American Girls

Back in the nineties my sister and I had a bit of an obsession.  We were lovers of all things American Girl.  We started with the books.  We would go to the library every week and check out all they had (which at the time there were only about 30 books).  We'd get so excited when there was one we hadn't read.  I loved Molly McIntire, her father was a doctor in WWII and she showed us life during the 1940's.  My sister quickly grew attached to Samantha Parkington, the orphan who was adopted by her wealthy grandmother. (which now makes me wonder if maybe she'd been wishing for a similar story).  We read the other girls books and stories but these were the ones we loved.  For Christmas we each got a doll.  I don't even remember when we realized there were dolls but it wasn't until after we fell in love with the books.  

When I think of my childhood, these are some of the most vivid memories.  My mom, sister and I would pile up in our bed and my mom would read to us for hours every night.  Thankfully my mom kept our dolls all these years (at least 20 years, we can't really remember). 

{Side note, I saw the author/creator of the books and dolls on Oprah a few years ago and she said she wrote the books because her daughter hated history.  She wrote about the girls in different time periods so that her daughters could learn history while enjoying the story of their favorite American girl. Made me love them even more}

 Since we found out there was a store and bistro in Atlanta we've wanted to go (I'm talking years).  So this year Elizabeth invited us to spend the night with her in Atlanta and make a girls trip for brunch.

Let me back up and just mention our trip to the ATL.  It takes three hours to get from Gardendale to the area of Atlanta that my sister lives.  We left Gardendale at 4:00 which put us arriving at our destination around 8:00 their time.  I fed Barrett around 2:30 so I'm not really sure what I was thinking.  I thought he'd be happy until we got there and he probably would have been if we hadn't gotten caught in traffic.  He was fine as long and the car was moving.  While we were not moving in traffic he was screaming at the top of his lungs.  It was awesome.  I'm sure everyone else thought it was too.  I was about to lose my mind.  We finally made it after I almost had a come apart with my mom (this was after n

she'd mentioned that we should do something next year for my 30th birthday, problem is I'll be 29 next year.)   But all survived and we arrived just in time for pizza.  I had to feed Barrett and I put him in the floor and he was out.  We stayed up chatting and eating it was a fun evening.  I went to bed a little earlier because I was exhausted after the drive.

Elizabeth woke me up Saturday morning saying that she'd already put Samantha in her birthday dress for brunch.  I was sad because I didn't have Molly's birthday dress but I didn't let it get me down.  We all got ready and were out the door by 8:30.  I was proud of us.

When we got there people were lined up to get in.

My sister and I with our dolls. 

I was so upset because Molly has a cute little hat, purse and glasses that I still had and we brought to Atlanta but we left them at the apartment. 

The group minus mom.  Barrett wasn't really impressed.  I let Harper carry Molly and she was thrilled.

I love this picture of my sister, mom, Barrett, me and of course Samantha and Molly.

We sat at our table and they put the dolls in their highchairs.

Then they brought them each a cup of air.  Harper was in the bathroom when they brought these out and she was so concerned that they didn't have anything to drink.  Elizabeth told her they'd already drank it.  Then she wanted to pour them some cream but Elizabeth stopped her.

Harper is so funny.

Ava's not really into dolls so she thought we were a bit nuts.

Barrett wasn't really impressed.  He did enjoy watching all the pretty girls though.

We got a group picture in the princess chair. 

I'm sure when Barrett is 18 he'll love to tell his friends he got to have his picture made in the princess chair and the American Girl store.

We hung out in Atlanta for the rest of the day and headed back to Birmingham around 7:00.  It was a bit of an overwhelming trip but I had a lot of fun.  I loved seeing Elizabeth in her "natural habitat".  It was fun to see where she lives, works and goes to church. I loved seeing Harper so excited about something we loved.  As annoying as it was, it was special seeing how excited my mom was to get to do this with her girls.  She loved telling anyone that would listen how that this trip has been 18 years in the making.  I could tell that it really meant so much to her.  I loved getting to relive one of my favorite things from my childhood, with my sister.  She and I had so much fun just walking through the store looking at the new dolls and new stuff.  We also had a pretty in depth conversation at the doll salon on whether it would be worth it to spend the $20 to have their hair worked on. (I'm thinking when I go back I might splurge). 

