I just have to brag a little…

With my birthday coming up on Saturday, Alex went shopping today and I just had to share the conversation we had (mostly over Blackberry Messenger):

A:  So I found you the perfect present, but they have them in a bunch of different colors so I don’t know what to get you.

M:  You know me, you know what colors I  like so just use your best judgment.

A:  Well I think they’re all hideous so I have no clue.

M:  Hideous?  If you think they’re hideous, why are you looking at them for me?  I don’t want anything hideous!

A:  Well, hideous in a fashionable way.  I don’t know,  but you mentioned that you wanted one of these, but I don’t know what color.

M:  First of all, I can’t believe you called something I want hideous Secondly, I still don’t know what you’re talking about but when it comes to colors, here is a good rule of thumb:  if it is for my apartment, go with purple, red, or black and if it is an accessory the basic colors are always safe, but I wear just about any color.  Hope that helps! :)

A:  Haha, but this thing is multicolored!

M:  Are they all multicolored?

A: Yes, you know what it is now right?

M: (Having a slight idea that he was referring to Vera Bradley, I tried to throw him a line without making him feel bad if that wasn’t it):  I might have an idea, but I don’t want to ruin the surprise

A:  You might have to.  There are way too many colors and styles to choose from and I don’t know if you really want one.

M:  Okay, I’ll give you this….if it is what I think it is the colors purple punch and symphony in hue will help you out.  If those names help you out, I don’t have anything in either, but remember, I love tote bags!

A:  Now, I’m really lost.  Are you thinking of an accessory?

At this point, I called him because he was confusing me.  He was indeed in Vera Bradley and he was completely confused and rightfully so.  He knows I have several Vera Bradley pieces, but since they are all in a retired pattern, and even though I had been looking at a couple of the newer patterns, I had never mentioned them to him so he didn’t have a leg to stand on.  Normally,  I would just leave it to him, but that store can be extremely intimidating and even I have trouble choosing pieces and patterns sometimes.  I gave him my two favorite patterns and a couple of my favorite styles so he did have some say so and I would still be surprised :)

I was so impressed though because the only time I have ever mentioned Vera Bradley was on the plane back from California.  Of course several of the girls had Vera Bradley carry-ons and I made the comment, “Ooh, I like her Vera” and then of course I had to explain what I meant and that there were all different patterns but they were pretty easy to spot.  He knows my pink elephant bags so I pointed out that they were Veras too, but that is the only time the name has ever come up.

Anyway, I was so proud of him for remembering the name brand and actually attempting to go in that store!  Apparently, he does listen to me sometimes :)

Sorry…but I just had to brag on my guy :)

Josh’s Birthday Celebration

Since Josh’s birthday was on a Thursday and they were threatening some nasty winter weather that weekend, my parents decided it would be best if we all met in Birmingham for dinner.  When it comes to our family celebrations, mom is usually the one who plans everything, but she was battling a horrible stomach bug and couldn’t get everything done so that left all the planning up to me!

I ordered the cake (which the lady rushed me through so quickly I was just waiting on a cake that was worthy of Cake Wrecks), and although I had already gotten my present for him, I still had to go get his present from them .  We were planning on getting him Band Hero with the entire band kit, but since it was so expensive (and big), I wanted to take him to be sure that’s what he wanted.

So after picking up the cake (which was fine), going to Best Buy once, only to decide that I needed Josh to come too, running all my personal errands, making a second trip to Best Buy with Josh only to come out empty handed (it wasn’t what he wanted), we finally hopped on the road to Birmingham. 

My family are fairly picky eaters.  They don’t like anything fancy…just plain and simple food so deciding on a place that would suit everyone was no easy task.  Josh wanted steak, but I knew my parents would not want to pay an arm and a leg to go to a fancy steak house, so I suggested TGI Friday’s because 1.) we don’t have it in T-town or at home, 2.) it was fairly safe (we had eaten there before) 3.) it was reasonably priced.  I plugged the address in my GPS and were headed that way.  About 10 miles from the exit for TGI Friday’s, my dad called and changed plans and decided to go to Logan’s instead.  I was not a happy girl.  First of all, I am not a fan of Logan’s.  Every time I eat there…it makes me sick, literally.  On that same note, we have one in Tuscaloosa AND one in Decatur, and we were driving an hour to eat there.  Being moody, stressed, and not feeling well was not helping things either!

