Weekend Recap!

Gameday weekend and Halloween! Friday after working at school MC, George, Matt, Kevin and I set up the tailgate then went to supper at The Grill in Starkville (Liza had to work). They have the best cheese sticks! Then Matt, George and I went to my house and carved pumpkins!

Matt and George discussing the different hues of oranges of our pumpkins.

Cleaning out the guts

Poor pumpkins

The Carving Queen haha. Btw excuse my outfit. I was cold and we were getting pumpkin guts all over us.

Liza made it just in time to see the finished products!

From left: Matt's "Beat Kentucky" pumpkin, my cowbell pumpkin, and my Bully pumpkin

Here they are again, but showing the other side of the cowbell pumpkin- MSU and paws

After Matt, Liza, and George left I baked for the tailgate and called it a night. Tailgate started bright and early at 8 am!

It was FREEZING at 8 am when we got out there. Pretty chilly fall day in Northeast MS!

Here are the pumpkins at the tailgate! Bully is dressed up like a ghost!

As y'all know, my fabulous Florida Gators had a big game Saturday vs. Georgia. Here I am cheering on the Gators from Starkville!

Girls at the tailgate

Matt and Liza

We were able to hang out, watch some football on the TV, and grill before we headed into the stadium! When I went into the stadium, the FL-GA game was 21-7. I had to rely on my phone to keep me up to date with the score! I about had a heart attack when it was 31-31 with 0:37 left on the clock! God must have known the Gators needed a win really bad! 34-31 GATORS!!! So proud for my orange and blue!!

Here's a video of our stadium at MS State before the game! You might be able to hear me talking! I hope my voice isn't as annoying as it sounds on the video!...but then again, no one sounds like themselves on video!

Pictures from inside the stadium!

3 Girls

Matt and Liza

George!

After an intense game with some horrible play calling, MS State got a 24-17 win over Kentucky. Go DAWGS!!! 7-2 so far this season!! I'm so proud that MS State is finally having a great season!

After the game we headed back out to the tailgate to make smores and watch some more football before heading home. It was so cold out! Hope y'all had a great Halloween weekend!

Also as a comment from my post about cowbells and respecting traditions: I am in no way comparing the noise from a cowbell to a vocal cheer like Roll Tide or Pig Sooie. I know how loud cowbells can get, especially when you're not used to them (I had to get used to them too-remember I was a Gator first). It was just a post about respecting traditions. I was not comparing the noise factors.

Forever 21 Score

I'm not typically a fan of Forever 21. Lots of girls look adorable in their clothes and seem to have great finds. I am not one of those girls! Haha....but I was so excited to find this gem:

The Jacquard Floral dress from the Love 21 section of clothes. I love how feminine it is, I love the pink and gray together, the cut is also really classic and not too short or low cut. The price was also great. I can't wait till it arrives in the mail!

I have a friend visiting this weekend for our Homecoming game! I will have good pictures for y'all next week of this weekend and I'm also carving pumpkins next week so pictures of those too!

Go Mississippi State Bulldawgs!! (Thank the Lord the Gators have a bye week haha! They need a break to improve before the big Georgia game next week :) )!

Have a great weekend!

The Gator-Bulldawg Dilemma

For those of y'all who have been reading my blog for awhile, or even those who are new followers, (it's pretty obvious just by looking at my blog haha) you know I love my Florida Gators and Mississippi State Dawgs...but what do you do when they play each other??

Last year, Mississippi State hosted Florida in Starkville. I had been a State grad student for almost 3 months at this point, and loved State, but still wore orange and blue to the game. Florida was the predicted winner, and took a win home to Gainesville that weekend. Dan Mullen was a new head coach at State and the team was rebuilding and learning a lot last year. This year, Florida hosted State at the Swamp. I definitely took this opportunity to return to my home turf and really loved being back in Jacksonville Beach this past weekend. I got to go shopping, go to the beach, and see my family. I also loved that some friends were able to see my beautiful city of Jax Beach and the Swamp!

Saturday morning we ate breakfast on the beach.

Here I am...wearing a Mississippi State sweatshirt and Florida Gator shorts!

After breakfast we did a little shopping in Bealls and Target then got ready and headed to Gainesville.

Here are some pictures:

Me with Albert and Alberta

Me and George with Albert and Alberta

Dang I love Florida. Look how pretty the Gator walk is!

George, me, Justin waiting on the Dawgs

Go Gators!

The Swamp is amazing...like no other stadium. I'm so lucky to have had so many amazing memories here...and I'm only 23! Many more to come!

Dan the Man! Go State!

Urbs.

3rd row seats are pretty sweet

My boys from Ol' Florida and my boys in Maroon and White.

The outcome of the game was not only a total shock, I was left with completely mixed emotions. As a lifelong Gator fan, I had decided to stick to my roots and wear orange and blue to the game. Mississippi State was coming off a 3 win streak vs. Georgia, Houston, and Alcorn State. Florida was coming off 2 losses to Alabama and LSU. This was a big game. SEC predictions thought that should State beat Florida, they would most likely see a top 25 ranking this week, and a 5-2 week 7 would most likely mean bowl eligibility within the next couple of games. However, Florida neeeeeeeded this win. Not only for the season stats, but also for morale. It's pretty much a lose-lose situation. When Florida missed the field goal that would have tied the game and forced overtime, I wanted to jump and celebrate and at the same time cry in disappointment. What a bittersweet win. I love State with all my heart and am so absolutely proud to be a Bulldawg (with a #24 ranking), but the Orange and Blue loss runs a little deeper. But like the song says, "In all kinds of weather we'll all stick together for F-L-O-R-I-D-A".

