I don't even know what to title this post.

Hey friends. First off, I feel awful for neglecting the ol' blog so much recently. I hate it, really. Not because I feel like I need to keep you guys in the loop necessarily (even though I love this aspect of blogging), but becase blogging can really be a de-stresser for me. I love how once I type all my thoughts out, I simply feel lighter; like I've gotten something off my chest. But the words just haven't been there for me the last few days. I'm going on day 3 of being sick. Our community and a co-worker of mine lost loved ones over the last couple of days. I was out of town all weekend and now Luke is on a 3-day work trip. The rain has been practically non-stop over the last couple of weeks and the mood around here is just kind of gloomy. So for this, I'm sorry. I will have some sponsor highlights and guest posts coming up real soon and this gives me something to look forward to for sure!

Here are a few Instagram pics from my weekend. I hope you are all having a not-so-manic Monday. :)

{I went to Waco this weekend to visit my little sister and watch All-University Sing. Of course, a stop at Common Grounds was a must.}

{We also went to the Baylor men's basketball game.}

{I loved spending my weekend with these girls!}

{Cat bought me this beautiful piece of art off Etsy. It's a picture of Brooklyn and the bridge. Yes, I teared up. Real friends know where your heart belongs.}

{When I got home from my weekend in Waco, Luke had bought me roses. Because every day is Valentines with that cutie. :)}

{And because I was missing him while I was in Waco, I played on Instagram with one of our wedding photos. I like it.}

Whirlwind Waco Weekend, Part 2

**To get caught up on the story of my weekend trip to Waco, click here.**

After our trip to Common Grounds, the girls and I went our different ways to dinner. I got dressed up and went to dinner with Kelsey's family and friends to celebrate her graduating from Baylor with her masters in accounting (my bridesmaid is a smarty pants!!). I was so happy her parents invited me to dinner with them because I hadn't seen the Marshall family in a long time. Plus, we ate at 135 Prime, an amazing steakhouse outside of Waco. So yum!! We toasted to Kelsey's success and even had a little graduation cake. Congrats Kelsey!!!

After dinner, the gang all met up again to grab a quick drink at Texas Roadhouse to celebrate Kristin's birthday. There were many celebrations this weekend! We had a great time doing a little more catching up and reminiscing about college. We can't ever seem to do enough of this. :)

That evening, Cat and I headed back over to Claire's house and got ready to spend our last night ever in 1006. Claire and her friend, Janet (who also lives at 1006), are studying abroad in Europe next fall and after they return, they will be moving into an apartment just the two of them. We were all a little sad about this since it means that we won't be able to go back to our old college house anymore, but we know that God's plans are better than our own and we know that everything is going to work out for the best of our little Clarabell. Speaking of, check out this hot mamma...

{She dressed up for us on our last night in the house; glasses, bath rob, and all! Someday she will make some man very happy, HA!}

The next morning we got up and went to breakfast with the whole gang to Cafe Cappuccino. "The gang" included: myself, Catherine, Christine, Kristin, James, and Claire. After talking over a few last-minute flight plans for the wedding, we all hugged and parted ways. Cat and I went back to Claire's house to pack up our stuff and hit the road. But of course, not before buying something from Bush's Chicken. Seriously, how much more food could we have possibly attempted to eat this weekend?!?! Most of the Bush's got throw away, but we just HAD to, ya know...:)

{Goodbye 1006!}

{Hello Bush's Chicken!}

Cat and I had a 3ish hour drive home, so most of the way we chatted about life and the upcoming wedding. Cat's little creative self is going to be playing a very fun role in the wedding and I'm so excited about having a little of her creativity displayed on our big day! About 45 minutes out of Houston, we decided to make a quick stop at a local farmers market. Ohmygoodness, this place was AMAZING! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

{Pottery}

{So many watermelons!}

{I love how colorful veggie are}

{Fresh fruit anyone?}

{More pottery and beautiful flowers}

{Pretty in pink}

My weekend concludes with getting to Cat's house, moving all of my stuff from her car into mine, and then another 3.5 hours of driving from Houston to Corpus Christi. I'm not going to lie, I wasn't the biggest fan of driving so much and was extremely tired once I got home, but the weekend was totally worth it. I had an amazing time with some of the best friends a girl could ask for. We definitely did as many "Waco things" as we possibly could and, if you haven't already noticed, ate WAY TOO MUCH food! 

I love what Baylor did for me; what it's given me. Friends, family, a home, a network, an incredible education, life skills, a greater appreciation for my family and Luke, the chance to live and work in New York, and a future firmly grounded in faith. I love going back to Waco because I love talking about and reliving old memories with my Baylor family. Thank you Lord for allowing me to be a part of something so incredible and ordained by You!!!

And that's the end of my whirlwind Waco weekend. I still think I'm a little sleep deprived from this weekend, but I'm hanging in there! Did you do anything fun this past weekend? If not, do you have anything fun planned for this upcoming weekend? I'll be running in the 2011 Beach to Bay Relay Marathon with a team from work on Saturday and then taking my bridal portraits this Sunday with the fabulous ladies of Journey Tree Studio. Another crazy/busy weekend ahead!!

Whirlwind Waco Weekend!

