Miscellaneous Ramblings…

Hi all,

Again, sorry for being MIA <insert normal excuses explanations here>  I did the full course load thing last year and thought I was going to die, but apparently taking 3 ON-CAMPUS (as opposed to a couple online courses like last year) and teaching two courses, and dealing with football and family on the weekends, and trying to squeeze in some me time….I have reached a new level of exhaustion.

Anyway, update on my world:

- As you can see (if I even have any readers any more :( ) , I have finally caught up on some posts.  I have maybe 2 or 3 more and I will be completely up to date which is good because we have a LOT coming up :)

- Next week, Alex is coming to celebrate our 6th anniversary! :)  Since our real anniversary (the 10th) falls in the middle of the week and the following weekend he will be gone to Vegas for a work trip/ we’re playing MSU here, we decided that this weekend would be the best time to do celebrate.  I do have his present and I’m really excited about it, BUT since he occasionally reads my blog(and I know he will if I reveal his present because he has an awesome sixth sense like that ;), I can’t tell you what it is just yet, but as soon as I give it to him, I’ll share (hence the reason I’m trying to catch up on posts :))

P.S.If you want to read “Our Story”, you can check out my posts around Anniversary time last year :)

Our Story, Part I

Our Story, Part II

Our Story, Part III

- Also, speaking of Alex…he has the final round  of a VERY IMPORTANT job interview Wednesday morning.  If he gets this job, it would definitely change our lives for the better…as in we would be back in the same state again :)  So, if you think about it…shoot up a prayer, good thoughts, whatever, because this job would mean a lot to the both of us! :)

- Thanks to all of you that have been so sweet to check on me…I’m so thankful to have such awesome friends :)

Anyway, hopefully I’ll be back soon with some good news and lots of updates :)  Thanks for hanging in there with me!! :)

Love,

Maegan

Bama Frogs?

Every Wednesday, I have to drive to our Gadsden campus (oh, didn’t know we had a Gadsden campus??  Its ok, I didn’t know we had one either until I had to take a class there ;))

Once football season started, I noticed these cute decorations outside the building.

I know it is hard to see, so here are close-ups of each of them.

Saban 

Bear

Alabama fan

I obviously understood the Alabama theme, however, I had no clue why they were frogs.

Facebook to the rescue…I posted this and they told me that Gadsden was honoring Rick Bragg, author of The Prince of Frogtown.  Amazing what you can learn from social networking ;)

Josh’s NSCS Induction

While our family was here for the Florida game, we all had the opportunity to attend Josh’s National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS) Induction.  I was so proud because I was inducted into this same honor society back in 2004…it is nice to know that if we have nothing else in common, we have honor societies ;)

Anyway, here are some pics from the event (Josh and I even dressed the part, matching their colors :))

The crew before the ceremony started 

Josh receiving his pin

The reception setup:

Then it was photo session time :)

    

 

Our pins :)

Congrats Josh!! I’m so proud of you! :)     

“Stomp the Chomp” – Alabama vs. Florida

Our last match-up with the Gators would be one that will always live in our memories, but we have quite a bit of history with the Gators.

My first true memory of the Gators was back in 2005.  We were undefeated, and our own Tyrone Prothro had made one of the most amazing catches in history the game before

Behind the back of a defender, and then rolled hanging on to it…priceless

The match up against the Gators was going to be amazing…they were determined to beat us and ruin our perfect record, and with Tim Tebow  sitting a few seats down from me in the recruiting section (yep, in case you forgot, he was an Alabama recruit before he went to Florida), we wanted to prove we were the school for him, and of course be the best in nation ;)

Anyway, our beloved Prothro went to make a catch in the end zone and went down and unfortunately didn’t get up.  My recruit that game immediately said, “he snapped his ankle”.  I, along with the rest of the Bama Nation was heartbroken.  Prothro was not only a talented player, but an amazing person and although NO ONE deserves to go through that, he certainly didn’t deserve it.

I remember everything being completely silent except for a group of Florida fans that started doing their Gator Chomp and cheering.  I was so angry and disgusted at that moment that ANYONE would be so classless to cheer when another player got hurt…much less an injury that bad (it unfortunately was a career-ending injury and one that almost killed him due to surgery complications) 

The only high point of that game, our boys were disgusted too and ended up winning the game keeping our undefeated season alive (which unfortunately was ended later :( )

Ever since then, I have had a bitter taste in my mouth when I think about the Gators.  We met back up with them in 2008 for the SEC Championship and we unfortunately lost BUT we came back with a vengeance and dominated the Gators during the 2009 National Championship game.

