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

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!

Us before we left Alex’s apartment

Shakespeare got all dressed up for the occasion as well

    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!

Pumpkin all ready to go 

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

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

 

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

 

Good job Alex!

 

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!

 

 

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

My free-hand version of Dracula

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 ;)

All cut!

 

Roasted pumpkin seeds…yum!

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 :)

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

 

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! :)

First Trip to Auburn, Part II

Saturday, May 14

We got up bright and early to head to Auburn.  We stopped off by Chick-fil-a for some yummy breakfast and by Target so I could get a water-proof tote bag to take to the game (I didn’t plan for the rain…at all!)

We got there right before they did the senior recognition, bought our tickets from a scalper for three times face value (I wish we’d known about the stadium layout earlier because we definitely got screwed over), and got settled in our seats.

The view of the boys warming up from our awesome seats….

Yes, we were sitting in the last set of seats pretty much behind the right fielder.  I know you’re jealous… ;)

We sat behind a grandmother of one of the players, and she told us they were wearing their camo hats, that were previously worn for military appreciation, in honor of troops that are in Tuscaloosa helping out with the storm damage.  They also had a houndstooth ribbon on their jerseys, which has become the symbol of Tuscaloosa tornado relief.

While we are talking about the tornado, I will say I really admire these boys.  Several of them lost EVERYTHING, and 3 of the guys only survived because they held a mattress, with all of their strength, over themselves in the bathtub while their house literally crumbled around them.  Yet, they can still get out and be an awesome representation for our school.  Have I mentioned how much I love my town because I do ;)

Moving on….

Alex and I, pre-burn

 Brother Bear and I

Notice the lovely red top I am wearing?  Being the tanning connoisseur that I am (not really, but I have tried to master the art of not getting tan lines), I thought I would be smart and wear this tank top so I didn’t worry about a nice sleeve tan.  BIG MISTAKE.  Most of the sun we got was behind us and the back of my arms burned terribly (I had on sunscreen and never burn so I was taking precautions…darn overcast sky), so if I’d just worn a short sleeve shirt, I would have been fine.  Anyway, live and learn ;)

Unfortunately, we lost the first game.  Because so many people had bought tickets to the Friday night game, they were honoring those for the second game.  They cleared everyone out of the stadium, so we found another scalper and got seats a little closer this time.  Still way overpriced, but at least we had a place to sit….

Like I said, a little better

One of Josh’s high school friends, who is a student at Auburn came and sat with us for the second game.

Unfortunately we lost the second game as well :(  By that time, I was so miserable from the sunburn and the dropping temperature (yep, I was in a jacket by the end of the game) that I honestly didn’t care too much about anything but getting home and curling up on the couch.  We did stay for the fireworks show after the game.

I know you are seeing this and thinking I’m crazy for posting a “daytime” picture, but I kid you not, they shot off fireworks during the day. In fact you are seeing the puffs of smoke from them in the picture above.  I know, it was a first for me and a bit anti-climactic…especially when they seemingly knocked over the stand and the majority of the fireworks didn’t make it up past the fence. 

 Alex wasn’t too impressed with the daytime fireworks show…

Josh’s friend assured me that they don’t do this type of stuff all the time or anything.  Auburn, the daytime fireworks show definitely didn’t help your image….sorry!  At least I can now check “Watching fireworks in the daytime” off my bucket list (kidding, of course)

After that lovely entertainment, we headed back to Montgomery and had dinner at Red Robin…now everyone sing, “Red Robin…yummmm!” – you know you want to ;)  Anyway, it was yummy, especially after a long day in the sun.

Alex and I…check out that sunburn (and you can see where I got a little pink on the right side of my chest.  Thankfully that terrible tan line has already gone!)

  Josh wasn’t too keen on having his picture taken

Afterwards, we went home and I think watched a movie.  I’m not sure because I was definitely out as soon as I sat down on the loveseat….oops!

Next up:  Sundresses, jackets, and lemonade!

First Trip to Auburn, Part I

I am extremely overwhelmed with the amount of posts I have to write, so I decided I’d start with the most current and go backwards.  I still have the tornado post that has been sitting in my drafts because I can’t write on it without crying.  Never fear, I will get caught up soon!____________________________________________________________

This weekend, I took my very first trip to the town of our in-state rivals, the Auburn Tigers.  I honestly don’t know why it took me 26 years to make it there.  I remember being invited by friends in undergrad, but I always had something going on and before I knew it, I had “grown up” and still never visited there.  Plus, I have never really cared anything about just going to hang out (and honestly, still don’t)

Anyway, Alabama was playing Auburn in baseball this weekend, and my brother really wanted to go, especially since his former teammate would be playing his last game for Auburn.  He had mentioned to Alex a while back that he might come down and stay with him in Montgomery and they could go to the games.  The problem was that as of Thursday, Josh had not officially made up his mind about coming and Alex was trying to decide whether or not to come to Tuscaloosa for the weekend.  Alex was calling asking what Josh was doing and I was calling Josh and asking him, only getting an “I don’t know” response.  Why they couldn’t just call each other is beyond me….

We finally figured out Josh’s hesitation was that he didn’t want to drive by himself.  He’s spending the month in North Alabama, so it was going to be a good three-hour drive to Montgomery.  Once I figured that out, I volunteered to ride with him if he could swing through T-town and pick me up.

Let me preface this by saying that I have not had a free weekend in Tuscaloosa this entire semester, so my poor apartment has suffered neglect from me not being here OR being here and solely working on school stuff.  This past weekend was supposed to be my free weekend to catch up on stuff around the house and get my online course ready.  This option kept Josh happy and I could still see Alex, so win-win, kind of, for me.

