Iron Bowl!

Losing doesn't make me want to quit. It makes me want to fight that much harder.

Bear Bryant

As much as I would love to have a happy quote about us winning, this year just wasn’t the year.  It has been 3 years since we’ve lost a home game…until this one, and it was such a horrible feeling (especially since we SHOULD have won the game and just gave up the second half).  However, I will say that I am so proud of my team and wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world :)

Anyway, the day started out pretty early…at least for me.  It was frigid as I walked to complex to get ready for the last game of the season!

After we did our stuff at the complex, we headed to the stadium to finish registering.  We sat in the tunnel under our gate and it was literally like being in a wind tunnel…brrr!!

Then I saw a sweet face, my former recruit Chris, who came over and gave me a big hug!  He was one of my very first and was on the National Championship team last year…I am so proud of him!  Anyway, I always take pictures with my recruits, but because I had him on an official visit and he didn’t bring anyone with him, I didn’t have a chance to take a picture with him.  I told him when we were talking, and he said “Well, we need to fix that”….love him!

Then, it was finally time to head into the game!! I missed part of the first quarter because we still had recruits rolling in, but I got there just in time to see some great plays!  My dad and I took quite a few pictures of the game, but too many to share here…but of course I got some pictures with two of my other favorite boys! :)

 

I’m so sad we lost, but there’s always next year! 

After the game, we all went home and took a nap…we were exhausted!  Since we missed most of the “Black Friday” sales, we decided to head out that night to see if we could still find anything.  My parents were looking at a TV for me for Christmas and wanted to make sure I liked it so we all piled in the car and headed to check it out.

Alex found a new friend while shopping…yep, that’s a gigantic stuffed dog! (Can you tell where we were?)  He carried this thing around for a while as a joke, until he realized that it was shedding its white fur all in his hair and on his jacket….not so funny now huh babe? ;)

We didn’t plan on buying it that day, but they told us the price was only a one-day kind of thing and would go back up the next day, so we went ahead and got it. 

The boys with my new tv

Unfortunately, we didn’t bring the right vehicle…seriously, Josh has a truck, Alex has a jeep, and we took my mom’s car! :)  Needless, to say it was quite entertaining trying to figure out how to get the car and us home.  This ended up being the final configuration…

Definitely an entertaining ride home…good thing we didn’t have to go far! :)

Once we got home, the boys set my TV up for me…clearly we were all a bit delirious because they turned it into a magic show “unveiling” my new TV…they are a mess!  However, I was thankful for my new TV :)

Thanks Mom & Dad (and the boys for setting it up) ! :)

The First Thanksgiving

For the very first time, I hosted Thanksgiving at my apartment in Tuscaloosa.  This was not our ideal situation, but because the Iron Bowl was on the Friday after Thanksgiving and Josh and I both had class until Wednesday night, it seemed to be our only plausible option. 

Every year, we go to my great-grandmother’s house, where she always has the most delicious spread of homemade goodness (she’s 99 so she’s got it down to a science), but since she would not be able to come to Tuscaloosa (she’s unfortunately in the nursing home :( ), we were determined to try and make our Thanksgiving as authentic as possible.

She and my grandmother told us how to make the few things we didn’t have written recipes for, so my mom gathered all of the ingredients and on Wednesday evening we began prepping for the busy day ahead.  Mom put the ham in the oven (yes, we do ham & turkey ;)) and I worked on making a pecan pie and together we prepped the dressing so that all we had to do was put it in the oven the next day to bake.

Ham’s in the oven

The pecan pie mixture (made with pecans from our front yard :)).  If this stuff didn’t have raw eggs in it, I would just eat it just like this :)

Homemade cornbread dressing…our favorite dish!  No pressure ;)

   

The finished pecan pie :)

The next morning, my mom and I got up about 8 am and began cooking.  We mixed, battered, measured until everything was FINALLY finished :)  I was so thankful that we had two ovens to use (mine and my brother’s next door) and that mom played sous chef and made sure all of the cooking utensils were washed and ready to go…my poor measuring cup was washed about 6 times!

I always tell my mom how it amazes me how people like Alex’s mom always say “Dinner’s at 6” and actually be sitting down for dinner at 6, with everything piping hot and ready to eat.  As much as we would love to be that person, we have never mastered that…until Thanksgiving.  We finished getting all of the food on the table, sat down, and I happened to look at the clock at it was noon on the dot…I was pretty impressed.

 

The spread (all homemade by the way):  Macaroni and Cheese, green beans, corn, BBQ turkey, fried potatoes, ham, rolls, cornbread dressing, sweet potato casserole, pear cobbler, and pecan pie (not pictured here)  Sorry the decor is not more impressive…this year was focused on the food :)

I was very nervous about what everyone would think.  Like I said before, these are my grandmother and great-grandmother’s recipes and these are the ones you don’t want to mess up.  Surprisingly everyone loved it!!  There were a few things I would tweak, but no one noticed except me….YAY!  In fact, all of the leftovers were completely gone by the time my parents left on Sunday.

This year I was thankful for a lot of things, but I was very thankful that I was able to recreate my grandmother’s recipes for my family :)

Next up:  The Iron Bowl!

Anniversary Weekend, Part III

Last time we went to The Bright Star, we had the only chocolate dessert they had, but unfortunately it had cherry flavoring in it (and I don’t do cherries), so Alex arranged for dessert that he knew I would like:

Chocolate Fondue from the Melting Pot :)

Clearly, this girl was beyond excited :)

Although it doesn’t look like, Alex was excited too…just tired of taking pictures ;)

 

“Flaming Turtle” - Seriously, I die! 