Anyway, I tried to suck it up and deal with it since it was Josh’s birthday.  Although I didn’t have the best time, I think he did so it was worth it!

I know you’ve already seen some of these pictures, but I thought I’d share them all here :)

   

Happy Birthday Joshie! :)

Another Award

I’m so sorry…when I was trying to play catch up with my awards today, I forgot one.  My sweet friend, Brittany Ann over at Living in the Moment passed this award to me a while back.  Thanks for the award and for all the support Brittany Ann…you’re fabulous!

I’m supposed to nominate 15 blogs, but because I love you all, I’m passing this on to all of my “followers” (I don’t like that word so I’ll rephrase and say “The people that follow my blog” :)).  I am so thankful for all of the sweet comments and support!!! You guys are awesome :)

Happy Birthday Baby Brother!

Yes, today my baby brother turned 19 (I used the word turned because I forgot to post this earlier today!)  It seems like just yesterday, my dad was checking me out of school (which my family NEVER did) to go see my new baby brother at the hospital.

Then (January 28, 1991)

Now (January 28, 1991) (Sorry for the fake smile…I felt horrible today and I look it!)

Then (January 28, 1991)

Now (January 28, 2010)

Happy Birthday Josh!!

I am so proud of you and all you’ve accomplished!!

Blogger BFF’s

My sweet friend Brittany over at Tales of a Southern Belle and her Beau just sent me the Blogger BFF award and I couldn’t be more grateful!!  She is fabulous and always makes me smile!! Thanks Brittany! :)

The Rules
1. Thank and link the person that sent it to you
2. Present this award to at least five people and explain why you chose them for this award.
3. Copy and past the award on your blog.

My Five Blogger BFF’s

1. Brittany Ann at Living in the Moment – From the moment we connected, she has been super sweet and encouraging with everything I’ve been through.  She has done the “long-distance” thing multiple times with her hubby and is about to have to do it again, so her support is amazing!  Not to mention, she is a FABULOUS writer!  Check her out…you won’t be disappointed.
2. Just Add Walter – She has been so supportive through all my ups and downs and always leaves me sweet comments.  Her posts are great reads as well so go check her out!
3. Kristen at Southern Web Girl – She and I are both Bama grads and surprisingly we knew many of the same people!  She is obviously a huge Bama fan so we “talk football” quite a bit :)
4. Katie at Katie and Cullen – She and I had Spanish class together Freshman year.  At the time, she was dating her now husband, and through Facebook I was able to keep up with her. She and I chat a lot on Twitter now and her blog is always full of fabulous photography!
5. Mellie at The Unemployed Biddy’s Chronicles – Mellie and I met year’s ago through Alex’s group of friends.  She has recently begun blogging her experiences in the world of unemployment and always has some entertaining posts.

Whew!  That was tough!! A HUGE thanks to everyone who has commented on my new “situation”.  You guys are amazing and you have no idea how much the support helps :)

I’m off to celebrate baby brother’s 19th birthday so have a fabulous Thursday!

I feel so bad…

Last night, I cried on the phone to Alex.  I told him I hated him not being here.

I hated that when my parents came down this weekend to celebrate my little brother’s birthday, Alex would not be celebrating with us

I hated that next Saturday, on my 25th birthday, Alex would not be here to celebrate with me

I hated that while all of my friends are enjoying nice dinners and relaxing evenings with their guys, I am home alone

I hated that it has been over two weeks and I have not seen his face once. 

I hated our entire situation and…

I feel so bad.

Because the whole 30 minutes I sat there blubbering on, all Alex could say was

“I’m sorry…”

At the time, I was being selfish.  I didn’t care that it was hurting him to hear me crying on the phone and know that he was the reason and even worse, he couldn’t be here to make me feel better.  I didn’t care that he was going through the same stuff I was…being alone on his birthday in two weeks, not having someone to take to work celebrations, and eating dinner alone every night.  At the time, all I cared about was what I was going through.  Ironically, on our phone call last night, it seemed Alex was the only one saying “I’m sorry”, when those words should have been coming out of my mouth.

When I woke up this morning, my heart was heavy.  Yes, part of it was because I missed him, but most of it was because of our phone conversation last night…

I feel so bad…

…that I cried on the phone to him when I know he HATES me crying and that he is too far away to come comfort me.

…that I didn’t take into account his feelings on this matter.