I can't even begin to put into words the amount of fun I had this weekend!!! On Friday after work I drove home really quick [as quick as 5 o'clock traffic allows], threw a bunch of clothes in a bag, and hit the road for Houston. A couple of weeks back, Catherine and I had decided that I would meet her in Houston and then she and I would take her car the rest of the way to Waco (for those of you who don't know who Cat is, she is one of my amazing roomies from college and will be one of the house party ladies in my wedding!). I was already delirious at this point due to an extremely long week at work, but I made it to Houston in 3.5 hours thanks to Taco Cabana, Celine Dion, and way too much coffee. Cat greeted me at her cute little house with another skinny vanilla latte for me, and we were off to Waco!

{Of course, we had to take a picture at Cat's favorite gas station on the way to Waco. This was at about 11:30 p.m. Goodness, our hair...}

We arrived in Waco at our old college house, now my little sister's college house, at 12:30 a.m. and crashed. I hardly remember walking up the stairs to bed and I don't know if I've ever slept so hard in my life. Pitiful, I know!

{We've all lived at "ten-oh-six" at one point or another. We love this house!}

We woke up Saturday morning and headed straight to Panera to meet up with Kristin and James. Panera was our favorite place to study when we were in college. Aww memories! While eating breakfast, we ran into my Tri Delta little and future bridesmaid, Kelsey! It was so fun to see her and her momma pre-graduation. Kelsey graduated this weekend from Baylor with her masters in accounting. I'm SO incredibly proud of her and excited she'll be working in Houston now! 

{Love Panera Hazelnut coffee!}

After breakfast, we stopped by Rack Room Shoes in the Central Texas Market Place because I needed a pair of black dress sandals. This was my favorite place to get a good deal on shoes of all kinds in college! I grabbed not only one, but two pair of dress sandals in black and teal. They were buy one, get one 1/2 off so I couldn't resist! After shoe shopping, Cat, Kristin, James, and myself picked up Claire and we all headed over to Bloom and Bee Swanky, an adorably vintage gift shop in downtown Waco. How had I never been to this gorgeous place?!

 {Artsy chandelier at Bloom and Bee}

This little shop is the kind of place that carries old photographs, picture frames, glass figurines, house decor, luggage, linens, etc. I bought a couple of vintage pieces to use as decor for the wedding and I'm super proud of myself for picking them out on my own. I'm not naturally very good at the whole artsy/vintage thing, but I'd like to think that I'm getting better due to the many artistic friends in my life. :)

After our adventure to Bloom and Bee, we decided to go for a little ride through campus. I had only been on the Baylor campus once since my graduation a year ago and was really excited to re-live student life, even if only for a few minutes. I made a special request and we stopped by my old stomping grounds, Castellaw Communications Center. I took all of my major courses in this building and it really felt like a second home while I was in college. Many late nights were spent studying in this building, which smelled like freshly printed newspaper all the time (since the school paper is printed in Castellaw). I walked in for just a couple of minutes while we were on campus and it smelt so wonderful, so familiar. 

{"The house that built me."}

After our trip around campus, poor James had had enough girl time. So we dropped him back off at his car and went to grab lunch. We decided to eat at Food For Thought, a local Baylor college student favorite. This hole-in-the-wall health food restaurant serves salads, nachos, burritos, smoothies, etc. Cat and I split the chicken nachos and they were so good! I had forgotten how much I love Food For Thought. After lunch we made a quick stop by the bookstore to pick up an alumni sticker for my new car.

{Food For Thought's chicken nachos}

{Alumni sticker on the new car--taken after I had already gotten back to CC}

You would think that at this point we had to be too stuffed to eat anything else all day. Nope, it gets worse. I don't know what our deal was, but apparently we had all missed our favorite college foods so much that we decided to subconsciously eat as much as possible in 36 hours. It's sickening, really, the amount of food we ate this weekend! Well, after FFT, we went on a little shopping spree to Ann Taylor Loft. I'm guessing the "30% your entire purchase all weekend" sale had something to do with motivating four very full women to try on clothes. We all walked away with something too! Got to love those ATL sales!! After shopping, we took Claire to 3 Spoons Yogurt, a new fro yo place in Waco that she had been wanting us to visit. We really had no room for fro yo (obviously!!), but we did it anyway and again, so good!

{I didn't get too much, but what I did get was gone in about 14 seconds!}

We FINALLY went back to Claire's house and all I wanted to do was take a nap. However, my sweet friends (Lord knows I wanted to hurt them...) did not let my napping last long. About 30 minutes later I was woken up and told that we were going to Common Grounds. Ohmygoodness. I had been wanting nothing but a cowboy coffee for weeks and now I was too full to even look at coffee! But we went and had a glorious time. I ended up ordering an Arnold Palmer (Luke's favorite) and buying a bag of coffee beans to take home.

{Our drinks}

{What a lovely place full of coffee-stained memories}

{CG to-go!}

Alright, so this blog post covers about the first 24 hours of my whirlwind weekend in Waco! But it's midnight and I'm falling asleep at my computer. I'll tell you about the rest of my weekend tomorrow. I also have so many wedding updates to share! But again, these must wait until tomorrow when I've gotten enough sleep to remember it all. 

Sweet dreams,

Sara