 I kept telling Barrett he better hope he has a sister one day or that may not be his last visit.

4th Annual SEC Road Trip

 

Friday afternoon we loaded up and headed north to Arkansas.  This is our 4th year to make a road game and I'm so glad my cousin Bullet helped start this tradition.  Now Elizabeth and Amy went to almost every road game last year but we plan to make at least one together each season.  Last year was Ole Miss (here), 2010 South Carolina (here), 2009 Kentucky (here).

I'm not going to lie, I was nervous about the trip only because I'm 22 weeks pregnant and haven't traveled that far by car in a while.  I didn't want to bring the trip down. Luckily my dad has been training me to travel with men my whole life.  He's from the you only stop when you need gas.  I tried not to complain and only had to stop once or twice so I think it was okay.   I will say that it was a long trip.  We stayed in Conway, AR which was about 6.5 hours from Birmingham and 3 hours from Fayetteville.  I could not get comfortable enough to sleep.  Amy and Liz both read, I can't read in the car, so I just kinda chilled.  Clay was a great driver for the weekend!  We did have an in depth conversation about Abby & Brittany, the TV show on TLC about the conjoined twins.  I'm fascinated by them. 

 

It was after 10:00 when we got settled into our hotel and we knew we had an early morning so we called it a night.  We got up pretty early to hit up the hotel breakfast.  They had waffles and everyone was happy.

Clay's only request of the whole trip besides actually seeing the game was that we drive over to Oklahoma to at least take a picture.  We obliged since he had driven us all that way.  We snapped some photos and then stopped at McDonalds for coffee before we headed back to Arkansas.

 

This is our picture in front of the stadium.  It was not easy to get all that in one shot. 

Fayetteville has the best smelling tailgate of anywhere i've visited.  I will say this though I have a hard time trusting fans that eat their own mascot. 

We saw this sign at a tailgate.  I thought it was cute. 

Sister and me.

Huge jumbotron.  The weather was not ideal.  We kept seeing girls in boots and scarves carrying jackets and sweatshirts.  I vocalized my concern that they knew something we didn't.  We asked someone at a tailgate we were at and she confirmed my fears that we were indeed probably going to be cold.  I guess it's the terrain and the way the wind blows around the mountains. 
This was the Arkansas side after halftime.  Can't say that I blame them.
Okay these bama fans sat in front of us and I thought I'd seen it all but they proved me wrong.  They had this Alabama garden gnome with its pants down that they brought in the stadium and took pictures with. I was impressed by her ability to accessorize a poncho. All in all the game was a blow out.  52-0 It rained most of the game.  My rain jacket didn't exactly fit around my new frame so the front of my jersey was soaking wet and it got cool.  Sometime during the 3rd or 4th quarter Patrick sent me a text asking if the game was a bad in person as it was on the radio.  I just responded not if you're a Bama fan.  I'll admit it wasn't the most exciting game but I'll take it over a loss any day.

 

I really enjoyed Fayetteville.  It was a beautiful place.  I will say that when we parked and were told it was about a mile to the stadium I was not expecting it to be straight up a mountain.  It was a climb but I made it.  I was pretty proud of myself.

Luckily all the Arkansas fans left at halftime so traffic was minimal on the way out.  We headed to dinner at Cracker Barrel then back to the Super 8 to watch some football.  I wish I'd taken a picture of my swollen ankles.  They were horrible at one point I think they were compared to Big Al's ankles.

We had a pretty uneventful ride home.  I started feeling a little carsick around Memphis which is not at all surprising but made it to lunch without getting sick. 

We were gone for exacly 48 hours in the car for about 18-19 hours total.  It was all worth it! 

I'm hoping maybe next year we can do another day trip like last year so we can continue the tradition.

Roll Tide!

Flim Flam Bim Bam, Ole Miss Bye Damn

We made our annual road game a day trip this year, to Oxford, Mississippi to take on the Ole Miss Rebel Black Bears.  (Although Liz, Clay and Amy have made all the road games this one the official road trip since I tagged along).  I think every SEC fan has a desire to visit all the SEC stadiums at least once in their lifetime whether they say it or not.  Slowly but surely I'm making my rounds.   

