We are the Champions!!

WELLLLLL looks like my new year's resolution has been shot.. but at least I'm getting two in for January.. two more than December.. I have been quite the country traveler, but that will all be told soon. Here goes:

ALL I DO IS WIN WIN WIN win win win win win win win win win win win...

We are the champions, my friends! BCS National Champions. Man, it feels good to say that. Arizona was great. The scenery was BEAUTIFUL. The game was AWESOME. It got a little close, but we pulled it out. Thank you to Wes Byrum, for his amazing field goal kick. Some pictures, shall we?

Here are the beautiful tickets! Obviously, this picture doesn't do them justice. Here's a link with a prettier picture: http://www.collectibles-articles.com/antique/collectible-image-large/2-bcs-championship-tickets-party-oregon-auburn_230564962059.jpg

Mine is the one on the top.. I called the one on the bottom, but my sister got it.. of course. That baby is going to be framed. 

I made facebook updates along the way, everyone seemed to like them, so I am going to repost them here in their entirety.. 

When we got to the airport..

Trip to AZ, 1hour in: 1. Quoted home alone when the cab arrived 2. Cheered at the airport when we saw auburn decor 3.Family fight at security 4. Now at the bar.

The cab pulled up and we screamed: "WE SLEPT IN!!!!" and thus began several minutes of other Home Alone quotes. We got in a big ol fight at the airport.. people were laughing at us. We promptly saddled up to the bar. HA! 

Update 2, flight 1. War eagle chant started. Stewardess made to wear an auburn hat and shirt that said "what the duck?" I also got a free liquor drink voucher.

The first flight was FULL of auburn fans. I ended up sitting with two of my friends from Auburn that just happened to be on my flight. We had some celebratory drinks and got some drink vouchers.. HOW EXCITING! We landed in Dallas, switched planes, and loaded up a whole other batch of Auburn people. 

Update 3. Landed in tulsa, still on plane,waiting to take off for phoenix!1/2 Beer spilled on my leg,but my bag of peanuts was double filled. Still have voucher

Our plane landed in Tulsa, but no one deboarded.. onto phoenix!

Update 4: sat with friends on the plane. Stewardess cut us off. Found katie parrish at baggage claim! Game on.

WHAT A BUZZKILL!! 

Update 5: got rental car.Couldn't figure out how to turn off interior light. Mom almost ran over a dude. We are the champions came on on the way to the bar.Wde.

Mom was distracted because my sister wouldn't get out of my lap in the front seat!!!!!! Even though she didn't get there first..

Next day we went to the GRAND CANYON!!!! It was beautiful!!! 

Day 2 update1: 6:30am came real early. Left my phone at the hotel so I have hijacked moms phone to update. Headed to the Grand Canyon, which I have lovingly renamed the Grand Camyon. Everyone stole that from me, and thought it was funny to post since I don't have my phone..wde.

I was so mad that I left my phone in the hotel. I couldn't take any pictures of it with my phone.. I got plenty with my camera though. It was a 5 hour drive from the hotel, we left at 6am. woof. But, like I said, the scenery in Arizona is beautiful.. so it was worth it. Our bus driver was awesome. 

Update 2. Stopped for lunch. Tour guide has a cooler full of ice and water and told us we could put stuff in it. When we asked about adult beverages, he said: what happens on the bus, stays on the bus. Bonus: they sell 40s in AZ. Next stop: the Grand Camyon

What a nice bus driver! All of our phones ended up dying, since there was no service on the ride to the canyon. 

Update 3: back from the beautiful grand canyon. 4 to 1 Auburn to Oregon fans. War eagles in the air. Asked what would happen if I pushed Binky over the edge. Mom said she would sell my game ticket. Binky still with us. Wde.

When we got back, we went to In-n-Out Burger!!!!! It was delicious! We need to start a petition to get it down here in the south.. They had chickfila up there, so it's only fair. 

Day 3: irritated because I wasn't fed until 4. Went to auburn pep rally, thousands of fans. Walked through Oregon's: maybe a couple hundred. They said roll tide. Response: sorry we don't know who your rival is because your conference sucks. Wde.

I was not a happy camper most of the day due to lack of food. ERRONEOUS! There were SOOOO many more Auburn fans than Oregon. Dumb ducks. The next day was the day i had been waiting for ALLLLL MYYYY LIIIIIIFFFEEEE..

NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME DAY!!

