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Friday, November 11, 2011

Celebrating 7 Years

As I mentioned in my previous post, contrary to our previous anniversary celebrations, we decided to have a low-key celebration this year by cooking dinner at my apartment and watching a movie.

With football season in full swing, Alex and I rarely get to spend any quality time together, even though we we “see” each other just about every weekend.  Anyway, we decided that we’d rather cook dinner together and just relax rather that stressing about getting dressed up and going out to dinner.  I have to say, it was an excellent decision because it was perfect!

First up, the gifts.  We decided that because neither one of us really needed anything, we wanted to try and buy things that we BOTH could enjoy now or in the future (as in maybe something for our future home).  I stuck with this idea for my gifts, but Alex kind of strayed away from it (which you’ll see in a minute).  Oh well, I loved the gifts he gave me anyway!

My gifts to him:

A piece of customized letter art:

alex letter art 2

Alex and I have been purchasing a lot of letter art for married friends, but I wanted to give him a piece of his own.  Guys obviously don’t care about having their last name all displayed in their bachelor pad, so I had to come up with something different that we could both appreciate and hang in our future home.  Anyway, I found someone who had taken the letter art images on the UA campus, and picked out images that spelled ROLL TIDE from locations that were meaningful to us: 

  • R – Bryant Denny Stadium (Lots of football memories of course!)
  • O – Bidgood Hall (one of the Business buildings where Alex spent a lot of time while working on his business degree)
  • L – Carmichael Hall (one of the education buildings – which obviously is a nod to my major)
  • L – Coleman Coliseum – Where basketball games and gymnastics meets are held, but also the location for our graduation ceremonies
  • T – Bryant Denny – See Above
  • I – Denny Chimes – One of our campus landmarks
  • D – Bashinsky  – Another business building
  • E – Lloyd Hall – Where Alex spent a lot of his time when he was in the engineering program (before he switched to business)

I got the images as prints so I had to get the mat and frame and figure out how to display them.  I was pretty proud of how it turned out!

I actually gave it to him a couple of weeks ago when I went to visit him in Montgomery, just so I could help him find a place for it.  He LOVED it and put it over his TV. It looks a little naked around it, but we’ll figure that out later.

Alex's Letter Art 1

I also gave him an Alabama shaped cutting board and had the designer put a heart over Tuscaloosa.  The man that made it even featured it on his website!

Alabama Cutting Board - State Shaped Cutting Boards By Woodbob.com

Alex’s cutting board from the crafter’s website.  You can see the heart over Tuscaloosa :)

Alex loved both gifts, so I was excited…especially since I will hopefully someday have a chance to enjoy them too!

Alex’s gifts for me:

 11/10 7-year Anniversary - Gifts from Alex:  A spatula, pink chef's knife, Williams Sonoma apron, cupcuke corer and injector along with two books (including one about camping...he must not have been too impressed with my camping skills ;))  Think he's trying to tell me something? ;)

From L-R:  Shoo, Jimmy Choo:  A Modern Girl’s Guide to Spending Less and Saving More; Let’s Get Primitive:  An Urban Girl’s Guide to Camping; Non-stick flexible spatula, Cupcake injector and corer, pink chef’s knife and apron all from Williams Sonoma

Alex was not as excited about his gifts for me, but I thought he did a good job!  As soon as I opened them, he said “Now, I am only giving you things because they are all things you need and want.  I promise I’m not trying to get you in the kitchen” ;)

After we opened gifts, Alex fixed an AMAZING dinner of individual beef wellingtons, caesar salad, and lobster tail.

11/10 7-year Anniversary - Alex's amazing dinner:  Individual (and homemade) beef wellingtons, lobster tail and caesar salad.  I was supposed to put together chocolate fondue for dessert, but I fell asleep before we were ready for it...oops! Alex's part was AMAZING though...thanks babe!  It was SO good!  I was going to handle dessert, and I decided to do something similar to Melting Pot’s “The Flaming Turtle” since we’ve had it for anniversary dessert the past two years.  I bought all the ingredients and even a fondue pot, but unfortunately, the dessert never happened :(.  We were so full after dinner that we wanted to wait a bit before dessert, so we snuggled up and watched a movie, and I fell asleep before we got ready for dessert.  I felt so bad, but we kept all the ingredients to enjoy it later!