It was a beautiful day for football.  We arrived in Oxford just in time for lunch so we slipped into The Blind Pig for a sandwich and mimosa.  After lunch we strolled around the square shopping and taking in the sights.  This area was so cute and quaint, I could have stayed all day there. 

After shopping we headed to the Grove.  Let me tell you, if you've never been to the Grove you have to go at least once in your life.  There's a reason their slogan is "We ain't never lost a party!"  It was tent on top of tent, people on top of people for as far as you can see.  By far some of the best people watching I've witnessed.  The girls were beautiful and were dressed to kill.  I've never seen such big hair and high heels at a football game.  Most SEC girls dress up for the games but these girls were over the top.

Obligatory picture in front of the stadium!

We got tickets outside the stadium and headed in.  Amy and I were shocked when the bag checker going in the gate told us we had to break the stick off our shakers.  We're such rebels we just hid them in our shirts.  We quickly found our seats in the middle of the Ole Miss fans right in front of the cheerleaders.  Everyone was so nice.  I sat next to an older man, he was a high school football coach.  I'm not going to lie, when the Rebels scored that first touchdown, I was afraid I couldn't handle being in the middle of all the fans.  But the sweet man next to me leaned down and said "Don't worry, we ain't that good!" Turns out, he was right!  We came out in the second half and completely dominated.  The crowd thinned out but our friends we made stayed around till the end.  We did the Hotty Totty with them, they cringed while we did Rammer Jammer.  It was really a lot of fun!

Elizabeth doing her impression of the Ole Miss Rebels basketball team's commercials they played.  They were zombies and we didn't enjoy them!

Our Group! 

After the game we met some of our tailgate group for dinner then headed back to Birmingham. 

It was a great trip!  I really hope we can keep these road games going.

I've never had to blog a loss.  I'm not even sure where to start. 

We did have a wonderful trip (minus the loss).  We left Birmingham Friday around 4:30 headed east to South Carolina.  I was so excited! 

(Me, Amy, Matt (our fake brother), and Elizabeth right before we hit the road)

We made great time and stopped it Augusta to have dinner around 10:00.  We stopped at Arby's I was backing into a parking place so I could eat before we started driving again and I backed into a pole.  Luckily there was no real damage.  But I hit it hard and was scared to go check it out.  We arrive at our host home around 11:30 and almost everyone was asleep.  We stayed up late watching the Braves with Bullet.  I went to sleep when it went into extra innings.  One, because I was really tired and Two because I just don't really care that much about baseball. 

We got up early Saturday to get the party started.  We had a wonderful breakfast and started gathering everything for the tailgate.  We were on the road to the "Excellent Tailgate Spot" by 10:30.  The tailgate spot was excellent.  We had barbeque sandwiches, all kinds of dips and margaritas before the game. 

  

   Elizabeth, Bullet, Me, and Matthew before we left the house.

The Bama fans before we left the house.

Sisters at the tailgate spot.

Me and Amy tailgating.

Me and sister.

The great tailgate table set up by our wonderful hosts for the weekend. 

The "Excellent Tailgate Spot" is really neat.  It is basically a huge shed with about 100 parking spaces.  The have restrooms and power and cable setups.  They had probably 10 40-50 inch plasma TVs hanging all around showing all different games.  There were closets where you could store stuff so you didn't have to haul it all season.  They even had a shelf over the urinals in the men's restroom to hold your beer! (That's what the boys said anyways).

We left the tailgate a little early to stop by "The Loose Cockaboose" for a beer. They advertised the "Coldest beer in town". It wasn't cold at all! Then we headed to the game.

Outside the stadium.

Our seats were pretty awesome.  2nd row again.  It was a lot lower though so we couldn't really see over the players.

 I was still happy at this point.  It must have been early.

Not a happy camper. 

I'm pretty sure Dareus was looking right at me.

 Oysters after the game.

Right before we headed back to the house.

I am so sad that we lost but we had a great trip.   And Florida won a National Championship with one loss.  I had so much fun.  I have laughed so much it hurts.  I can't wait till our away games next year. I really want to go to Penn State and Florida.  We'll see!

Alabama 21- South Carolina 35