…that I made him feel bad for taking this job.

So, when I talk to him this afternoon, I will be the one saying

“I’m sorry…”

National Championship Teaser

Update: 

Since I like to put the posts on their corresponding dates, I am going to put a link for each one here so all my “non-Google reader” readers won’t have to go find them :)

Part I:  “California: Here We Come!”

Part II:  “Remember the Rose Bowl…”

Original Post:

I know I still have yet to do my post(s) on our trip to Pasadena for the National Championship game, but I thought I’d give you a little photo teaser for all my non-Facebook readers (plus I just wanted to try out this new program I got!)

Collage made from all the pictures from our trip…(you’ll have to zoom in to see the pics)

 

 

 

Note:  Apparently, blogger won’t let you zoom in big enough to see the pictures without actually downloading the picture :(  Oh well, still a cool collage and I promise to share the pics soon!! :)

Updates

Disclaimer:  I will go ahead and warn you, this post is definitely not my best writing, but I just had to get my thoughts down(and I’m a little sick of writing for school) so bare with my rambles today :)

I know I STILL haven’t finished all of my recap posts, but with school starting back, I haven’t had the energy to tackle them yet! However, since several people have asked me “how I’m handling things” with Alex being gone, I thought I would just give you all an update.

Things have been tough…not going to lie.  It has only been a couple of weeks (last we saw each other was on the 9th), but it seems like it has been a decade.  To make things worse, it seems all of my TV shows are having the “long-distance” episodes.  Not kidding…in the past two weeks I have witnessed Betty’s tearful goodbye to her boyfriend in Ugly Betty, and have re-watched Michael and Holly and Jim and Pam deal with long distance relationships on the Office.  Believe me, I cried A LOT over those episodes because even though I had seen 2 out of 3 before, it meant a lot more this time because I understood what they were going through.

Alex is liking his new job.  I think he would LOVE it if it were just a bit closer to home because although he’s happy at work, he has nothing to do when he gets off.  He calls several times a day and sends me sweet texts occasionally and so far he has been the strong one, constantly reassuring me that everything will work out.  I’ll admit, there have definitely been days that I wanted him to let down his guard and really tell me how he felt, but when he finally has the last few days, it breaks my heart even more.  Something about when guys get emotional that gets me every time.  Like when he sends me a message with a picture of his dinner, the same dinner we’d eat often, with the caption “It is not the same without you :(“ or yesterday when he told me he was lonely….I lost it.

From what I’ve been told, the first few weeks are the worst and I completely agree.  I’m just getting used to him not being here and are constantly realizing the things that we used to do together, are now things I have to do alone.

Yesterday was probably one of the worst days I’ve had.  When we originally made out our “visit schedule”, our first visit was supposed to be this weekend when I was to go to Arkansas.  However, things didn’t work out with this visit or the our 2nd scheduled one (which happened to be my birthday), because he has to visit home the following weekend so him driving two weekends in a row just wasn’t feasible.  So now, we’re looking at not seeing each other until Valentine’s weekend and still, I have to share that weekend with his family.  Needless to say, our visits worked out much better on paper than in real life…but isn’t that how everything works out?

I’m trying to look at the bright side of things and thankfully there have been a few “positive” things to come out of this long distance thing:

1. With my “best friend” being gone, I have learned to reconnect and rely on my friends who I have lost touch with over the years and even meet new ones.  I’m thankful to have such an amazing support system (that includes you guys)!
2. With having the time that used to be spent with Alex now open, I have plenty of time to catch up on the things around the house and get ahead on homework.  This is definitely a plus (although I would gladly go back to my busy schedule anytime!)
3. Since I just have myself to worry about when it comes to meal time, I eat whatever I’d like and have gone back to eating much healthier and much smaller portions (not to mention time to work out!).  This has resulted in some major weight loss on my part and from what I hear, on his part as well.  Now that our next visit has been pushed back, I’m hoping to be close to my goal weight by that point! :)

So, all in all…I’m making it.  I’m hoping that we’ll eventually get on a schedule (or at least somewhat of one) when it comes to visits, but until then, I’m just going to have to suck it up and deal with it.