Try not to be jealous of my newest gameday button!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

The stadium was about 70% Auburn fans. It was great! They had an eagle fly at the beginning of the game.. it wasn't our Auburn eagle, but it might as well been. We all gave a big warrrrrrrrrrrr eagle, HEY! when she flew and landed. It was amazeballs!! Of course Oregon comes out with their new uniforms... FUGLY. Their socks looked like someone had highlighted them. (I guess they weren't that bad, but why the fudge do they need a new uniform EVERY game?? We get it. The president of Nike went to Oregon. But isn't there some better way to spend that money?) The game went back and forth.. Everyone predicted it was going to be a high scoring game, but it wasn't. Clearly the defenses stepped up. It was quite the nail biter. The people sitting all around us were NEUTRAL fans. WTF. I would've wanted Oregon more than neutral.. at least they wouldve been passionate about the game. These neuts wore all black. They were impressed/annoyed with my loudness. I did not care. I yelled my little lungs out. I sat with my sissy, so it was double loud. CAN YOU IMAGINE TWO HERRINGS YELLING TOGETHER?!? The game was awesome. We were in the corner of the end zone when Wes Byrum kicked that final field goal to win the game. It was nuts! Huge celebration in the stadium. Here's one of the best plays of the game.

And the game winning kick!!!

Guess who commentated the game?? DUMB OL NICK SABAN AND URBAN MEYER!! uuuggghhh. I can't believe Urban had the nerve to show up after the whole Cam scam that went down. http://www.wsfa.com/Global/story.asp?S=13796636 

When we left the game, we all met up at the hotel across the street, and there was a big ol celebration going on! There was a DJ and bar and tons of Auburn people! We ran into a bunch of people we knew from Dothan! How nice! 

Of course we celebrated all night long. Check out what happened at Toomer's Corner.. I would've been there had I not gone to Arizona. I just love Auburn.

And one of the most glorious pictures I have seen of Toomer's Corner:

I heard the toilet paper went forever down college street. So so pretty. 

It was the most watched program in cable television history!!!! That's program, people, not game. Read it here if you don't believe me.. http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2011/01/record_cable_tv_crowd_watches.html

 The next day we went to Red Rocks in Arizona. It was glorious. 

again, doesn't do it justice. This was the first one we came up to.

Meanwhile, back in the southeast, there was a massive ice/snow storm. We had booked our flights back on Wednesday, but everyone who had Tuesday flights had huge delays.. Luckily we had no problem catching our flights. And lucky for the Auburn students, they canceled class. 

The Friday before I left for Arizona, I found out that I had to travel to Dallas for a convention for work. I went straight from Phoenix to Dallas. It was sad getting off the plane with 100 Auburn fans. I wore orange and blue for the whole conference.. TAKE THAT, TEXAS! While I was there, I found out Cam was going to go to the NFL. I felt like I had lost my bff. sigh... BUT then I found out there was going to be a National Championship celebration in Jordan Hare in a couple weeks, so my mood came back up. 

I finally got back home after being away for a week. There was still snow on the ground! On that Sunday, I found out I had to go to Los Angeles for work.. YAY! I left on Tuesday morning and got back Friday night. It was glorious. The weather was 80 degrees and sunny.. of course we spent most of the time inside at the conference, BUT the last day, we found out was a half day, so we rented a car and went into LA. Take a look:

jealous?

When I got back on Friday, we left straight for Auburn for the National Championship celebration. It was awesome!! 80,000 people showed up!!!! IT MIGHT AS WELL HAVE BEEN GAME DAY!!! The players and coaches were there. Everyone made speeches and they presented all the awards we won this year. 

look how full the stadium is!! 

They had to open up the upper deck!! AHHHH so great. Of course there was a celebratory roll at Toomer's Corner after the game:

SO PRETTY! They had to close down the streets. I was so excited and overcome with the Auburn spirit, that I pretty much bought a national championship shirt at every store downtown. I also got these SWEET gloves:

Every place of business, restaurant, bar, etc had signs and painted windows congratulating the team! Here was my favorite on the side of Toomer's Drugstore.. 

AHHHHH SOO GREAT!!!!!

I have some house updates, but they will have to wait a couple days.. 

WAR EAGLE YALL! 

War Damn New Year!

Happy New Year, everybody! 

I haven't written a blog in FOREVER! Get ready for a doozie, because we got a lot to cover. 

1. IRON BOWL!!!! 

This game will forever be know as The Comeback. We were down 24-0 at one point and came back to win 28-27. I kept saying before the game that I thought it would be like last year, where we were ahead the whole time, and they came back and beat us in the last couple of seconds.. except reversed of course, where we would comeback right at the end. Thank goodness I was right. We had all kinds of superstitions going on around here. I was wearing my lucky dress. I had to go change boots at half time to the ones I was wearing during the Georgia game. My roommate had to be lying in her bed in her room in a certain position while we were watching it. Every time we would score we had a celebration. It was GRRREAT! 