This would be the first time we had played them in Bryant-Denny Stadium since 2005 and although they felt like they had a lot to prove after us beating them in the SEC Championship, but after a viral video popped up on YouTube of a Gator fan trash talking and even applauding Prothro’s injury, the Bama Nation had their own agenda.

Anyway, the day and the game was pretty uneventful, except that we won (and Alex and I got not 1, but 2 bourbon baths thanks to the girl behind us…oh the joys of the student section:)  My dad took a ton of game pictures (you can see them in my Picasa Album), but I only took a couple of pictures with my boys…

   

As always, I’m proud of my Bama boys….ROLL TIDE! :)

Tide & True

It is probably no surprise that we take our Alumni Association pretty seriously around here…so much that we have even have our own Young Alumni network that gets together often for networking type events.

The evening before the Alabama vs. Florida game, we had our second annual Tide & True Social.  It was going to be held at the L&N Train Station, and since Alex used to work there and would know all of the staff, we were not about to miss it!

Alex and I at my apartment before leaving for the social

The L&N Train Station (Yes it was an actual train station)

The decor….Emily, the event planner for the station is AMAZING

   

The band, Carter Hamric, was amazing as always.

  

Prize packages for raffles

Our friend/one of Alex’s former bartenders was bartending the event so we spent a lot of time at the bar talking to him.

See? (Okay a little hard to see since my friend was trying to be all paparzzish, but you can probably pick us out…just look for my favorite red shoes ;))

Carter Hamric ended the night playing a medly of Alabama faves from Dixieland Delight (they play it every football game),  to Roll Tide Roll (the song they wrote…look it up, it is AMAZING), and finishing with Sweet Home Alabama and a huge ROLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL TIDE ROLL!! :)

After everyone left, Alex gave me a tour through the facility and introduced me to the few staff members I didn’t know and then we headed to a local bar, Innisfree, to meet some friends.

It was packed, and we were having a blast until Alex went to get a drink and left my friend Tara and I alone.  As you can probably tell from the picture above, I scored a bar chair and sat down there for the night.  Because it was so crowded, Alex had been standing in front of me the entire night.  Well when he left to get a drink, this guy walked immediately up to me and stood right where Alex was standing (not to be too graphic but a certain area of his jeans was literally touching my knees if you know what I mean)  He asked me my name and starts trying to talk to me….I tell him I have a boyfriend, his response “That’s ok…I’m married”  Gross! 

Not that I’m used to being hit on all of the time, but when you’re in a bar it often happens.  Most of the time the guys are drunk and you can just ignore them and they’ll eventually give up and go away…no such luck with this guy.  He would not leave and I was getting very uncomfortable with the situation (remember he was WAY too close for comfort).  My dear friend Tara steps in and does her best to deter him away but no luck for her either.  I love her dearly for trying though!

Finally, I sent Alex a text saying “Save me…” and he just sent one back “haha I’ll be back in just a few” thinking that I was just not having fun without him there.  A few minutes later, I sent him a HELP!, after it had reached the “I can’t handle this creepy guy any more” point, and even though it took us literally 10 minutes to push our way through the our seats, he was there in seconds. 

Note:   I felt really bad asking him to come back over…I’m not one of those girls who has to be rescued all the time (especially since I spent many hours fending off guys while he was bartending back in the day), but I was literally so uncomfortable that I was beginning to get a little panicked.

He had no clue what had happened, but as soon as he saw the guy, he said “Excuse me” and stepped right in front of the guy so that he was the one standing in front of me.  I explained to him the situation and he was TICKED.  What made it even worse is that even after Alex came back…the guy just stood there, right behind Alex just waiting for him to leave again, which of course, Alex REFUSED to do for the rest of the evening.  Alex is not a confrontational person, but if that guy had bumped into him one more time, Alex probably would have knocked him out.

  My bodyguard for the evening…this is so his sarcastic I’m pretending to have fun face.

Finally, we wrapped up at the bar, said our goodbyes and headed back to the house.  I was still a little shaky and weirded out and was very thankful that our many bar hopping days were behind us….yuck!

Anyway, overall we had a great night!!  I enjoyed hanging out with friends and of course getting to “go out” with my guy :)

Next up!  Stomp the Chomp (The Gator Chomp that is…)