2009 In Review

2009 was quite the year for me and Lee. Here's a little review:

January:
*I started my new job in Memphis. Lee was really sweet and cooked dinner for me that night, but he melted the bottom of the crock pot in the process :)
*We got Bruce Wayne to keep Ellie company while we were at work

April:
*Apartment gets broken into the day we were planning on going to Tuscaloosa for A-Day. We had already been planning on moving back to Alabama, and this pretty much sealed the deal. We turned in our notices at our jobs three days later.

May:
*Moved back to Alabama. Lee went back to the company he worked for before we got married, and I did the same. Life's funny like that sometimes.
*Lee turned 23
*Celebrated our one-year anniversary ♥

June:
*Went on a cruise for my dad's 60th birthday
*Bought our first house! Closed on it at the end of June

July:
*Moved into the house!

September:
*I turned 25...I don't want to talk about it
*Football season finally started! Roll Tide!
*Twin sister finds out she's pregnant!

October:
*Bought a new (to me) car. Neither of us had ever had a car payment, so this was a big deal for us. The Civic was a good car, but it was time for her to be put to rest. She's still hanging out at my parents' house.

December:
*Went to the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta and watched Bama whoop the Gators! The most fun game I've ever been to :) Alabama will be playing in the National Championship Game next month!

Clearly I've skipped a few months, because I just can't remember anything really big happening. In the fall our lives revolve mostly around football, so that's pretty much all we've done since September. I'm glad I've started the blog so I can actually remember some things!

Early Christmas

Lee and I have always done Christmas together a few days early. I guess it started because our first couple of years we were dating we were in college and didn't see each other on Christmas Day. So we gave gifts early and it just kinda stuck. We did our Christmas for this year last night. Last year we did our gifts on a Saturday so I had a lot of time to cook a lot of food, but I had to work yesterday so I cooked potato soup when I got home. It was delicous, btw.

THEN we finally opened presents! Of all the things I got Lee, I was most excited about what was in his stocking! I got him some Huey's burger seasoning. When we lived in Memphis we ate at Huey's a lot, and when we moved we went to the store and stocked up. But they don't sell it in Alabama so we've been out for a while. We had talked about ordering it online but had never gotten around to it, and then one of my co-workers had to go to Memphis last week for a meeting. I asked her if she would pick up some Huey's for me and she did so I got to give Lee some for Christmas :) I was REALLY excited! I got him a Keurig coffee maker too, so I was really excited about that. I got him a turkey fryer too, but he found it a few weeks ago, so he already knew about that one. (He wasn't looking for it...they had turned off our gas one day so he went up in the attic to look at the water heater. I had put it up there that very day, right at the top of the steps because I was going to wrap it that night. I didn't even think about it until I heard him stomping around up there. I was so mad at myself!)

Lee did a really good job this year, but he really does a good job every year. He got me xm radio, Wii Fit plus (to replace the wii fit that got stolen in April), The Blind Side (the book), a new mp3 player (because my ipod will NOT hold a charge anymore) and a couple of cd's I've been wanting. The only PROBLEM with what he gave me was that he put all of my favorite candy in my stocking. He put a big bag of Reese's Pieces, Sour Patch Kids and Cookies and Creams Hershey's. AWESOME candy, but how am I supposed to lose weight with all that around? I guess I'll have to hide it from myself!

I'm off for the rest of this week, so of course my throat's been hurting today. So instead of going to the gym this afternoon like I had planned, I slept for 2 hours. I think I'm about to go get some orange juice and spend the rest of the day cleaning up.

I hope everyone is having a great Christmas week!

So this is Christmas...

I'm finally getting around to doing a post showing all my Christmas decorations! I don't have a lot of decorations yet, but I wanted to show what we do have. I try to get a LITTLE bit every year during Christmas time, and I usually get some decorations as Christmas presents. Then it seems like I always buy a ton of ornaments after Christmas when they're like 75% off. So here goes:

Here's the tree. My mom made the bow a few years ago when I was still in college. I keep wanting to get a new angel or star to put on top, but I'm too picky and too cheap to find one. All the ones I like are WAY more than I want to spend, and when I wait until after Christmas they've all been picked over. So the bow will have to do for now.

Had to show Lee's Batman and The Joker ornaments :)

This is my little snowman family Lee's stepmom gave me for Christmas last year. I think they're adorable.

This is my nativity scene that Lee's mom gave me last year. I think it's really pretty. I still want a Willow Tree nativity set though. I asked Lee for some pieces of it for Christmas this year but I'm pretty sure he didn't get it for me :( I guess I'll have to buy it myself next year.

