I Bleed Purple & Gold

What an exhausting weekend! Homecoming totally kicked my butt this year and I wish I could sleep for the rest of the week. Between all the commotion about ESPN, excitement about seeing all my visiting friends, and prepping for our tailgate, I felt like I was running around all week to prepare. By the time the weekend rolled around, I was ready to have fun!

Friday
Since our first guest (out of 7!) wasn't going to be at our apartment until 4, I was able to spend most of the day getting ready (aka cleaning my room) and baking cookies for our tailgate on Saturday. On a side note from that, I used the recipe on the back of the TollHouse Chocolate Chips bag and the cookies (in my humble opinion) were delish! After I had consumed half the dough, I finally got them cooked and cooling, just in time to get myself presentable for our first guest to arrive! All of our alumni friends (sorority sisters!) trickled in throughout the rest of the evening from the various states they were coming from. We headed to a favorite Mexican restaurant of mine for dinner where we all caught up from the last time we had seen each other (we had seen some in September and everyone in July). This dinner was the first time I think I had relaxed all week! Afterwards, we decided to have a chill night in our apartment playing games since we had to #GetUp4GameDay early the next morning.

Saturday
We were able to get everyone fed and out the apartment by 8:45 and to the quad by 9 to see ESPN's College Game Day! Although we had briefly considered it, we didn't camp out overnight on the quad to get into the front row...I don't think I could have stayed outside when the temperature has been starting to get so low at night. Predictably, there was already a massive crowd by the time we got there, but we just joined in and eventually (over the next 2 hours) made our way pretty close to the stage!

Front view of the stage

As close as we got to behind the stage, aka the backdrop of the show!

Squished in the crowd!

The energy campus was just incredible. Everyone was just SO proud to be JMU students or alumni and at one point I got a little teary because I was so happy to be apart of something so unifying. After we had grown a little too claustrophobic in the crowd, we made our way to our old sorority house for a brunch. It was nice to see younger sisters living in the house and then older ones who had graduated before me. Of course, took many pictures in our old rooms (I had lived in the house for 2.5 years so I had three different rooms over that time!) and reminisced about the time we had spent there. Basically the definitely of homecoming weekend, right?! Next, we made our way to the tailgate spot that one of my roommates had claimed the night before. There was so much yummy food and drinks that we stayed there for the next few hours. I had an absolute blast and got to catch up with more alumni, which was so nice! Once the game started, we headed back to the apartment to nap and watch the game (tickets sold out before everyone in our group was able to get them). Chinese food was ordered, naps were taken, and boos were yelled when the University of Richmond Spiders beat out our JMU Dukes. We had been talking about possibly going out downtown, but then figured that it would be so crowded that we could have an equally as fun time at home playing fun games and enjoying some wine. My favorite game was the one where everyone gets a post-it placed on their forehead with a character or thing written on it, and you have to ask yes/no questions to figure out who/what you have! After playing and watching TV, I crawled into bed exhausted from the long day!

Look at all the signs in the background! They were hilarious! 

Sunday
Our guests were out the door by 11am and unfortunately I got started working on homework so I could just get it over with. Afterwards, I just watched a movie, enjoyed leftover Chinese food and got caught up on American Horror Story with one of my roommates! The highlight of my day was getting a reply on Twitter from one of my favorite bloggers, Julia Engel, who is Gal Meets Glam. I was a complete fangirl about it and told one of my roommates who didn't really think it was all that cool...so I am telling you all since I know there will be at least one who will fangirl with me!

This weekend I laughed until my stomach hurt, ate all the food, got to have my school on national TV, and spent time with my friends so what else could a girl ask for? I am glad this weekend was such a success and I am already looking forward to next year's homecoming where I will finally be able to call myself an alumni of JMU!