School is officially back in full swing and it is definitely keeping my mind off other things.  I’m finishing up my residency (last required semester of “full-time”) and I couldn’t be more happy about having these classes out the way.  So far, this seems to be my least favorite semester because I only have 1 tech class (as I’m finished with them until my very last one before I graduate :( ), a stats class (I am NOT a math girl), and an educational leadership class (which I surprisingly like so far, but it is a ton of work).  I also have to start work on my paper that I will be presenting with my professor at a conference next summer so that is definitely something else on my already full plate :)  I am also toying with the idea of taking a few more classes to complete yet another degree, but I’ll let you know if I decide to do that.

Anyway, I think that is about it.  Thanks for listening to my ramble and thanks for the great deal of support.  You have no idea how much those sweet comments on my blog, Twitter, and Facebook brighten my day!

Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up on my recap posts soon (especially since I’ve got a birthday coming up that will definitely add to my work load ;))  Have a fabulous weekend! :)

Lots of love!

Belated Award

Forever ago (seriously, it has been over a month…yikes!), my sweet friend Brittany at Tales of a Southern Belle and her Beau gave me the Happy 101 Award and I am just getting around to blogging it!  Thanks Brittany!

The Rules:
1. List 10 things that make you happy.
2. Tag 10 bloggers that brighten your day.

10 Things Making Me Happy:

1. Spending time with my family, friends, and Alex - They always make me smile when I’m having a bad day!
2. Reading a good book - especially “Chick Lit”…it is such a refreshing break from my usual doctoral reading.
3. Gorgeous shoes – This includes shoes I own as well as those I covet.  If I’m having a bad day, slipping on a pair of my favorite shoes seems to make it all better…weird I know ;)
4. “Anything Shiny” – Mainly diamonds, but this girl loves a good piece of jewelry no matter what the gem stone.
5. Dancing – Whether it is for fun or for a class, dancing has always been my escape.
6. Teaching – It has always been my passion and even on the hard days, knowing that I am making a difference in a child’s life makes it all worth it.
7. Sweet Gestures – Whether it is a phone call, text message, thank you card, or even holding the door open with a smile…I love it.  It makes me realize there are still nice people in the world :)
8. Date Night with my Tivo – I love it when it finds new shows for me to watch and that I can always go back to my favorites when I need them (i.e. Sex and the City ;))
9. Good food and chocolate – If weren’t for the dancing mentioned above, I would be huge because I love good food…I think I’m a foodie at heart.
10. Art – Whether it is visual or performing, I love it all!

Whew!  That was not easy!  Now, for my 10 bloggers that make me smile (Some of you ladies have already gotten this, but I love you so much I had to include you on my “Favorites” list):

1. Just Add Walter
2. Southern Web Girl
3. Living in a Moment
4. Tales of a Southern Belle and her Beau
5. Martinis & Madness
6. The Sweet Sea
7. The Byingtons
8. Miranda’s Mumblings
9. The Horton Family
10. The Unemployed Bitty’s Chronicles

Thanks again Brittany! :)

Part IV: “Our bags are packed…we’re ready to go!”

Well, not really because come on, who would want to leave 80 degree weather to go back to ice and snow…not this girl!

Anyway, for our last day in California, we agreed we wanted to do two things: 1.)  Sleep in and 2.) Enjoy as much of California as we could and that’s exactly what we did.

We were supposed to check out at 11:00, but the lovely people downstairs gave us until 3:00 since our flight didn’t leave until that night.  We used every bit of that time and ended up heading downstairs right at 3 to check our bags and head out of the afternoon.

Poor Alex had woken up sick to his stomach and we just banked it on us not having anything to eat and being exhausted.  We had spent most of the morning waiting on one of our friends to call us back since we had talked about having lunch together, but we didn’t get the call until we gave up and headed out.

Anyway, we decided we wanted to head to a beach and we found out that Manhattan beach was close by so that’s where we headed.  It was a little too chilly to actual don bathing suits and actually ENJOY the beach, but seeing this view was enough for us.

We hung out on the pier for a while just enjoying the view (and wondering how people are in swimsuits!)  I realized that my camera card had no more room on it so I sat there and deleted some old pictures to make sure I had plenty of room for the remainder of our trip (Remember this because it will come up again later!)

Then, I had to get a picture of us with that gorgeous view!

We then headed to a brewery that Alex had heard about to grab some lunch.  I had a yummy chicken sandwich and Alex ordered a sandwich and a beer he really wanted to try (being a former bartender…he’s a bit of a beer snob!).  Poor guy only took about two sips of the beer and a bite of the sandwich and he spent the rest of our lunch in the bathroom sick :(.  I gobbled up my sandwich and started panicking because we had a lot of traveling to do and I was afraid I would get sick too.

