Atlanta & Knoxville!

My company has an awards program where each time you perform well in sales, they add points into bank where you can reedeem them for big prizes! I choose FREE tickets to the Tennessee Alabama game at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, TN!!!

On Friday afternoon, Aimee, Chase and myself loaded up the Jeep and the three of us drove up to Atlanta to meet my brother. We stayed in Atlanta on Friday night and then headed to Knoxville on Saturday. The picture above, is all four of us in Buckhead at St. Andrews for a cocktail after a very long week of working!!I had to take a picture because they both wore gray polos!! Two cutie pies, if you ask me!!

On Saturday we headed to Knoxville, TN to attend the game!!! Above is the exterior of Neyland Stadium! The whole group before the game!!

My first away game!!!

ROLL TIDE!!

Yeah, that turned into a touchdown!!

After the best Rammer Jammer of the season!!! RTR!!!

Mmmm….that tastes like game day!!!

Saturday was Alabama’s homecoming game against Ole Miss. Mom and Dad were lucky enough to score some tickets to the Eagles concert in Atlanta so my brother and I were given all four tickets to the game!!!

Once we finally arrived in town, the next obstacle was parking! I pulled into a parking lot that I used to park in for my advertising classes and noticed there were an unusual amount of parking spaces open. I found the lady who was running the open lot and I ask her if was ok to park. She informed me the lot was reserved for Tide Pride pass holders and I needed a tag. After a little schmoozing, she agreed to let me park for no charge!! It being October, I had several trick or treat pumpkins in my car as gifts for friends and family so I whipped one out for her being so generous. I told her that she had just made our night and I even gave her a great big hug! Haha!

Joey drove down from Atlanta and took his girlfriend Aimee to the game. Chase and I drove down from Birmingham and we all met up at Aimee’s house in Tuscaloosa.

Joey and I were so excited to get the opportunity to go to the game together because since he has moved to Atlanta and I moved to Birmingham, we rarely have the chance to spend some free time together due to our busy schedules!!

I absolutely adore these two crazy kids! They are so much fun to hang out with!! All four of us headed to the game and literally made it just in the knick of time to catch the kickoff.

This is Aimee and me at the game!! She is such a hoot to hang out with! We had a ball, screaming for the defense to hold back Ole Miss and singing the fight song!! We all had such a fun time together, hopefully Dad won’t get a bad report at the next game because of our crazy shenanigans! Anyways, as you already know, the Tide pulled out a W and we all got to sing Rammer Jammer!!!! After the game, we all headed to the Houndstooth to celebrate! It was an awesome weekend!!!

Sloss Furnace!

 

Sloss Furnace all started with a man named Col. James Withers Sloss. In 1871 he struck a deal with the L&N Railroad to complete a 67 mile gap of the South and North Railroad between Birmingham and Decatur. For nearly 90 years, Sloss Furnaces produced massive amounts of iron and ultimately gave rise to the city of Birmingham. Now, a National Historic Landmark, with is web of pipes and tall smokestacks it also makes for a great haunted trail!!

It being October, I decided to try and get in the Halloween Spirit by getting a group together to experience Sloss’ Fright Furnace! I haven’t been to Sloss since I was 17, so it was well overdue to head downtown for a few screams and giggles!!

The trail got off to a great start! A “dead employee” of Sloss explained the story of Sloss and gave us permission to begin winding through the furnaces that once produced all that iron. It was very eerie walking through this place not only because people were jumping out at you with loud noises were everywhere, but I just kept imagining walking through there alone at night; that would be purely terrifying!! It gives me chills just thinking about it!!

I made it through the majority of the trail by clinging on to my date and burying my head to keep from getting really scared, in fact I really only had one real scream until the very end. We walked into the clown’s portion and I about lost it.

We all very well know, if you act scared, they will try to scare you even more. I handled the first two clowns without them knowing my phobia just fine. It wasn’t until the third clown popped out and scared the ever loving mess out of me, that I lost it. I proceeded to scream bloody murder and took off running, leaving my date in the dust. The clown followed me all the way to the end of the trail, hovering over me so badly that I actually began welling up tears. As we approached the final stretch of the trail he picked up another clown and there on the spinning 3D bridge, I was cornered. Trapped with a clown on top of me and another in front of me they stopped me from being able to move forward. I just stood there taking their harassment. Knowing I was about to lose it, my date was just about to tell them to back off, but before he could do so, I snapped!! The clowns immediately backed off once they saw I was dead serious. I rounded the last corner and finally I was at the exit. The whole group had a great time razzing me for the rest of the evening and so I suppose it made for a good story, but lets just say, I am over haunted houses, haunted trails, and so help me if I see a clown, they are likely to wind up not able to walk ever again!!!!

After the sheer terror wore off, several of us headed out to The Blue Monkey for a very much needed cocktail and I got to meet up with my roommate and our good friend Nolte!

Ryan's Ride!!

Ryan Davidson died from a head injury suffered from a motorcycle accident in June 2006. To honor Ryan’s life and memory, friends and the community conduct an annual Ryan Davidson Memorial Ride. The ride benefits the Alabama Head Injury Foundation. You can visit there website here!!
http://www.werideforryan.com/

So Chase and I headed down to Calvary Baptist on Saturday and attended the memorial ride. I was quite a nervous wreck being as this was my first time riding motorcycle. I did ride one time on Papa's Harley but it was just down the street and back and is probably the sole reason I haven't ridden since!! I was terrified! Chase promised he would go slow and take care of me and shockingly he did just that!! I actually ended up having a blast! Once I got used to being on the bike I started to have a good time!!!

