Valentine’s Weekend Part II

Continued from Part I here.

After our full day of hanging out at the stadium, we came back to the apartment(s) and hung out (ok, well I napped, but those are minor details ;)) and Alex finished up some last minute shopping.

Thankfully I just had to do some freshening up so getting ready was much quicker than normal.  We decided we’d go ahead and exchange presents before we left so my mom could play photographer.

Us before exchanging presents.  Thanks for the “oh-so-flattering” angle mom ;)

I’ll spare you the boringness of scrolling through all of our action shots of gift opening, but I will give you the play by play (and you can see them all in my album below)

Alex got to open his first.  I got him the official National Championship t-shirt and hat (the one the boys got at the game).  He mentioned it when we were in California so the day I came home from Pasadena, I went straight to Hibbett’s and bought him, Josh, and myself, shirts and he and Josh hats.

Then, it was my turn!  Alex gave me a whole hodge-podge of goodies. 

A new Lolita glass to add to my collection; a Vera journal, ID case, and Tech Case to add to my new Purple Punch collection, chocolate, Jelly Belly jellybeans in my favorite flavors, and a sweet Wizard of Oz card.

I know I said I wasn’t going to bore you with the action shots, but this one cracked me (and Alex) up.  Can you tell I LOVE chocolate? ;)

Anyway, it was time for some posed shots.  We normally don’t have these because there is usually no one there to take them so we we took advantage of our photographer for the evening.

Poor Alex had been smiling for pictures all day…he turned on the fake smile for these ;)

Full-length shot

Anytime we wear our pea coats, our photographers always insist on getting a picture haha (For example, the lovely picture outside the President’s Mansion shown here.)

Anyway, after our photo session, we headed to Birmingham to eat dinner at the Bright Star Restaurant.  I had never been there, but Alex had been with a friend and just raved about it and insisted we go.

He had called a couple of weeks ago asking if he could make a reservation and they told him that since it was just the two of us, it shouldn’t be a problem…boy were they wrong!  They were lined up around the restaurant, but thankfully we only had to wait about an hour for our table.  It was well worth it though!

The owner is a die-hard Alabama fan and I wish I had taken a picture of him all decked out in his Alabama dress shirt and tie.  He came over to the table several times after noticing our class rings and chatted with us :)

First course:  Fried green tomatoes with shrimp sauce, and shrimp AMAZING

I like fried green tomatoes…they’re not my favorite thing in the world, but I’ll eat them.  These, however, were ridiculous!! I could have eaten this entire plate and been completely happy (and probably still hungry for more!)

Entree:  Snapper stuffed with shrimp and crab meat, Alex:  Surf n Turf 

Alex had my dish previously and highly recommended it so I wanted to try it.  It was amazing!! Huge portion, but that only meant I got to enjoy it again the next day!  I tried a bite of Alex’s as well and it was yummy too!

Dessert:  Chocolate and Almond Pie

 

I was so excited about this because I love chocolate pie…throw some almonds on top and it’s even better.  However, when we got it, I took a bite and realized it wasn’t as good as I had hoped.  I was so stuffed from dinner that I thought I would take it home and try it again the next day.  Unfortunately it wasn’t any better then and realized the problem was that it had cherries in the chocolate cream and I HATE cherries :(  Thankfully they have lots of other desserts for us to try next time!

The obligatory table picture :)

Overall, we had a great dinner!! Definitely on my list of favorite places, so if you’re in the Birmingham area, you MUST check it out.

Last picture of our date!

I hope you all had a fabulous Valentine’s Day weekend as well!

If you would like to check out my pictures from the weekend, click on the picture below to head to my smugmug gallery :)