happy homestaying

Last weekend was Baylor Homecoming, but since we live here now, it was more like a Homestaying. It's so nice to already be in town for the things we would usually drive 3 hours for- football games, basketball and Homecoming! With Tye and Katie living right down the street, and Lynley and Shawn coming into town, it was nice having most of the family {we missed the rents} in the same place. This was the 3rd Homecoming since Tate and I have graduated. I'm learning the longer we are out of school, the less people we know around campus. Which makes sense, I guess. I learned this lesson last year as I went to the parade preparing myself to be bombarded with small talk from old acquaintances; however, I only saw two people I knew-- a teacher and a co-worker. Cool. I'm old.

We kicked off the Homecoming festivities at the bonfire Friday night, which seems to be getting later every year {just confirming the "old" comment above}. To sum things up: It was hot. As the fire was blazing and smoke was filling the air, Tate was wishing he could only "take a few air samples" for his research project. Meanwhile, Lynley lost her coat belt, so we spent most of the time winding through the mass of alumni, searching hopelessly, but she found it!  The jury is still out on who was at fault for the lost belt- Lynley or Shawn. After the bonfire, we worked up the energy to meet up with Tate's fellow graduate students at The Dancing Bear at ELEVEN : THIRTY. Considering I couldn't remember the last time I'd left the house after 10 PM and am not a student, I was obviously the odd one out. While the cool kids talked about things revolving around beakers and air samples, I smiled and nodded. I wasn't the only odd-man out; there was a PHD student there {ohhh ahhh}...but he stood out in a different way among the lowly grad students. Example: He asked what I did and then followed it up with, "You make less than a teacher, right?" Um, I know you are on your way to wealth and affluence, I get it. BUT, do you get the teacher discount at JCREW for the rest of your adult life? Didn't think so. Point for the SLPs.

Saturday morning I looked forward to the best part of Homecoming weekend- the parade! I was well prepared with my satchel purse {to provide hands free access for clapping} and my new gold striped shirt I had been waiting to wear on this very occasion. We live close to campus, so we only had to walk a few blocks and were there. Wrigley was excited to go too. She was clearly a hit as she was constantly 'awwwed' over. As she laid on the ground at our feet she was more concerned with the fallen acorns than the parade. She even army crawled across the busy sidewalk to stalk down a few stray acorns. At that point, Tate picked her up to hold her since "she couldn't see," and she was content in his arms for the rest of the morning.

After the parade was over we visited the StuFu building for the Alumni Reception. This is the place we met, were co-chairs for a year and got engaged so it's pretty special, I mean if you're into that sentimental kind of stuff. It was nice to see a few people we were in the organization with and catch up. The rest of the afternoon was spent eating lunch with friends, napping and a hanging out at a cookout with more fun people and rice krispy treats. We met back up with family at the football game. Lucky us, we ended up sitting directly behind/next to the alumni band. These are the precious people of all ages that come back once a year to play their hearts out for their alma mater. This seemed like fun...until the trumpet section began waving their trumpets along with the fight song. At that point "trumpet juice" {aka stranger's spit} flung out of the trumpet, splattering on our faces. Nice. Despite the unwelcomed shower, the Bears won and it was a good night. Oh and Katie and I matched. Unplanned, yet everyone got a kick out of it.

Sunday after church Lynley and I made cute Christmas decorations for The Warehouse, our quaint, little store in Spice. I'm taking the decorations later this week, but here is a sneak peek at the store, socked up and ready to go for the holidays!