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

Bowlcoming 2010!

My first homecoming as a Baylor alum was good for my soul. Last weekend was one the of the best weekends I've had in months. Here is an extremely long a recap of my time in Waco:

My manager let me take off of work early on Friday, around 3 p.m., to eave for Waco. I had packed the night before and was ready to leave from work. I was so thrilled to be driving to Waco and was singing at the top of my lungs to the radio that I completely missed my first exit out of Corpus. This caused me to have to turn around multiple times and added 20 minutes to my drive. I was SO frustrated! But this feeling was quickly overshadowed, once again, by my excitement for my first Baylor homecoming as an alum.

I made two stops in my five and a half hour drive from Corpus Christi to Waco. Once outside of Victoria because my car said I had 4 miles worth of gas left in my tank and once in Hallettsville at my parents' house to use the rest room and grab a drink/snack. I made it to Waco by 8:30, just in time to sing the last three songs with the BRH Alumni Choir at Singspiration (my old choir, a huge Baylor traditional worship service).

After Singspiration, I met up with my old roomie, Catherine, and my baby sister, Claire. We headed over to the bonfire to meet up with more friends and hear the results of the homecoming float competition. I saw so many old friends there! The weirdest part of being on campus for the first time since graduation was that I still felt like a student. After seeing and catching up with many college friends, Cat and I snuck into the 9 p.m. Pigskin performance to watch Claire perform with Tri Delta. (When you've performed in Pigskin and Sing many-a-time as a student, you feel as if you've earned the right to sneak in. And hey, I bought a ticket for Saturday. It all evens out.) I cried watching Claire perform for the first time. I didn't think I'd get so emotional, but it's the coolest feeling in the world to watch your baby sister carry on your Baylor/Tri Delta legacy.

 {At the bonfire}

Saturday was busy is the best way. It started off with the Tri Delta Homecoming Breakfast in the chapter room and reunited, again, with college friends. After the breakfast, we walked over to 5th Street to watch the homecoming parade. It began to sprinkle, which should have been a fair enough warning (more rain to come), but it didn't phase me much at the time. After the parade, Cat, Kristin, James, Renee, Amy, Michael, and I headed over to George's for a few pre-game margarit-Os. How I had missed a good margarit-O! For those of you not from Waco, George's is known for their Big-O's, which is cold beer served in a large, round glass. I'm not a fan of beer, but margs? Yup!

 {Imagine this guy, but with a margarita in it. The best way to prep for a Baylor football game! And thanks for the picture TSP!}

After George's, we all got ready and headed over to the stadium for the big game. If you hadn't heard, Baylor's homecoming football game was a bit unusual. The game was supposed to begin at 2:30, but after about two plays into the game, lightening was spotted and a delay of game was called. For about the next 45 minutes to an hour, the teams hung out in the locker rooms while the fans either went under the stadium or waited it out in the stands. My friends, parents, siblings, and I all decided we'd wait it out in the stands. That it, until the torrential downpour began. We all rushed the field and were soaking wet in seconds. Umbrellas broke, rain jackets failed, and no one cared. It was so fun!

 {On the field during the storm! And yup, that's my dad in a trash bag.}

After about another hour, the rain stopped and the game started back up. I don't think it ended until closer to 8:30 p.m. But no one cared because Baylor WON! 47-42, this game made Baylor bowl-eligible for the first time since 1995 and ranked us #25 in BCS. Holla atcha Bears! This was, without a doubt, the most memorable first homecoming football game an alumni could possibly have.

After the game, Cat and I picked up some Food For Thought. Oh, how I had missed those chicken nachos! (I may try to recreate them this week, but I highly doubt I'll be successful.) After dinner, my family and I went to Pigskin (legally) to watch Claire and Tri Delta perform their act, "Come On and Swim!" Claire made us laminated maps of where all she'd be on stage during the performance. She's such a smart little fishy! They did a great job and once again, Tri Delta laid to rest a magnificent act. I can't wait for Sing 2011!

 {This picture was actually taken on Friday night, but I had to show you a picture of the fabulous map Claire made for family and friends. She's pretty legit}

A few of the girls from my Baylor in New York group reunited for about an hour after Pigskin. We got to hug each others necks, reminisce about our adventures in New York, and laugh about our all too many evenings at The Heights Cafe where we poured out our fears of life after college over bottle(s) of wine. Now look at us! Employed, out in the real world, kicking butt! I so proud of us ladies. Love you girls! P.S. Helena and Lindsey, you were dearly missed!

On Sunday morning, Cat, Christine, Kristin, James and I had brunch at Panera. I made sure to pick up a copy of the Waco newspaper (Baylor football on the front cover!) and bought a Baylor Alumni sticker for my car. And last, but certainly NOT least, I bought a cowboy coffee from Common Grounds for my long ride home.

I loved Baylor when I went to school there, but I can honestly say that I think I love it even more now. I finally get why parents want their kids to go to college where they did: because they had some of the best memories there! I definitely want my kids to have all of the amazing opportunities that Baylor offered me. I want them to wear green and gold proudly. It's about tradition, a perpetual bond of friendship (Delta love!), and family. My first homecoming as an alum was perfect; I couldn't have asked for more.

Sic 'Em Bears!!!