After our, I mean my, lunch we got Alex some Pepto Bismal at a local grocery store and he drank it while I took in some scenery.  This was by far my favorite store!  The owner is a genius!

No, I did not go in because I had a sick guy on my hands and I probably would never come out :)

He was feeling a little better, but we decided it would be best if we just found somewhere to sit down.  We ended up heading back to the pier just in time to catch the beautiful sunset.

How gorgeous is this?

   Watching the sunset with my guy….perfect way to end our trip!

Because Alex was so sick, I made the executive decision to head back to the hotel, grab our bags, and go ahead and head to the airport.  If he was going to get sick, I wanted us to be in a set place and not trying to travel around the city.

This was probably a good idea because amazingly we made it through security at LAX without much waiting (if we had waited a little while longer, we would have been in trouble) and settled in to wait the 4 hours for our flight to board.  Thankfully there were no ticket snafus this time around.

By this point, Alex was miserable.  It was pretty chilly now that the sun had gone down and you know, it only makes it worse when you’re sick.  So Alex claimed a row of chairs and laid down in hopes of sleeping off some of the yuckiness before we boarded our flight.

My poor baby :(

Since I was left to myself, I passed the time by hunting a wall outlet to charge my drained phone.  I ended up finding one, sitting there for about 30 minutes and then realized, when my phone died, that the plug didn’t work.  One of the flights at our gate took off so I stole the outlet that they were using (since apparently it was the only one that worked!).  I hated to wake up Alex, but our area was filling up and he was three rows back from me so I wanted to stay close in case he needed me.  I woke him up to tell him I was moving up next to the window and he decided he would just move up there with me.  So, this is where Alex spent the next few hours!

Oh yes, he is definitely asleep on the floor.

From smashing his face in a bike accident when he was younger (a story for another time!), he has a deviated septum so he snores REALLY LOUDLY.  He told me to wake him up if he started snoring, so I agreed and popped in my earbuds to drown out the French family talking really loudly with some Ocean’s 13 on Alex’s ipod.  I obviously couldn’t hear if Alex was snoring, but a kid that was with the huge French family was sitting beside me.  When Alex started snoring, the kid would look at him funny so I knew that was my cue so I’d softly nudge Alex with my foot and he would stop. :)

As I was sitting there, I decided I wanted to look back over all the pictures from the trip.  I pulled out my camera and smiled as I looked at all of the pictures from our plane trip there and then, as I clicked to look at the pictures from game day, it immediately jumped to the beach pictures you see above. 

I thought my eyes were deceiving me so I hit back and there were the pictures from our flight and then beach, flight, beach.  My mind was racing trying to think what on earth could have happened.  Then, it hit me.  As I was sitting on the dock deleting old pictures (I’m talking like pictures from last summer because I NEVER delete pictures), I remember deleting one of the game pictures that someone got in my way (again, I NEVER delete pictures…I’m blaming this on my lack of sleep).  My camera has this wonderful (sometimes) setting where it lets you choose to delete a single picture or all pictures in that date range and I bet you can guess which one I hit.  Stupid, stupid me!

I immediately began panicking…I’m talking hyperventillating, crying, shaking…the works.  I was so upset I shook Alex awake just bawling.  Poor guy…what a way to wake up.  You’re sleeping nicely on the floor, you already feel bad, and then you get startled awake by your girlfriend who is having a nervous breakdown…I’m pretty sure I shot his blood pressure way up!  Once he was somewhat awake, he did the best he could to try and calm me down, but I was pretty much inconsolable.  He took a few pictures on his camera, but with me having the better one, I took most of the pictures.  Although the game pictures themselves could be replaced, the ones of us could not.  Now you know why I was upset!He, on the other hand, was miserable thanks to his startling wake up call and had to leave me for a bit to rush to the bathroom.