We headed out around 3ish on Friday for Montgomery.  They had a game at 6:00 on Friday night, so we were hurrying to try and make it time.  It was pouring by the time we got to Montgomery and decided we didn’t want to drive all the way to Auburn (it is about 40 minutes away) if they weren’t going to play so we watched the Auburn baseball twitter feed (note that I didn’t say “follow”…I just couldn’t do it! ;)) and they FINALLY cancelled it and scheduled a double-header for the next game.  So, we got to spend a night hanging around the apartment and had some yummy Mexican food from a nearby restaurant that we’ve been dying to try!

Next up:  Sunburns, sunshine, and fireworks ;)

Arkansas Trip V: Week Two Highlights

My second and final week in Arkansas was pretty uneventful.  Here’s the rundown :)

Monday, July 12, 2010

I spent a relaxing day at home, and then went to dinner with Alex at a cute little place called the Oak Street Bistro.  I had the chicken salad sandwich which was amazing and we shared a piece of Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie that was absolutely to die for (even better since it was free because our food took too long to get there! :))

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Alex left me the jeep and I met Alex at HP to hang out for a little while, go eat lunch with he and his coworkers at an awesome home cooking place called Holly’s Country Cooking and then spent the afternoon hanging out at HP.  Then, we went to a pretty little Mexican place called El Parian (there were a TON in Conway) that had the most amazing booths for dinner.

Alex’s to do list for the day…it was so nice to see me on that list :)

Yummy food from Holly’s

 

My view for the day :)

Us before heading to dinner :)

  

The booth at El Parian

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

I spent the entire day at HP and enjoyed a fabulous lunch at the Fish House with Alex and his coworkers.  Then, I had the bright idea that I wanted to make dinner which is always entertaining!  Luckily for me, my three cheese pasta bake turned out well!! You can find the recipe here…it was amazing! :)

Working hard at HP :)

In a building full of Arkansas fans, I had to make sure they knew who Alex rooted for :)

Taking my dish out of the oven

Finito…believe me, it is as yummy as it looks!

      I even made homemade cheesy garlic bread to go with it.

Note:  Again, I have posted the recipe on my cooking blog, and you can find it here :)

Thursday, July 15, 2010

It was finally time for me to leave Arkansas which was a bit bittersweet for me!  I LOVED spending the time with Alex again and getting to see him every day was just amazing, however, I was excited about him coming to spend the weekend with me in Tuscaloosa!

Before he left for work, my sweetie made breakfast and even gave me a new coffee mug to drink the yummy Kona coffee out of.

He knows me too well ;)

Eggs and coffee…yummy way to start our last morning in Arkansas!

As soon as he got off work, we were T-town bound!

It was a great trip, but I was definitely excited to get back!!

Arkansas Part IV: Boats, Brunch, and Breweries Part II

As I’ve mentioned before, Alex is a huge beer connoisseur so when he found out that Little Rock had their own brewery, he couldn’t wait to go check it out.  He has been quite a few times, and jokingly mentioned he wanted me to go while I was in town.  Since he had been such a sweetheart about doing things I wanted to do, I agreed to go.

Before we headed to Little Rock, we stopped off by Michaelangelo’s (where we had lunch earlier in the week) for an all you can eat Mimosa brunch.

It was delicious as it looks!

It was so good that Alex was ready for a nap while shopping :)

After we shopped for a little while, we headed to Little Rock to the Diamond Bear Brewery to start our tour!

 

   While we waited for the tour to start, they offer you three free samples of their beer.  Since that is not at all my style, I gave my three samples to Alex and I enjoyed my unlimited glasses of their homemade root beer (which is amazing!)

Then it was time for the tour to begin!  Even though Alex has been many times, he still gets super excited every time (hence the expression below).   Since I know nothing about beer, I gave him the camera and let him snap away.

I could show you all of the pictures he took, but that would require me telling you what they are and that’s just not going to happen haha  I will share some of my favorites of us though :)

 

Me in front of the heater things…yeah see, I didn’t pay attention (yep, still clutching my root beer :))

  Us

Although I make fun of him, it was pretty interesting and I did learn a few things while I was there.

We decided that we were going to check out a Traveler’s baseball game after we left the brewery, but since we had a little time in between, we decided to go grab something to eat and kill some time.

Last time I was there, we saw this place called the Flying Fish, but we didn’t get to go.  Alex was determined to go so we decided to eat lunch there.  I had some yummy shrimp and Alex, being Alex, ordered frog legs.  I tried one and it wasn’t that bad, but when he picked up the frog legs and made them dance, I thought I was going to die…bleh!

 

My favorite part about this restaurant is the Billy the Bass adoption center.  Apparently you bring in one of those obnoxious Billy the Bass singing fish, and they hang it up. 

After lunch, we decided to go find Little Rock’s namesake, “La Petite Roche”.  According to all the tourist info, it is in the park that we visited on my last trip so we headed there.

We literally checked out every rock there…We were expecting to see like one rock with a sign saying “this is it”, but no such luck.  You have to walk around and read a bunch of signs like this

only to find out that there is not just one rock, but a cluster of rocks in which they built the bridge on…I think…that’s what we got out of it at least.

Alex explaining something to me…maybe pointing out the rocks…I don’t know, I wasn’t listening ;)

 

We’ve decided that this cluster of rocks is part of the “La Petite Roche”…your guess is as good as mine though

Self-portrait!

As you can see, it was getting kind of cloudy so we headed back to the car to avoid getting soaked…good thing because the bottom fell out as soon as we got there!  Needless to say, the Travs game was off (at least for us) so we decided to go grab some dessert and head back to the house to relax.

We ended up at Fresh Market and we got the fruit tart (we got that on my last visit too) and some water/tea and ended up eating in the car.

     

It was a WONDERFUL day and a wonderful end to a fabulous weekend!

Next up:  My last week in Arkansas :(