Even though we didn’t go out for dinner, I couldn’t have asked for a better anniversary celebration (except for the whole falling asleep on him and missing dessert part!). 

We didn’t get a table picture this year, but I made sure that we took our yearly anniversary picture regardless of how rough we looked ;)

11/10 7-Year Anniversary - Alex and I.  Not the most flattering picture, but we have gotten a picture every year on our anniversary, so we weren't going to miss out just because we didn't get all dressed up ;)

Thanks babe for a wonderful night and 7 amazing years!  Here’s to many more anniversary celebrations in the future!  I love you!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

7 years and counting…

Today marks 7 years of dating for Alex and I!  This year, as with the past few, has been really hard on our relationship, but thankfully it stood strong and here we are celebrating another anniversary.  I am so thankful to have him!  If you are interested in reading about how we met and all that fun stuff, you can read about it here, here, and here.

In honor of our day, I thought it would be fun to look back on all of our past anniversaries ;)   Each caption is linked to the corresponding post if there is one :)

maegan and alex3

Fall 2004 (My, what I wouldn’t do to be that skinny and tan again! ;))

1 Year Anniversary - Maegan and Alex 1-1

1st Anniversary – November 2005

011_Me and Alex after dinner at the Cheesecake Factory

2nd Anniversary – November 2006

Cheesecake factory

3rd Anniversary – November 2007

033_11 10 - Alex and I at the Cheesecake Factory to celebrate 4 years of dating  )

4th Anniversary – November 2008

File0052

5th Anniversary – November 2009

11/5 - Us 

6th Anniversary – November 2010 (Part I, II, III)

This year, we’ve decided to stay in and cook dinner together in lieu of going out so there won’t be a stereotypical table picture.  I’ve been sick and things have been so busy that we felt like we needed a night in to relax, and I promise, regardless of how terrible I look, I will snap a picture of us.  Honestly, I’m excited to have a relaxing night in!  More details on that later!

Happy Anniversary Babe!  Here’s to many more anniversaries to celebrate! :)

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Halloween Weekend in Montgomery

Thanks to the University’s fall break and football bye week, I actually had my first free weekend the weekend prior to Halloween and decided to go spend it with my sweetie in Montgomery!

I arrived on Thursday evening, and we just enjoyed a quiet evening in (complete with Alex’s famous spaghetti for dinner…yum!)

Alex got to work from home on Friday, so we enjoyed spending the entire day together.  I have recently started doing some vinyl designs on acrylic cups and Alex picked out his favorite and asked for one.  I surprised him with it as well as his anniversary gift, and he enjoyed his cup all day!

Again, we enjoyed a nice, quiet evening in with a movie and a “fish and chips” dinner :)

Saturday was quite a busy day!  We went to Prattville during the day so Alex could check out Bass Pro Shop (a.k.a. his “happy place”), so while we were there we decided to do some exploring.  We had lunch at a local favorite, Uncle Mick’s

unclemicks

and enjoyed the sampler platter of sausage red beans and rice, crab meat au gratin, cajun potato salad, crawfish etoufee, and chicken sausage gumbo…it was all delicious!  If you are ever in Prattville, you should definitely stop by.  The owner will ask you “what did you have last time?”, offer free samples of anything you haven’t tried because he says he doesn’t want you to order anything you don’t like, and will stop by your table during the meal to check on you.  It was an all-around amazing experience!

After lunch, we walked around and enjoyed Downtown Prattville.

While we were there, we also picked up a pumpkin from a local pumpkin stand on our way home.  Alex wanted to make sure it made it home in one piece so he buckled it in the back seat.