Without my shoulder to cry on, I started researching “Accidentally deleted pictures” on my Blackberry to see if there was any hope of getting my beloved pictures back.  Of course they said most pictures could be recovered as long as they hadn’t been written over by new ones.  Great, I’d only taken about 30 pictures since then…cue more panic.  I pulled the card out of my camera and put it in my case just so I wouldn’t be tempted to take any more on the card.  I think the worst part was knowing I couldn’t do anything about it until I got home the next day.

anyway, Alex came back with this rolled up thing in his hand.  He unrolled it and it was this teeny tiny fleece blanket that only looked big enough for a child that was covered in poker chips.  I have to admit…he made me smile with his find.  He said he had gotten cold and wanted a blanket, but didn’t want to pay a fortune for it so when he found this one for 12 dollars, he bought it.  I should have taken a picture of it, but I was too distraught.  It was quite cute him laying in the floor with the blanket only covering from his neck to his waist though.

Finally, it was time to board our flight.  A sweet girl gave Alex her seat so we could sit together and good thing because we both slept the entire five hour flight from California to D.C.  When we arrived in D.C., we were starving so we ate breakfast at this little pub thing.  Alex had bangers, beans, and eggs and I had a yummy omelet.  However, I started feeling sicky after we ate and was pretty miserable, but trying not to think about it.  Thankfully we had a somewhat short layover and before we knew it, it was time to board our flight for Charlotte.

We had not been outside yet, but having to walk outside to get on our plane was a definite reminder that we weren’t in California anymore.

Yep, that’s ice on the ground…BRR!!

Alex slept the entire flight, but I was too sick to sleep.  Luckily, this was a short flight so we were in Charlotte before I could worry too much!

We were both starving when we got to Charlotte, but neither one of us felt like eating.  We debated getting a smoothie, but since we weren’t sick at the moment…we didn’t want to jinx it.

We were definitely excited about being so close to home.  I couldn’t sleep on the last flight, but we didn’t even get off the ground before Alex was knocked out.

   Yep, pretty much my view the entire trip home.  Poor baby!

I was miserable.  I was exhausted, not feeling well, and I desperately wanted a shower, pj’s, and bed, but when we landed in Huntsville, I sucked it up and smiled for Alex’s parents.  They were so sweet and didn’t bat an eye when they saw me makeup-less and probably looking like I had been ran over by a truck, and even took us out to lunch at Cracker Barrell so we could get some food that would be “easy on our tummies”…that’s why I love his family.

Afterwards, we stopped by to see his grandmother since he was heading back the next day, and then Mom came by and picked me up from his house and took me home.

I, of course, wanted to hit the sack, but Mom had a few errands to run.  When I finally got home, I was determined to see if I could get my beloved pictures back so about 30 minutes and 40 dollars later, all my babies were there (as you probably guessed since you got to see all of them ;)).  After the happy dance, I took a quick shower then snuggled up in my nice warm bed with visions of National Championship memories dancing in my head ;)

Thanks for letting me share our journey with you and hopefully, next

year, I’ll be sharing a similar trip to Arizona ;)

To sum up our awesome season, I’m leaving you with one more video with all of the highlights from the season and of course one more ROLL TIDE! :)

If you want to check out the rest of the pictures from our California Adventure, you can see my Picasa album here.

1/6/10 - 1/9/10 - National Championship Game

Other parts of our adventure:

Part I:  California, Here We Come

Part II:  Remember the Rose Bowl…

Part III:  The Roses in this stadium are once again Crimson…

Part III: “The Roses in this Stadium are once again Crimson”

This is part III in my recaps of our trip to the National Championship Game in Pasadena, California. 

Part I:  “California, Here We Come!”

Part II:  “Remember the Rose Bowl…”

_________________________________________________________

Once we arrived in our seats, we spent some time just enjoying the atmosphere and soaking in the excitement (and of course, taking pictures :))

Yep, we had awesome seats! :)

 

The ESPN people were over to our right.

What a gorgeous sight! :)

      One more picture before the game started!

As we watched the highlights from our fabulous season on the jumbotron, it definitely brought tears to my eyes…we were really here!

Before we knew it, it was time for the pre-game festivities.

Audra McDonald, who plays Naomi on one of my favorite shows, Private Practice, sang America the Beautiful

and Josh Groban with Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers (one of my favorite bands!)  played the National Anthem. 

Then, we enjoyed an awesome flyover.  Needless to say, when the paratrooper came over our section with an Alabama flag, the crowd went wild!

Then, it was game time!  We were so excited!

Since, I don’t want to bore you with a long recap of the game, I’ll let you watch some highlights from the Athletic Department:)

This makes me cry even watching this now…especially seeing the guys singing Yea Alabama! in the locker room…LOVE!!

