Happy 22nd Birthday, Little Bro!

22 years ago, I became a big sister…..

January 28, 1991

I remember dad picking me up from Kindergarten and telling me Josh had been born.  I could hardly contain my excitement as I gathered my stuff, and headed out the door, but not before I asked my Kindergarten teacher for an extra sticker for my new little brother.

The picture above was taken moments after getting to meet this new little man in my life.  Little did I know how this little guy would change my world for the better.  Although I was only 5, well 9 days shy of being 6, I remember walking in and seeing my mom holding my new little brother and begging to hold him.  Being 9 lbs, 8 oz and 21 inches long, he felt like he was almost as big as me, but mom let me “hold” him with her assistance (you can see her hand in the bottom left corner).  Although it looks like I am strangling him, I promise I wasn’t – in my mind, he was my own little living baby doll, and I’m sure I was trying to put him on my shoulder and gently tap him on the back just as I did my baby dolls.

As you can see, I was a very proud big sister that day, and I can honestly say that I am just as proud of him today, 22 years later.  Although our relationship has not always been perfect, I think he knows I would do anything for him (and I think he feels the same way about me). Words cannot express how thankful I am to have had the opportunity to see him grow into the smart, talented, sweet, and handsome man he has become and how blessed I feel to have been chosen to be his big sister.

January 28, 2013

He was and still is the best early birthday present I’ve ever gotten

Happy 22nd Birthday, Brother Bear!  Thanks for being the best little brother ever!  I love you!

Celebrating 8 Years and Counting…

On November 10th, Alex and I celebrated our 8th dating (well, in college) anniversary.  Unfortunately, because I was sick all last week and we had the football game on our actual anniversary, we had to postpone our actual celebration to this past week.  It was well worth the wait, though!

This is the first year that we’ve decided not to do presents.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that we have back-to-back “holidays” (Nov. 10 – Anniversary, Christmas, Feb. 6th – My birthday, Valentine’s Day, and Feb. 18th – Alex’s birthday), and the past few years, shopping for every single holiday has gotten more stressful that its worth and we end up getting each other something we don’t really need just to have a gift to give each other for each holiday.  Not to mention, November to March was an extremely expensive time   We decided that if we limited the gift giving to Christmas and Birthday’s, it would be much easier and we’d be able to give each other better quality gifts.  This year, we started with Valentine’s day (we decided to do cheap, and cliché Valentine’s gifts and it worked out well) and we decided to nix the presents for anniversary too.

Anyway, Alex wasn’t too happy about not doing presents this year, but he was a good sport.  I can’t say that I kept up my end either, because I felt like I, at least, needed to get him a card and decided to make one instead of buying it, just so he couldn’t give me a hard time..  I totally felt like he might actually NOT get me anything, but he proved me wrong!

When he showed up at my apartment to take me to dinner, he came bearing this:

Sweet, right?  Sneaky little devil

Anyway, he made my little homemade card (seriously, don’t judge…I made it in less than an hour ), look so sad…

especially since the note he wrote inside made me cry (but, it is for my eyes only…sorry! )

After I took the rollers out of my hair and put the finishing touches on the make-up, it was time for a quick photo op!

I love the first picture, but hate that we forgot to turn on the flash and the lighting is terrible SO you are getting my favorite, and then the pretty picture

Once pics were out of the way, we hopped in the car to head to dinner (which was a surprise until we got there!).  Alex quickly pointed out that he had cleaned his Jeep, inside and out, in preparation for our date that night….*sigh*  He’s too cute!

As we drove to our dinner location, Alex pointed out all of the “nice” places he was taking me…like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Taco Casa, etc.  I had no idea where we were going until he turned in the direction of my favorite restaurant:  Kozy’s!  I was SO excited and could not wait to get there

We’ve been to Kozy’s a few times, but we had never been to eat off of their regular menu (most of the time it was for a special, pre fixe menu) so we were really excited.  It didn’t disappoint!

For appetizers, we had some delicious stuffed mushrooms (they were stuffed with beef tenderloin and aged swiss cheese and had a red wine demi-glace), and then I had chicken chasseur with truffle mashed potatoes and asparagas and Alex had a spiced duck breast with gouda grits and spinach.  Both entrees were absolutely delicious!  For dessert, we shared a crème brulee (without the carmelized sugar on top) with a berry compote.  It was yummy as well!