We then headed home and got ready for our “date night”.  Alex had gotten us tickets to the final, and special “late night” showing of Dracula at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival as our Halloween date/early Anniversary present.  We were so excited!

10/29 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery - Alex and I before going to see 10/29 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery - Alex and I before going to see

Us before we left Alex’s apartment

10/29 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery - The Shakespeare statue was all decked out for the

Shakespeare got all dressed up for the occasion as well

10/29 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery - Alex and I at ASF, vampire red eyes and all haha.  Our goal was to get a picture in front of Shakespeare, but the dear, sweet guy that took our photo didn't get it. ;)    Our attempt at getting a picture with Shakespeare.  The sweet guy that took our picture must have thought we wanted just his bottom half.  Oh well ;)

The show was AMAZING!  Don’t just take my word for it though as you can read Montgomery Advertiser’s rave review of it here.  We were very impressed with the special effects (and that’s coming from two folks with ‘behind the scenes’ theatre experience).  They discuss some of the special effects in the video below.

Because ours was the last evening showing (and Alex and I know from experience that it is almost always the best show to see ;)), they held an after-party so that you could mingle with the cast members.  We wanted to stay and party, but it was almost 1 by the time the play ended, and we were exhausted, so we headed home.  We had a wonderful time though!

On Sunday, Alex and I decided to carve our pumpkin.  Surprisingly, in the 7 years we’ve been dating, we’ve never carved pumpkins together, and our first experience was quite entertaining!

10/30 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery - The pumpkin

Pumpkin all ready to go 

Halloween Weekend in Montgomery_2011 10 30_3404

We cheated and bought a kit.  It backfired on us though (you’ll see what I mean in a minute

Halloween Weekend in Montgomery_2011 10 30_3406

Alex carving away.  His job was to “gut” the pumpkin

 10/30 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery - Alex gave me the task of picking out pumpkin seeds so we could roast them later

My job was to pick out the pumpkin seeds so we could roast them later

 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery_2011 10 30_3409

Good job Alex!

 10/30 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery - Our set up, ready to carve

Ready to carve!

We chose the Dracula print from the book as a nod to our date the night before, but unfortunately the stencil was too big for our pumpkin.  I had to freehand a smaller version on a paper towel.  It may not have looked that impressive, but it worked!

 10/30 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery - We bought a book of design templates and settled on the Dracula since we had seen the play the night before.  When Alex tried to put the template on the pumpkin, it was too big so I had to freehand a smaller version (on a paper towel) so that it would fit our pumpkin. It seemed to work! :)

 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery_2011 10 30_3414

Alex marking the stencil on the pumpkin.  Yes, those are sticky tabs…somehow the boy had no tape ;)

10/30 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery - My scaled down drawing of the Dracula design

My free-hand version of Dracula

Halloween Weekend in Montgomery_2011 10 30_3416

Time to cut!  This is the only picture we got because I took over after this and Alex isn’t as good about taking pictures ;)

10/30 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery - Pretty much all cut out...just ready to pop out the pieces! :)

All cut!

 10/30 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery - Roasted pumpkin seeds.  Definitely worth picking them out! :)

Roasted pumpkin seeds…yum!

10/30 Halloween Weekend in Montgomery - Our "Dracu-pumpkin" all lit up

Our “Dracu-pumpkin”.  We were pretty proud of him!

The next day, I had to get back to Tuscaloosa to get ready for a conference, but I would have stayed longer if I could!  I also had to change out my Halloween decor for my fall decor, but not before I snapped a picture :)

10/31 - My counter decked out for Halloween (I didn't change out my Alabama subway art, but it worked with the color scheme ;))

My bar.  Yes, that is still my Alabama football subway art, but it matched my color scheme so I left it ;)

 10/31 - Halloween Place Settings

Place setting.  Yes, it is pretty much my football decor with some added Halloween touches, but I loved it! :)

Hope you had a wonderful Halloween! :)

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