I took a TON of pictures during the game, but since this post would never load if I shared them all, I’ll show you a few of my favs and provide you a link to my Picasa album at the bottom if you would like to see them all!

Half-time

 

13 National Championships!!!

 

Us during the awards presentation.  Sorry I look rough…it had been a long day!

 

LOVE!

 

Me in the aftermath.  This was the first time I had sat down since before the game started (you just don’t sit in the student section ;))

 

Going out on top!

Although the game itself wasn’t as exciting as I hoped (I think we all felt Florida was a bigger hurdle and after McCoy got hurt, it took a lot of the momentum out of the game) it was exciting to have the opportunity to witness it.  It melted my heart to see my former recruits, and the guys I watched pretty much grow up holding up that Coaches’ Trophy! :)

Highlights of the game:

• Getting to watch various ABC stars come on the jumbo tron during commercial breaks and saying “Roll Tide” :)
• Get “I hate you” responses from my friends with all my status updates :)
• Getting to watch “my boys” become National Champions
• Getting to sing “Rammer Jammer” to the Longhorns
• Singing extra loudly on my new favorite verse in “Yea Alabama” (“Remember the Rose Bowl, we’ll win then!”)

Oh and…

• Being there to witness Alabama bringing home their 13th National Championship – the first since 1992.

We had planned on going to the Alumni after party, but it was 25 dollars to go inside this club and then we still had to order dinner.  We were tired, hungry, and I was in agonizing pain…remember those shin splints I mentioned earlier?  Well after walking around all day, standing up during the entire game, and then walking back up to Old Towne Pasadena they were hurting so badly I was literally sick.  So, we passed on the after party and decided to head back to the hotel.

Here we are worn out on the ride back to LA (on a train full of Texas fans nonetheless!)  We look about as good as we felt ;)

After we got back to the hotel, we were too exhausted to go find food so we celebrated with Ham and Cheese sandwiches and chips from the “Marketplace” downstairs (Thanks for having this Marriott…we would have died without it!) while watching game highlights on ESPN.  Perfect end to the evening!

Next up, the final part in our California adventure (and believe me…the last day was definitely an adventure!), but before I go, I want to leave you with another highlight video from the athletic department, appropriately set to one of the greatest sports songs of all time:  “We Are the Champions”. 

Note:  It includes highlights from both the SEC game and the National Championship game.  The beginning voiceover is from Coach Saban from his introductory press conference 3 years ago.  The end is the best part…and inspired my title for this post :)

 

To see more pictures from our California Adventure click here:

1/6/10 - 1/9/10 - National Championship Game

Part II: “Remember the Rose Bowl…”

“…we’ll win then!”

Although I have sang this phrase of our fight song many times throughout my college career, I never really understood its significance until I woke up on game day!

As I donned my red and houndstooth attire, it really hit me:  we were about to go watch Alabama play in the Rose Bowl for the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.  This was a feat that we had came close to a few times, but until last year, we never even made it to the SEC Championship game.  Now, we were about to witness history and unlike our last National Championship, I am old enough to remember and enjoy it.  Let me tell you, even though it was 6:00 am, I was as happy as a clam!

Why so early you ask?  Well, since we had student tickets, we had to go pick them up at the Rose Bowl aquatic center in Pasadena at 9:00 am.  Instead of grabbing a cab, we opted to go with the Metro Line just to make it easier on our pockets.  This definitely required some major prior planning on my part because all of the connections were timed, so if we missed one we’d have to wait 30 more minutes for the next one.  Thankfully their website had a great “planner” that helped me plan everything out.    This was our “Game Day” section of the itinerary that I made:

Yes, that is the BCS logo I put in the background of our itinerary and yes, I’m OCD…I can’t help it!  Like I said, Alex laughed at my booklet of information for this trip and settled only for a digital copy on his Blackberry ;)

So, the shuttle from our hotel to the airport was right on time and so was the one from LAX to Union Station.  When we got to Union Station, we bought our tickets and got waited for the train.  As we waiting, we got to enjoy the beautiful skyline!

Right after I took this picture, I was checking our itinerary on my BRAND NEW Blackberry, and someone bumped into me and I dropped it on the concrete.  The case I had on it popped off and at first glance everything seemed fine.  As I was putting the case back on, Alex pointed out that the bottom corner of the screen had shattered….I was sick.