However, riding did get off to a slow start.....when we pulled out of the parking lot a screw popped off and Chase could no longer switch gears. We pulled into a gas station to assess the situation. Not knowing what else to do to help, I flagged down a tow truck and ask if he could.

The man was so nice to stop and offer all his tools for Chase to fix his bike and two other boys at the pump provided the screws!! Together all those boys got the bike back on the road and we zoomed off to catch up with the rest of the pack!!

This was my little friend I made while waiting on the repair! Her name is Lizzy and she was stinkin adorable!!!

The night before the ride, Chase was putting everything together on his bike and Mr. Biggs would not leave him alone! It was so cute, Chase would be sitting on the ground working and Biggs would just come and prop up against him!! This is Chase and Biggs playing around letting pug "drive" haha too cute!!!

A little 80's...

Friday we all headed downtown to see US at Zydeco and too my very much awesome surprise, they are an 80s cover band!! Now we all know my obsession with Journey and my love for 80s music in general so this was right up my alley!! Chad and Nicole were the culprits for the night out on the town because they had been to a wedding where the band had performed!! We had an awesome group come together including my brother in from Atlanta and his girlfriend Aimee, who I simply adore!! I was so excited to have them in town and the opportunity to meet up with Chases' brother Chad and his girlfriend Nicole, we even managed to get Nolte come out and join!

Joey got on stage and shook his booty!! I have everything on video and lets just say it was awesome! He is such a good sport!

Before Joey took the stage, his girlfriend Aimee, showed us all how she can shake it!! Aimee is such a blast to hang out with, we always have a great time together!!! When we all arrived at the show, there were maybe 10 people there, Aimee just busted in, started dancing and got the whole crowd going!!! Did I mention I love this chick!??

Nolte met up with us for the show!!!!

My sweet lil brother and me!!! :)

Hanging out on the on the patio while US took break.

Chase and his brother Chad, who apparently wanted to express his enthusiasm for picture time!! :)

Chase and Nolte

What an awesome email! I had to post this one!

The little boy pictured is terminally ill and has a very short period oftime to live. The illness has also recently caused him to go blind. A coldcall was made to the University of Alabama and after verification that thestory was true a meeting was set up with the team, the boy and his family. Iwas told they spent like 5 hours with the boy and toured the whole facilityand that the players stayed with him the whole time. In the pictures you will see the boy with Saban's National Championshiprings on, sitting behind his desk etc. But the pictures that get me the mostare the ones with Mark Ingram and Julio Jones. As I mentioned the boy justrecently went blind and he wanted to feel Mark and Julio's muscles, in thepictures you can see him feeling their muscles. How awesome is that! In a time when all you hear is negative media on college and proplayers it is refreshingto hear a story like this. You can bet your behind that Coach Saban had alot to do with all this and it makes me have an even greater respect forwhat he is doing in Tuscaloosa. YEP I am drinking the cool aid and it isgood! ROLL TIDE and May God bless this boy, his parents and theCoach/Players at the University of Alabama who made one of his final days onthis earth a special one.

Just living for the weekend....

On Friday night, I headed downtown to Nana Funks with some new friends; who I simply adore, and I had wonderful time! It is so interesting to see all the cool bars and nightlife offered in Birmingham because even though I grew up here, I was never old enough to see what all B'ham had to offer!!!

At Nana Funks, I ran into a dear old friend from elementary school!! It was such a treat to hear about his life after Oak Mountain! He even moved to Alaska at one point for a couple of years! In addition to running into Jay, I caught up with one of our mutual friends that I knew from Bama, who I originally met in my college Spanish classes! I haven't seen her in years and ironically, she lives just down the street from me!! We have already begun planning a monthly ladies' night event in where we grab a few girlfriends, some cocktails and hit some of the eateries around Birmingham!!

This week I actually starting working on some of the invitations! Cutesy and cocktails, I LOVE those kinds of craft projects and I will use any excuse necessary to run by Hobby Lobby! I am so excited to have the opportunity to reconnect with some of my old friends! So much has happened since high school and college that it is just plain well overdue to reconnect!!!

Below are some of the ideas that I have been looking at to start piecing my theme together!!

How stinkin adorable are these coozies?!! These will be ordered, monogrammed and given away as cute little parting gifts!!

I absolutley ADORE these and just look at the design, not the writing, I think this is the direction I am going to go in for the first ladies evening out invitation!!

I love the theme here, too cute!!

I think this is just a super cute design and talk about easy to make! Piece of cake!!

After a long evening of friends and fun I headed down to Tuscaloosa for the rematch of Florida and Alabama! The game didn't start until 7pm so it gave me some time to hang out with a few friends prior to the game! I watched the Clemson/Miami game and then headed out. My roommate's boyfriend was also in town for the weekend so it was quite a packed apartment with all the extra people over that I didn't want to leave!!! I did eventually pull myself away from the festivities and headed down to Tuscaloosa and I am so glad I did!! This was the first game in forever that just the four of us attended together; just Mom, Dad, Joey and Me! I had so much fun joking with my little brother, trying to secretly mix drinks together and talking about the new careers we both just entered (PS by the way, Joey boy got a raise this week!! I am so proud of all that he has already accomplished!! He is such a rock star!!) Anyways I digress, yeah, we kicked butt...... Alabama 31 - Florida 6! It was well overdue that I got to hang with the little bro!! I miss seeing him so much now that he lives in Atlanta, hummm I think I am due for another visit!!!!

The coin toss....

Gene Stallings even stopped by prior to the game starting! We also had a quad flyover!! So awesome!!! Roll Tide guys, I see a bright future for our awesome lil team we call Bama!!!!





All in all it was an amazing weekend filled with family, friends, and a whole lot of giggles!! Roll Tide!!!