Did you know my family are all Texans? In fact, I’m a native Austinite, which is hard to come by these days. My kids were born in the same hospital that I was!
(Us showing our Texas pride in Washington DC)
Our family are big University of Texas Longhorn fans. Ben is a UT alumni, and graduated in 2001 from the Business School at the University of Texas at Austin. My grandpa was even a Professor at UT in the Computer Science Department.
Ben and I have been going to games together since we were married in 1998!
The kids have been longhorn fans since birth. Here they are at 2 and 4 at a football game.
We mostly go to the football games with our little family, but we love going with friends and family too.
Every year we take at least one weekend road trip to go to an away game. I really love away games! In 2009 we went to Oklahoma State. The game just happened to be on Halloween night so we created a Longhorn themed costume to wear.
Longhorn Vader was born that night.
The fans went NUTS. Totally coo-coo cray-cray over him. We were even invited to go sit with the band!
When we got home we watched the game on our TiVo. Longhorn Vader was on ESPN!
We knew at that point that we had created something pretty darn awesome. Instead of it being a one-time Halloween costume, Longhorn Vader starting making weekly appearances at all the games.
We get stopped weekly by people wanting to take pictures with our little Longhorn Vader.
Cheerleaders are our favorite!
Each week we pull a bigger crowd than the week before. It’s so fun and just plain weird that people want to take pictures with our little guy. 🙂
Our 10 year old son Travis usually wears Longhorn Vader. He loves the attention. We mainly wear the helmet before and after the game, but we’ll put it on in the stands after a touchdown.
Our daughter will wear it occasionally but she doesn’t like the way it fits (too big) so usually she’s happy sporting some face paint.
Well, after 3 years of Longhorn Vader, he was looking rough. And the sign was looking worse. They were chipped, torn, and tattered. It was embarrassing taking it to the game so I sat down with my Silhouette and busted out a brand-spankin’-new sign.
Notice the old sign below the Silhouette?
And I gave Darth a nice brand new fresh coat of Rustoleum’s “Cinnamon”.
Check out how much better our sign is! I even added our facebook fan page at the bottom of the sign so we didn’t have to keep telling everyone about it.
*The fonts on the sign I downloaded free from random font websites. The fonts are called “Collegiate-Normal” and “Star Jedi”. I used black vinyl only. The orange is colored in with a sharpie. To laminate it, I covered the entire foam board (front and back) with clear box tape.
Last Saturday was our first game with the brand new sign and helmet. And the line for pictures was longer than ever. Longhorns love them some Longhorn Vader!
The first sign I hand-drew with sharpies while in the car on the way to the game. This new sign looks so much more crisp and clean. I am really excited about how it turned out.
The kids were so excited to get more pictures with the cheerleaders. Kinsey loves them and watches them more than she watches the game.
Here’s some more pictures of us over the years at UT games.
If you think Longhorn Vader is pretty cool, we’d love for you to become a Longhorn Vader fan on facebook. It’s purely for fun. We don’t make money off him and we aren’t selling anything. We just love UT and having a good time.
If you want to see even more pictures of Longhorn Vader, head over to the fan page to see all the photos other fans have uploaded.
That is just too stinkin’ cute!! And congrats to your new little celebrity! Maybe if he gets “famous” enough you could twist UT’s arm for a scholarship?! Brilliant right?!
That is so freaking cool. I always appreciate devoted college football fans (although I don’t much like your team 🙂 🙂 🙂 . I hereby suggest that your away game trip for 2016 be a trip to Cal (as in Berkeley, California) and my husband and I will show you a good time. We are planning on making the trip in 2015 for when our Bears visit Austin.
Hook ’em Horns, Hepworths!! From one native Austinite to another, you do the horns proud!! How awesome!! I will look for you guys to get a photo next time we’re at a game! Too cool!! 😉
I absolutely love this! My husband and I both graduated from UT! Hook ‘Em!
Way to go, LV! 🙂
Don’t know if I’m more impressed with your beautiful new sign, or the fact that you made the first one i n the car on the way to the game!
This is totally hilarious! Love it!!!
I love it! What a fun tradition for your family. And this post has made me soooo homesick! I’m not a native Austin-ite, but we lived there for a year after we got married and can’t wait to move back there as soon as my hubby gets out of the Army! I’m seriously counting down the days, we loved living there so much.
ok that is just fun, so cute!
Ack!!! This is NOT a post that a SOONER fan should be reading before caffeine!!!! LOL Looking forward to Oct. 13!!! BOOMER SOONER!!
haha that’s awesome! your fam is too cute!! wish i could have a clan rooting for the same team but my husband and i went to rival schools so we are a house divided haha
That is too freaking cute! As a transplanted Texan in Colorado I miss everything burnt orange! I taught my granddaughter and grandson the “hook ’em horns” sign almost as soon as they could talk and it’s a rare day when CJ doesn’t flash me the sign! I have the UT fight song on my iPhone and play it regularly during football games that are televised here (rare). But the best is that BEVO lives right around the corner from me! I see him when I drive down the road sometime and want to stop for a picture but he’s a little intimidating with those massive horns! And HOW DARE that OU person comment on your website! Only kidding!!!
HILARIOUS
I love it!!! 🙂
\m/ Hook Em’ Vader!! \m/
Even though I’m an Oklahoman I think that is just awesome!
As a fanatic Longhorn fan and Texas native living in exile in Georgia, I absolutely loved this post. I call myself
“Party of 1” here as I get so much flack for being a Longhorn fan here in SEC world. Your family has risen to the highest level of coolness with all the Longhorn spirit wear and Longhorn Vader. I am actually getting to go to a game this week-end when the Horns play Ole Miss. One of my daughters’ inlays are major Ole Miss fans. My son-in-law has been planning this week-end for 4 years, I do believe. I am just so excited to be among “my kind” and enjoy some game day excitement. Many continued years of living in “Heaven on Earth’ and going to The Games!!! Hook’en Horns \m/
Haha! This is great! Your son is such a little celebrity!
My family is from Texas too! Love Longhorn Vader!!!!! I just liked him on facebook. Have you noticed any imitators from other schools? You may now…….. 😮
Allison, I love this! So neat how your family has such fun together… and what a great line… may the horns be with you!!! No wonder it was an instant hit!
And so nice to see a truly unique project in my reader today… don’t think anyone else is posting their darth vader posters! And bonus… you weren’t truncated! Funny that the post that wasn’t truncated was the one that I read completely and clicked over to comment… didn’t click through on ANY of the truncated ones to finish reading. 🙂 I get why they’re doing it, but it’s annoying, ha!
We are Longhorns season ticket holders too! Love the Longhorn Vader! I will have to keep my eyes open for him at the next home game! Hook’em!!!!