The whole ride to Pasadena, I stressed over my phone.  Alex, being the amazing guy he is, does what he always does and reassured me that everything would be fine and that he was sure they’d fix it for me (they wouldn’t, but that response appeased me at the time.)  Before we knew it, we had arrived in Pasadena.  The website told me we could catch the Pasadena Arts bus, but we waited for a bit and when it didn’t seem to be coming, we decided we’d just walk because the website said it was in walking distance – HA!  I was back in panic mode because I didn’t know how long it was going to take us and although we were using the VZ Navigator on my phone, we really had no clue where we were going.  We were starving and Alex wanted to stop, but I was not about to miss out on good tickets so we treked along.

It was a good 2 miles of walking at least with the last mile being down a huge hill with no sidewalk.  I know I’ve mentioned before that I wear heels often, but after the pain I went through wearing my stiletto boots to the SEC game, I was not about to make that mistake again.  The only problem is, I’m so used to being on my toes barefoot or in shoes, when I wear flats for an extended period of time, I get shin splints.  Being a dancer, I’ve dealt with them many times and the worst thing you can do is walk a couple of miles.  Sweet Alex was checking on me every step of the way, and definitely kept me going :)  The scenery was beautiful though and we even got to see where that had everything still set up from the Rose Bowl parade.  It also helped to see these every little bit

When we finally got there, an hour before the ticket window was supposed to open, there was already a ridiculous line!

After the gates opened, it only took about 45 minutes for us to get up to the front to pick up our tickets.  I felt much better having these babies in my hand!

Then we headed toward the stadium to see what all was going on, and I spotted this:

Although I work for the football program, live across from the complex and see the truck ALL THE TIME, it was cool to see it in this setting, so I had to get a picture.  I totally wasn’t ready and I could see anything, but ignore me and look at the awesome equipment truck parked beside the BCS sign :)

Then, in the distance, we saw it…

Note the banner placed right in front of the stadium sign….I LOVE it!

We were hoping to find some food around the stadium, but no such luck.  After discussing all of our possibilities, we realized we had to make the trek back to Old Towne Pasadena.  Although my legs were still aching, my hunger pains were worse so we headed back UPHILL for the first mile.  When we got into the town, we stopped at the grocery store when I saw this

   

Being the indecisive couple that we are, we walked up and down the street several times before we found a cute little bistro that had some open tables.  We had an amazing breakfast there:  I had a ham and cheese omlette and Alex had a breakfast plate.  It was so good and it was nice to sit down!

After we finished eating, we decided to hang around town for a bit.  The only thing they had near the stadium was the ESPN tailgate party and we weren’t too keen on paying 35 dollars just to get in so we thought we’d have more fun in town.  As we were walking by one of the little candy shops, I saw this and thought it was too cute

The Alabama one was definitely much cuter than the “Longhorn” next to it.  I told Alex I wanted one before we left, but of course I forgot.  Oh well!

We were supposed to meet up with some friends at a local bar for the Alumni’s pre-game party, but the bar didn’t open until the time we had planned on heading back so we didn’t bother with that.  We did however hit up Bar Celona to watch the pre-game stuff on TV.  It was hot so it was nice to go inside and sit in the air conditioning and rest our legs for a bit!

We were obviously dreading the walk back, but we decided we better go ahead and get it over with.  So we walked the 2 miles back, still in pain, but as soon as we saw this again, the excitement took over the pain!

When we were here earlier in the day, I had looked at getting some shirts, but wasn’t quite sold on them and decided to look at the many makeshift souvenir shops in Old Towne, but when I didn’t find anything there, I decided to go back and get the ones by the stadium.  Of course, by the time I got back they were all sold out of my size :(  We went to every stand, waited in line only to be told they were out.  We gave up and decided to go ahead and get our programs (we lucked out and both got ones with the Rose Bowl covers as opposed to the other 3 images) and head into the stadium since it was about an hour and a half until game time.

Once we got inside, we found a shirt in my size, got some “Championship” hot dogs from the concession stand and found a place on a rock to sit and eat.  I usually have to be in the mood to eat hot dogs, but since it was way past lunch time, they were really good! :)

Then, we found our way to our seats and got settled in for the game.  I’m going to save the game stuff for the next post, but I do want to leave you with the view from our seats.  Amazing right?

Next up:  It’s game time!!! :)