This weekend was the opening weekend of college football. For many southerners, this particular Saturday is like Christmas morning. If you don’t live in the south or you aren’t a college football fan, you just don’t get it. And that’s fine. But I thank God I was born here and that I was raised a football fan. There is nothing more exciting than the energy in the air on that first weekend in September. This weekend marks the beginning of the whirlwind that is the college football season. We live for it all year, it flies by like the blink of an eye, and just like that it’s over and the non-football depression sets in!
It’s only fitting that my best friend gave birth on this weekend last year. She and her husband are huge football fans and they are “A House Divided” – which, in football-speak, means one is an Alabama fan and one is an Auburn fan! They had a baby girl (who by default is an Auburn fan because mom has ultimate power) and thus began the never-ending attempts to get her to say “Roll Tide” and “War Eagle,” to put her in something crimson when mom isn’t looking, and the inevitable jokes about when she gets old enough to really “choose” for herself. But having a baby on the opening weekend of college football essentially means that her birthday parties will always include football in some capacity. So her first birthday party was, of course, Alabama/Auburn themed. Lindsay and Ryan pulled out all the stops and threw an awesome shindig. They rented a projection screen TV for the Bama game and had another large screen for the Auburn game, they catered fun tailgate food, rented a moon bounce for the kiddos, iced down tubs of beer for the adults and Capri Sun’s for the little ones, and decorated to the hilt in everything crimson and white, orange and blue that they could get their hands on. It was an AWESOME party!! And oh dear god how much do I love that Ansley Dean Miller!!!! Words can’t express how excited I am to watch her grow up…and how much I’m going to learn from her amazing parents when I have my own kids. See pictures from the party below.
Keeping with his tradition of spending opening weekend with his friend Nick in Atlanta, Eric was gone and I was solo. So our friend Blake tagged along and was my date for the day. We spent the morning at the birthday party and then we hit up Pale Eddie’s for the night games. We met up with my friends Sara, Jonathan and Erin and funzies ensued. Overall it was an awesome day of football, good friends and fun.
I’m so excited about this football season…well, the whole year really because I’m getting married and starting a life with my perfect match 🙂 …but football season is just so fun and Eric and I have so much fun together during football season – despite being a house divided!!! I love getting up on crisp fall mornings, putting on a pot of chili, icing down a bunch of beer and waiting for friends to arrive…I love the anticipation of kick off…I love going to games, the smell of the quad, the food cooking, the sound of The Million Dollar Band, and the way the coffee in the stadium is the greatest thing EVER during a cold November game… I love finding every way possible to incorporate crimson and white into my outfit almost daily… I love watching Eric get excited and yell at the games… I love being in the stadium and screaming Rammer Jammer as loud as I can….I love phone calls with my Daddy on Sunday mornings hashing out the game and what our strategy for the next week should be….I love making fun of the refs and the bad calls…I love watching Gameday and getting pumped up…I love Tiffany Wade’s weekly “Happy Gameday” text….I love hating Les Miles more and more every year…I love the office banter with Auburn fan coworkers…I love knowing we have bowl games to look forward to after the holidays…I love listening to analysis on sports radio on Monday mornings…I love hating Finebaum more between September and January…. I love going out for breakfast with Eric on Sunday mornings and sitting in complete silence as we read our respective columns in the Football U section of the paper…. I love the way Alabama and Auburn fans talk shit but when it really comes down to it we are damn proud to be each other’s rival and know that no one outside of this state really understands what that’s about….
I LOVE FOOTBALL. I JUST LOVE FOOTBALL….
ROLL TIDE Y’ALL!
All Things Me 
for the record… we FL kids know a thing or 2 about rivalry. I am a RABID FSU fan and Gator hater, have been all my life and grew up anticipating that game (and still do!!). Here is to another fabulous football season, the start of your forever and winning the big one (that being the instate rivalry :-). )