And here's the mantle. It was kind of hard to decorate because of the big awkward TV cutout. Our TV won't fit in there so I got this charger (which I LOVE) when we moved in. I didn't have anything Christmasy to put in there this year, but maybe I can find something next year. I was thinking maybe small tree, but our big tree is right next to it, so that might be awkward. I could always do some rearranging though. Last year I got the plain red and white stockings and attempted to put our names on them like we had when we were little, but that did NOT turn out well (no artistic ability--even just painting names on stockings!) so we got these this year. Mine is the snowman and Lee's is the Santa.

There are a few more little decorations around the house, but this is the main stuff. Can't wait to go shopping for more after Christmas this year!

Why wait until January?

I FINALLY made it back to the gym today! I haven't been since I got sick, oh, three weeks ago. Once I get out of the routine of going it is so hard to go back! But now that I did I think I'm good to go! Plus I'm only working one day next week, so that will leave me a lot of extra time to work out.

I've decided that I'm not going to wait until January to try to get back in shape. Since Lee and I got married a year and a half ago I've gained about 15 pounds. And when you're short like me it really shows! So I've decided that now's the time to start trying to lose all that weight. I'm not going to go on a major diet or anything, I just need to cut back and get back in the gym. Of course, it didn't help that I made these last night:

OMG...they were SOOO good! Somehow I had never heard of Picky Palate until yesterday, but oh man am I glad I found it! (I'm not good enough to take pictures of my own food yet, so this is from her website...plus I got in a fight with the chocolate so I couldn't drizzle any on top like she did!) These are the Crunchy Caramel Reese's Cookie Bars. They were delicious! I always have really good intentions of doing something sweet for Lee when he's not here but it seems like most of the time something keeps me from doing it. Last night he was playing poker so I decided I was going to make him these. I think he liked them :) I'm planning on making them again this weekend when I go home for Christmas. Maybe I'll get Sunny to help me :)

Note: I DID make Lee take most of these to work with him today so I wouldn't have too many at the house to tempt me!

Just One More Reason I love Chick fil A

Just a quick little story about how awesome Chick fil A is...

Lee and I have a little tradition where we always stop at Chick fil A if we're going out of town in the morning. Well really, any morning we're not going to work and we're up early...we just love Chick fil A, especially their breakfast! And they're always so nice :)

Saturday morning we stopped by Chick fil A on our way to Atlanta. We were dropping the dogs off at his mom's house since it's on the way, so they were in the back seat while we were going through the drive thru. When I got to the window they both started barking, so I told her that they loved Chick fil A too! She asked how many we had, and I thought she was just making conversation so I told her we had two. Then she bent down and came back up with two dog treats in ziploc bags! How nice is that?! It just made me so happy. They've always had good customer service, but something like that I think is just really going above and beyond. I guess they just understand how much some people love their puppy dogs :)

I've always loved Chick fil A, because I mean, it's delicious, but now I'm an even bigger fan. Thank you, Chick fil A, for being so awesome, and for making my SEC Championship day even better! :)

California, Here We Come...

Well...not me, but my beloved Alabama Crimson Tide! :) Last night we won the SEC Championship Game for our 22nd SEC Title and a spot in the CBS National Championship Game at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena!



Lee and I won't be able to go to the game since tickets are going for like $1,000, but we WERE able to go the game last night! I tried to take pictures, but my hands were so shaky (I was SO nervous, then I was SO excited!) they all turned out blurry, so all of these are from al.com.



I love Alabama football so much. Always have. I was in school at Alabama during some of the worst years in football. We had a six-game losing streak to Auburn. I was in school for five of those. We had three different head coaches while I was there. One of them never coached a real game. Mike Shula was fired during my last semester. Nick Saban was hired a couple of weeks after I graduated. Through all those years, I still loved my football team. "Roll Tide anyway" is what we said after all those losses to our rival. It feels so good to watch those boys do so well after all that. I've never met any of them, but I feel like they're my family. Sounds kinda weird, but I'm pretty sure any die-hard fans feel the same way about their teams.

I had never been to any post-season game before, so I REALLY wanted to go the game yesterday. Lee didn't really care if we went, probably because he was afraid we'd lose, but I finally convinced him to go. We paid a lot for our tickets (but not anywhere close to what we'd have to pay for National Championship tickets!), but it was worth every penny. That was the best football game I think I've ever seen. Our #2 Alabama Crimson Tide beat the #1 Florida Gators, 32-13. It was something I'll never forget. And it was really nice spending the day with Lee ♥

Here's a video from al.com of the celebration after the game. It's kinda long, and I haven't even watched the whole thing yet, but this is something I never want to forget! (Just a note though, if you do watch it, make sure your volume isn't turned all the way up...I played it with the volume turned up pretty high and just about scared my dogs to death!)

Alabama celebrates the 2009 SEC Championship win over Florida