Thank the Lord they don't play each other next year.

Gooooo Gators and Bulldawgs! Couldn't be prouder to have 4 beautiful colors in my blood-blue. orange, maroon, and white.

It's FINALLY Fall Y'all! Recipes, weather and football!

I was absolutely delighted to wear a sweatshirt on my drive to campus this morning. This was the weather we had in Mississippi this morning:

I could not be more thrilled!!! I am really glad it looks like it will be cooling off some this week. It doesn't feel right making pumpkin baked goods and drinking cider when its 85 degrees out!

Speaking of pumpkin...since we are having an 11:00 game this weekend, I am making muffins for the tailgate before the game. I wanted to share this recipe with y'all early this week in case you want to make some too! Starbucks makes some pretty amazing pumpkin cream cheese muffins, and now you can make them at home!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

1 cup of canned pumpkin

1 cup plus 2 tbsp of sugar

1/2 cup of packed brown sugar

4 egg whites (3 in one cup, 1 in the other)

1/2 cup milk

1 cup of canola oil (I've used vegetable-works fine too)

2 cups of flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/4 tsp salt

1 pkg cream cheese, softened

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffin pans (or use paper cups with Pam) and set aside.

Mix pumpkin, brown sugar, 3 egg whites, milk, and oil. Next stir in flour, pie spice, and salt. Set aside.

In second bowl, mix cream cheese, last egg white and 2 tbsp of sugar. Use a beater.

Spoon some pumpkin batter into each muffin tin, then add some cream cheese mixture, and spoon a little more pumpkin mixture on top.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until toothpick in center comes out clean.

Enjoy as they are or add something extra to them! I like to put some chai frosting on top, which I make by adding some chai concentrate (I use Tazo brand, other brands would work also I'm sure) to cream cheese frosting and sprinkle some candied pecans or pumpkin seeds on top. So good!

I had a pretty dang good weekend! Friday night Mary Catherine, Kevin, and I went up to Tupelo for the Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean concert. We ate a great (but very quick!) supper at The Grill in Tupelo and walked over to the arena. We had so much fun! Both of them were really great live!

Here we are at the Bankcorp South Arena waiting for the show to start!

Saturday started bright and early for tailgating for the Mississippi State vs. Georgia game.

Kevin and Andrew playing corn hole. Hadn't seen Andrew in forever! Glad to see him!

Matt with a bulldog!

Casey, Jesse, and Kevin cooking ribs!

Jesse had spent hours making these ribs for the tailgate. They were so so good!

Caitlin and Dan finally made it to a game! Caitlin has been busy writing/defending her thesis and Dan just came back from deployment so we were really glad to have them join us for a game before the head to Oklahoma. Definitely going to miss them a ton!

Caitlin and I in the stadium!

The East side of the stadium wore white and the West side of the stadium wore maroon. Go State!

The group waiting on the game to start. Liza had to work so she wasn't there :( It wasn't the same without her!

The game was an incredible game to watch. The score was 7-6 State for most of the game. Finally the game picked up and the MISSISSIPPI STATE BULLDOGS BEAT GEORGIA 24-12!!!

Hey GEORGIA! We just beat the HELL OUTTA YOU! Maroon! White! Fight Fight Fight! Mississippi State!!! Damn right!!

We all celebrated out at the tailgate for hours after the game. Caitlin and I took a picture with the huge cowbell!!

And of course, my FLORIDA GATORS also won vs. Kentucky this weekend. Go Gators!!

Rocky Top!

I had such a great weekend in Knoxville! I drove up from Starkville on Friday afternoon, did a little shopping Friday night, and hung out with Jim. Saturday we headed to the stadium for the Gators vs. Vols game! Now y'all know I'm a HUGE Gators fan, so of course I wore orange and blue!

Here's my outfit...bathroom shot, classy haha but Jim didn't have a full-length mirror

I don't know about all that Vol orange...but I do know his outfit was epic and cracked me up. I guess I won't disown him for the Vols colors.

Rocky Top!

Jim in the stadium

Go Gators!

Love these glasses!

I also got to meet Grace from Preppy Southern Princess ! She was just too cute and sweet!

We took a picture with my phone...it's a little blurry but I figured I'd put it up anyways! So glad I got to meet her!

While I'm not a huge fan of long car trips, this one wasn't too bad. About 6 hours and the views around Chattanooga were amazing. I'll be headed back to Knoxville sometime in November and maybe I'll get to cheer on the Vols next time. I do like UT but I had to be loyal to my Gators!

Unfortunately, my MS State Bulldogs lost in Baton Rouge :( We got to catch part of that game after the UT-UF game. Hopefully this weekend we can show Georgia who the real Bulldogs are! Haha.

Busy week ahead as usual...school school school.

Happy Monday!