After dinner, we went back to his house to relax and catch up on Hulu.  Unfortunately, this girl only made it through one or two shows before she was out.  I know, terrible girlfriend right?  I felt so bad, but I doze off on Alex all the time, so I’m sure he’s come to expect it

Regardless of my early ending to the night, it was absolutely wonderful.  Huge thanks to Alex for making it special, without presents

Here’s to MANY more anniversary celebrations together!

Happy Anniversary, babe!  Love you lots!

6/2/12– Kelse’ and Nick’s Wedding

On the evening of June 2nd, we had the wonderful opportunity to attend the wedding reception (they had a private family wedding earlier in the day) of our dear friends Kelse’ and Nick.  They got engaged right before the April 2011 tornado, and have been through a whirlwind of crazy events which, unfortunately, forced them to change their wedding date and location.

Anyway, the reception was absolutely beautiful.  It was held in “the Zone” at Bryant-Denny Stadium and if you knew the couple, you would realize how fitting it was.

While we were there, we hung out with great friends (still kicking myself for not getting a picture with them ), enjoyed yummy food, and danced the night away!  Here are some pictures from the evening.

(Sorry, you are getting them in collage format because Picasa is being a pain.  I’ll try and link the album here later so you can see them)

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 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.

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!

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:

 

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.

  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 ;)

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

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 :)

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

1st Anniversary – November 2005

2nd Anniversary – November 2006

3rd Anniversary – November 2007

4th Anniversary – November 2008

5th Anniversary – November 2009

 

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! :)

Alabama vs. Arkansas

This week, we had our first SEC match-up against the Arkansas Razorbacks.  I have to admit I was a bit nervous because 1.) it was our first true test for our new guys, 2.) It is Arkansas, who gave us huge fits last year 3.) It is an SEC game…period.  Thankfully, there was no reason for me to be nervous because we did an awesome job!  To sum up the game (and our many highlight-worthy moments), check out this highlight reel from the University…one word – LOVE!

At the beginning of the game, we were all a little nervous.  Although we were never down, Arkansas did tie it up.  All it took was one play to get our momentum rolling and Arkansas was never able to catch up :)

I loved getting to enjoy the win with the folks I love, Alex…  

And of course my family!

Everyone was so excited and BDS (Bryant-Denny Stadium) was REALLY loud!  Needless to say, we sang our victory song, “Rammer Jammer” LOUD and proud! 

See?

Bama vs. Arkansas 2011 - Rammer Jammer from Maegan Slaten on Vimeo.

Afterwards, we met up with my dear friend Reba and her family who were doing some post-game tailgating.  I was exhausted, but it was worth it to see her.  She just finished up radiation, so we haven’t gotten to see her in a while, but we made up for lost time! :)

You can tell how tired I was (and my steroid pounds)!  Yikes!

 

Alex and Reba

On the way back to the apartment, Alex and I just happened to look towards the stadium and we saw this.

Bryant-Denny is always beautiful, but something seeing it like this just took it to a whole new level. LOVE!

Perfect end to a perfect day!

We’ve got an away game next week, so I won’t have a game recap until after Homecoming on October 8th :)

Bama vs. North Texas Weekend

As with any weekend during football season, this weekend was nothing short of busy!

On Friday, Alex arrived around 6:00 pm and we met one of our favorite couples at Alex’s favorite restaurant, Nick’s Filet House (better known as Nick’s in the Sticks)

If you’re from Tuscaloosa, you know that Nick’s is the best spot to meet friends you want to catch up with because you usually wait at least an hour.  This time, we actually didn’t have to wait that long (especially for a home game weekend), but we did wait long enough to enjoy Nick’s signature drink, The Nickademus and catch up with our friends who we haven’t seen in a while.

My best friend Casey and I

Casey and her husband, Taylor…love them both!

 

My sweetie and I…he was a happy camper to finally get to visit Nick’s again ;)

Dinner was amazing as always, and we had a wonderful time catching up with Casey and Taylor!  After dinner, we went back to check out their new apartment and we ended up hanging out on their balcony, chatting and enjoying the fall evening weather.  It was great!

Saturday:

This week, I got to sleep in a little since we had a later kick-off.  Alex cooked us breakfast and we spent the morning sipping on our coffee and watching ESPN College Game Day.

Our mini sausage egg and cheese biscuits…and I do mean mini – this was on one of my saucers! 