The first half, Nick Fairley got an unsportsmanlike conduct call that was TOTALLY uncalled for when he sacked gingersnap McElroy (bama's quarterback). Of course it was on 3rd down for Alabama. That could've been a game changer. Luckily Cam had some Cammy Cam Juice at half time and came back with full force. 

Here is a HILARIOUS article that I found commentating the whole game. ENJOY! 

http://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/2010/uncensored-live-blog-iron-bowl/

After the win, we knew we were going to the SEC Championship, but we had to get past that to be guaranteed to go all the way. There were still 3 other undefeated teams.. Oregon, Boise State, and TCU. I'm sure everyone knows the Boise St and TCU sob story about them being non-BCS conference teams.. and the possibility of a 1 loss team going to the National Championship game.. wah wah wahhh. I have no sympathy for them not being considered, since Auburn wasn't considered in 2004.. but I guess I'm biased. ALSO that their schedules are crazy WEAK! Some of them only play ONE or TWO ranked teams. At one point, there were 6 ranked teams in the SEC, and we played them all when they were ranked. Miss. St. South Carolina. Arkansas. LSU. Alabama. And then we played South Caroline again. It's like I have to rake up 6 yards of leaves with a rake, and I get all the leaves up perfectly, and I get to use a blower for a couple of the yards that I do as a break.. You want to be rewarded for doing the same amount of work using a blower for all the yards?!? (OK, perhaps a bad analogy, but do you know the amount of work it takes to rake a yard?!? AND shovel all those leaves into a bag!?!?) Point being, you shouldn't have the same reward for doing less work, even if you have the same results. Luckily the games are weighted in the BCS computer, as they should be, so of course Auburn and Oregon were over those two. 

Well we didn't have to wait long. Boise State took a tumble. Now we just had to get by South Carolina in the SEC Championship... AND GET BY WE DID! It was the first SEC championship game that South Carolina had ever been to, so they were very excited, as you can imagine. Luckily I was able to go.. my second SEC championship. We got to the game and settled in, me in my lucky dress and shaker. 

tigers running in

We had awesome seats. I didn't zoom my camera for that shot! We had a perfect view of that big screen. During the game, they would show videos of great SEC championship games from the past with the teams playing. So they showed the Auburn Tennessee game from 2004. I felt a little sad knowing that SC wouldn't have a video.. but alas, they whip out a video from long ago when Steve Spurrier was coaching at Florida! hahaha

By the end of the first half, we were winning 21-14.. so still a tight game.. and then at the very end of the half, THIS HAPPENED!!!!!!!!:

HAIL MARY!!! BEAUTIFUL!!!! 


The whole team must've had some Cammy Cam juice at half time, because we came out STRONG. Ended up winning 56-17!! The highest scoring SEC Championship ever! BEAUTIFUL! Confetti poured from the sky! Cam made a confetti-angel! So cute! 

so pretty!

Halfway through the game, everyone was talking about getting their tickets to go to Glendale! Of course I HAVE to go. Biggest Auburn fan ever, right here.

Now I'm gonna let yall in on a little secret: We bought our flights to Glendale back in October. Southwest was having a HUGE sale. Our flights were less than $250 for round trip!! (im not trying to rub this in anyone's face.. I just LOVE getting good deals) When I called my mom to tell her about the big flight sale, she was afraid we would jinx us. So was I. That's why I didn't tell ANYONE. Sorry errbody! How I wish I could go back and change that.. Anyhow, the next trick was going to be finding a good deal for game tickets. They were definitely on my Christmas list.

Before we left Atlanta, we took a little trip to IKEA!!!!!!! IT WAS HEAVEN!!! I COULD'VE LIVED IN THERE!!!!!! I suggest everyone get on their website and order a catalog. I have two. I am obsessed. While there, I bought a new dining room table AND a big TV stand for the den. I was super excited! This segway leads us into...

2. HOUSE UPDATES!!!!! haha

We got the table and TV stand inside. The stand is about a 6 foot by 6 foot square and came in 3 boxes. (That's what she said). The next night we put it together... by we, I mean 4 people. We had it laid out on the ground and before we sat it upright, someone goes: I don't think the TV is going to fit.

me: Yes it is. I measured the width..  it has like an inch of room. 

them: No, I mean height wise. 

me: WELL LET'S HAVE A LOOK.... (with my teeth clenched.)