 

After we devoured our fondue, we were so full that all we wanted to do was go to sleep.  So, we headed back to T-town…lame I know, but we’re old!  But not before one last picture!

  This is our “stuffed and sleepy” picture :)

On Saturday, we had a pretty relaxing day!  We ordered pizza for lunch, made Rotel cheese dip, and settled in to watch the Bama/LSU game.  It was nice getting to relax and watch the game with him (although if you heard the score, it wasn’t too relaxing!)

Sorry, this girl’s looking a little rough, but I have to dress up every home game so it is sometimes nice to rock a Bama t-shirt and workout pants :)

After the devastating loss, we wanted to get our mind off football so we watched SATC 2…Alex is such a trooper! :)  Then on Sunday, we went and grabbed some lunch at Panera, did a little shopping, and then Alex hit the road back to Arkansas!

Despite the loss, it was the best weekend! :)  Thanks babe for putting it all together! :)  Here’s to many more anniversary weekends, only in the same state :)

Anniversary Weekend, Part II

For once, I let Alex plan our entire weekend.  During his planning, he asked if I wanted to go to dinner on Friday night or Saturday night.  I immediately said Friday night, no question.  Why?  Because that Saturday we were playing LSU and I don’t plan ANYTHING on Bama game days, even if we were away.  Alex just laughed it off, and said “Why does that not surprise me?  I see I’ve still not passed Alabama on your list”  Sadly, he may be right ;)

Anyway, we spent most of the day just hanging out, doing some shopping and running errands.  It has been a long time since I’ve gotten to just have a lazy day with him (since he’s usually here on football weekends and it is too crazy to do much of anything on those weekends!) so it was a treat.

Before we knew it, it was already time to get ready for dinner!  Alex had chosen The Bright Star, where we went for Valentine’s Day earlier this year, for dinner.  He even tried to call in a few favors to get us a very special, secluded booth, but unfortunately this particular booth was booked for the night.  They assured us that we’d be able to get it next time, so I’ll be sure to share all of the details about it then :)

In the car getting ready to head toward Birmingham (no worries, we were still in the parking lot :))

Me trying to decide what to order…too many good choices! :)

My hott date :)  Why yes, we matched…sadly, I picked out my accessories to match his shirt ;)

As always, the food was AMAZING!!

We started out with the fried green tomatoes appetizer…best thing ever!

Greek salad with anchovies (my first experience with anchovies…they were interesting to say the least, but I ate them :))

Then for the main courses:

Alex’s Seafood Sampler – Scallops, Red Snapper, Shrimp, and Lobster and Crab Au Gratin

My stuffed red snapper…same thing I got last time, but it was just as amazing as the first time!

The food was good, but there was a LOT so we ended up filling up a To Go box to take with us…and I mean we filled it up!

Then it was time to head out, but not before we got our traditional table picture (or two…our fabulous waitress took it from different angles…you can see my shoes in the second ;))

         

Then, we said goodbye to the Bright Star and Alex had another surprise up his sleeve…

Next up:  Alex’s Sweet Surprise :)

Anniversary Weekend, Part I

Recently, Alex and I celebrated our 6th dating anniversary!! It is hard to believe we’ve been together that long (and known each other for almost 8 years!)  Since our anniversary fell on a Wednesday, we decided to celebrate the weekend before.

As usual, Alex came in on Thursday night.  Since he gets in town so late, our Thursday nights are usually pretty lame, but not this time!  Alex and I were so anxious to give each other our presents (we’re both nerds that get more excited about the other person’s gift than our own :)), so we went ahead and got it out of the way.

I let Alex open his from me first….

“Oooh a BlueFly bag!” (Side note:  Alex had no clue what BlueFly was until he saw one of my BlueFly bags…then when he was sitting through the third viewing of the SATC movie, he noticed that Carrie had one in the background in her apt :)  Anyway, he was pretty excited about getting his own BlueFly bag ;))

“Um, how do I open this?  I don’t want to tear the sticker!”…I had to show him my trick of sliding it out the side (which I may or may not have figured out how to do when it arrived because I couldn’t wait to see it ;))

What is inside this Gucci box?

“Sweet” – Alex’s exact response…I was excited to see his “I’m extremely happy face” above :)

You’re probably wondering what it is, and as much as I would love to show you a picture of Alex with his gift…I quit taking pictures, but if I did you would see him holding this:

Yep, he got a black Gucci, Guccissima wallet.  He’s been dying for a new wallet, and what better wallet than a Gucci!  I was worried it would be a little much for him, but I’m all about embossing, so I bought that one and prayed he’d like it…and thankfully he did :)

Then it was my turn.  Because my “gift bag” was one of my gifts he had to go out to his jeep and get it.  I was pretty excited as soon as he walked in the door with it though :)

Yep, a new Vera tote in Night and Day…I was so in love with the one he gave me for my birthday, that I bragged on it so much he bought me the same style…I was pumped :)

Even better, he filled it with some of my favorite things!!  Seriously, had he thrown chocolates and shoes in there, I might have died…

 

A new Lolita Glass “Dirty Martini” – Alex’s Favorite Cocktail :), SATC 2, The newest Shopaholic book, Mini Shopaholic, and a new Vera wallet.  I die! ;)

Note:  No pictures of me opening the goodies…it was late, and I was not “picture ready” (i.e. I was in a t-shirt and PJ pants…not cute!)

After watching the newest episode of The Office, we were both exhausted!  So we decided to get some rest before our busy Friday!

Next up…Anniversary Dinner :)