Waltz Me To Heaven: Wake Forest University

This past weekend, I traveled back to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for homecoming at Wake Forest University. It's been 15 years since I graduated from that magical school, and I was so excited to share just a little of that magic with my kids. There was only one problem...it rained all weekend!!!

I thought this post was going to be full of the outfits I carefully put together over the last couple of weeks; and pictures of happy children playing football on the quad; and my little cheerleader waving her pom-poms at the tailgate. But, the weekend didn't exactly go as planned. Did I mention that it rained? I'm not talking about a little rain shower. It rained non-stop from the time we got into town until we drove away on Sunday. That being said, we still had a great time!

On Friday night, I went to my class party where I saw lots of old friends and caught up on babies and jobs and husbands and wives. Despite the weather Saturday morning, we ventured up onto the quad to check out the festivities, and although they were largely diminished due to the circumstances, there was plenty of activity. From the quad, we moved on to the alumni tailgate (thank heavens for tents) where we ate BBQ before heading into the game. Fortunately, we were pretty well outfitted with rain gear so we braved the weather for a little bit of football. Unfortunately, the Demon Deacons couldn't pull out the win, but as we walked out of the stadium, Hudson grabbed my hand and said, "Mommy, I think I want to go to school here." That's an even better victory!

Saturday evening we went over to the house of some good friends for a delicious dinner of Mountain Fried Chicken. When I was a student at Wake, I spent so much time with my friend Suzanne at her parents' house. They were my second family, my home away from home. We met moving into the dorm first semester of our freshman year, and we've been great friends ever since. Just like during college days, Suzanne's mom is still a gracious hostess, and her dad always indulges my love of Mountain Fried. The best part of the evening was to see the friendships forming between our children. I hope they will be friends like Suzanne and I have been, and maybe they'll even end up at Wake Forest together!