(I grab the measuring tape and measure.)

me: EXPLICIT! EXPLICIT! EXPLICIT!!!! (my nickname is swearing herring, btw)

IT DIDN'T FLIPPIN FIT!!!! I was SOOOOO mad. We sat the stand upright and had no chance but to shove it into the dining room against the wall for a couple of weeks until I bought another TV. Why not send back the IKEA stand? It took a couple hours to put together, I like it too much, and I think shipping would be over $200 due to the weight.. so no. I wasn't sending it back. Luckily there were Christmas sales all around! 

Another house update! One of my roomies was moving out, and she had the couches in the den.. So I got to get new couches for the house! Leather was definitely going to be the way to go, especially since dog hair is an issue around here. I wanted a more modern, sleek look. Nothing bulky with fluffy rolled arms. I found the new additions at Rooms to Go! (hey, im on a budget). I like them a lot! They were going to be delivered between Christmas and New Years.. so excited! Since there is so much more room with the new couch and loveseat, I also invested in a couple of chairs! They are brown leather and recline.. and don't be thinking of your grandpa's recliner, bc they don't look like that. 

Finally Christmas rolled around. This was my first Christmas being out in the real world. AKA not having a 2 week Christmas break. It was not fun. I only had a handful of days at home before I had to return to work. I found out the work week between Christmas and New Year's isn't very stressful, so that was good! 

For New Year's, we decided to have a party. That way people wouldn't have to be in a crowded bar with a massive cover charge. We had to prepare the house! I bought a TV for a great deal at Sam's, so we got the stand in place, and the TV all hooked up.

oooooh! aaaahh! 

Cotton decided to jump in the picture there.. fame whore. The shelves have since been filled with board games and picture frames! Next, the couches came in:

so luxurious! 

I enjoy them a lot! Next decorating purchase will be a new rug or coffee/side tables. The recliners were on backorder, so they won't be here until mid-January. The room feels so much bigger! Ahh glorious! 

On New Year's Eve, I decide it was time to put up the stainless steel bar top. This was quite the feat. The bar top was a little bit too wide because the construction guys put a small moulding around the edge of the opening that I didn't know they were going to put up.. so what to do? Cut the metal? Or cut the moulding? I nailed the plywood up on the opening. So it looked like we had a plywood bar. There was no turning back. People were coming over in a few hours. I was advised to cut the metal. I ran to Home Depot and got some metal shears. Brought them back. THEY WOULDN'T CUT THE METAL!! After I had explained to the sales associate exactly what I needed them for, including the thickness of the stainless steel that I was cutting. I was MAD. In comes swearing Herring. I got a hold of a saw and cut a slice out of the moulding. It tooks a couple of times trying to slide it onto the plywood, but we finally got it!! IT LOOKS AWESOME! Try not to drool over the awesomeness:

Close up! If you look at the end, you can see where I cut the moulding. (not the silver scratches on the right, but the cut in the wood on the left)

view from the den! I need to get some bar stools asap.. (look at the cute Christmas tree in the kitchen! I left her up through New Year's because she's so festive.)

view from inside the kitchen. 

I was SOOO relieved to have that finished. The pictures really don't do them justice. Mainly due to the fact that I took them with my phone.. WELL I still had to put the new dining room table together before the party, because we had moved the old one outside to go into storage. She didn't take that long to construct (thanks, IKEA!) Here she is:

how cute is she?!? frosted glass top and metal legs! so chic! 

I slapped my ghost chairs with her because I haven't gotten dining chairs yet. I'm thinking of getting something like this: 

wooden seat with metal legs. 

I also need a rug for the dining room.. I going to have to start a Phase 2 design fund!!! I am DYING to buy everything out of the cb2 catalog. (cb as in crate and barrel. it's the modern line they have). Do yourself a favor, and go to cb2.com and sign yourself up for a catalog from there. (Lots of homework for you peeps: IKEA catalog AND cb2. You'll thank me later!)

I can't remember if I've put this on the blog before... BUT I am quite the fan of doing invitations, tshirts, logos, etc. I started a website (rachelherring.com) that shows some of the stuff I've done. I've been doing a lot of things lately, so I think I'm going to start an LLC to include it all. Maybe then I'll be able to do more things, like print out stuff, since I can write it off for the business. I just have to think of a name. Any suggestions?!?!? I want to use my fish on the site as my logo, so I want the name to have something to do with a fish. Feel free to shoot me any ideas! 

I guess I've just about covered everything.. phew!! It took a couple hours. I'm gonna go on and state that one of my New Year's resolutions is to stay up to date on the blog. I'm gonna leave you with this:

ONE WEEK FROM TODAY, AUBURN WILL BE PLAYING IN THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP! 

WAR EAGLE!!!