.  He looks like a model!!











On to the next activity, LUNCH. Out of all the places that Brad could go for his birthday he choose....  DRUM ROLL... CASA BONITA!!  Now for all of you who have grown up or know Colorado this is a natives child hood memory of being the best restaurant around. I must say it did not disappoint today and we had a blast.

The food was very good, and they even had great drinks.  The second I walked through the door an over whelming smell of remembrance hit me and took me back to the time I was a kid. It still looked the same as how I remembered it and had the charm.  We watched the divers show, walked through the scary cave (I screamed twice) and through the waterfall.  It was SO MUCH FUN!!!  The sopapillas were amazing and the we kept saying "more sopapillas please".

Side Note: For those of you South Park fans there is a great episode focused around Casa Bonita and the great sopapillas.  Click link to view the whole episode South Park-Casa Bonita

I am so thankful that 28 years ago, the day before Thanksgiving (just like this year) Bradley Warren Sill my wonderful husband entered into the world  at 1:53 am.  Happy birthday honey, I love you!!