I had to be at the complex at 1:30 for recruiting, so Alex walked me over and I got busy with my “recruiting champions”.  Before we knew it, it was time to head over to the stadium to wrap-up our recruiting and get ready for kick-off.  We actually had plenty of people working this week, so I got to enjoy a nice, leisurely, although late, lunch from Full Moon BBQ (they’ve catered our football games/events for years!) and I actually got to head to our seats in time long before kick-off.  For the first time in a long time, I actually got to enjoy pre-game!

Pre-gaming with Alex

Alex and I as the game was winding down.  Clearly, I’m tired and my make-up is almost gone…bleh!

We had a lot of fun at the game.  It was one of those games that we actually got to relax and enjoy it rather than stressing about the score :)

During the 4th quarter, we were both bombarded with texts saying Alex was on TV.  I still need to pull the video off of my Tivo, but here’s a picture his TV appearance that we found on the replay the next day (sorry about the quality…cell phones and HD TV’s don’t mix well ;))

 

Funny thing is, we switched seats with my parents and you could see both of them and Alex, but I was no where to be found because Alex was standing right in front of me :).  Yes, I was sitting down, but we were winning big and it had been a long day in 5-inch heels…can you blame me? ;)

After the game, we came home and enjoyed BBQ again, Mom and I made pear cobbler, we watched the rest of the football games, and we just hung out and relaxed.

Sunday:

My parents had to leave early because we had a film crew coming to our house to film a TV show (more on that once it airs :)), so we all got up fairly early, finished cleaning both apartments and put them on the road.

Alex and Josh decided to go play a little golf, so I had the house to myself for most of the day.  When Alex got back, he took me out to make me feel better (I’ve been feeling a little down lately because of all the weight my medicine has put on me and I’m getting quite frustrated because none of my clothes fit).  We went to Barnes and Noble and browsed while sipping on our first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season (yes, singular…I can’t drink a whole coffee of any kind by myself so we shared ;)), and then we headed to Target to pick up stuff to cook dinner and check out their Halloween decor.  Of course, we had to walk down the costume aisle and Alex was having way too much fun trying everything on.  See what I mean? (Sorry babe, I had to share ;))

After our shopping trip, we went back to my apartment, cooked dinner, watched Bridezillas (Alex is so amazing that he would sit through anything to make me feel better…even Bridezillas!), and just enjoyed our time together before he had to leave :(

It was a WONDERFUL weekend and I’m looking forward to yet another home game weekend this weekend! :)

2011 Home Opener – Bama vs. Kent State

This weekend, my beloved Crimson Tide kicked off the season with a game against Kent State.

Kent State is a sterotypical “home opener” team, so we were not too concerned with the outcome of the game, but it was fun playing against Coach’s alma mater. :)

Not only did Kent State produce our beloved coach, but they also have helped a great deal with the storm relief efforts.  You can read more about their contribution here.  To show respect, the University and fans decided not to “boo” the Kent State players as they entered the stadium and forego our traditional victory song, “Rammer Jammer” after we won.  Things like that make me proud to be part of the Crimson Tide family :)

Anyway, the game was pretty much like watching a scrimmage game, but it is nice to have a home opener like that (especially since the other school in the state had a more difficult time than we did in their home opener)  Plus, it was nice to get a glimpse of our new QB(s) :)

As usual, I worked for recruiting.  We had low numbers, so it was helpful for all of the newbies to get their bearings before we move into the huge games :)

Because the home opener is the only game I get to wear a white dress, I had no problem deciding what I was wearing, but rather which one.  I picked out a cute white dress, but due to my 10-day steroid pack and the ten pounds and massive swelling it has brought on, I had to change dresses at the last minute.  I got to wear white though so I was happy regardless (especially since it was HOT)

Anyway, here are a few pictures from the game.  As mentioned above, I am super swollen so please excuse my puffy face.  On top of that, I am so splotchy thanks to my OTHER medication that gives me hot flashes….gotta love side effects of medicines!

   

  To celebrate the win/season opener, I whipped up some homemade red velvet cupcakes ( with pecans grown in our front yard).  This was a family recipe that I have never tried to make, but I was impressed how they turned out.  In fact, they turned out so well that most were gone off the cooling rack before I could even get the camera out! ;)

All in all, it was an EXCELLENT way to kick off football season!! :)

ROLL TIDE! :)