First trip home!

We had SUCH an amazing time during our trip back to SC. We took a half day of work on Thursday and drove all eleven hours home, getting there around midnight. We listened to our books on tape (we finished The Gold Coast by Nelson Demille and then started its sequel, The Gate House), so that helped to pass the time. Of course we had to get Cracker Barrell for dinner in Tennessee to welcome us to the south! We pretty much collapsed into bed when we got there. The next day, John's dad and Creighton came to pick him up around lunchtime to play golf at the Walker Course in Clemson with Tripp. After they left my mom and I started our day together with lunch at Mimi's cafe. We had bloody mary's and a delicious lunch (with beignets for dessert!) Then we did some shopping at World Market and Anne Taylor Loft at the Shops at Greenridge. After that mom took me to get a manicure and then she also planned for us to get 1 hour massages together in the same room! It was incredible - she had received a gift card from her students last year for a massage so she was able to use that towards it. That night John and I met his parents and brothers for dinner at Sassafras, one of my favorite restaurants in Greenville. It was delicious as usual (love the she crab soup!), and afterwards we met a bunch of friends across the street at Rey's. It was soooo nice to see everyone and we had such a blast. We had a whole section staked out in Rey's, we felt like VIPs :)

All dressed up for our night on the town :)


Boys taking some candid shots...

Tayler and Matt stayed Friday night with us in Greenville and we all drove down to Clemson together on Saturday morning for the Clemson v. Wake Forest game at noon. Despite inadvertently rolling down the windows and almost losing Matt's Clemson flags, we made it safely and did a little tailgaiting with the Segars and my mom, Lindsey, and Jonathon. There's nothing like a Clemson kickoff!!

Unfortunately it was lightly drizzling for almost the whole first half, so during halftime we decided to go to the Esso and get dry. Tayler, Matt, John and I walked all the way there before we realized that Matt didn't have his ID. John and Matt decided to walk allll the way back to the car (at the Brooks Center) and Tayler and I walked downtown from the Esso to find a table. We found one in Backstreets (we weren't the only ones with the idea to get indoors!), so we ordered fries and a pitcher of beer. Meanwhile, John and Matt got to the car and Matt's ID wasn't there, so they drove back to the gas station we had stopped at in Pendleton on the way to the game and luckily his ID was there - crazy! They finally made it back and we hung out in Backstreets watching the end of the game and playing darts - Reed & Meredith came and met us there when the game ended, which Clemson won!

We went to Loose Change after that and hung out for awhile and saw more old friends, including some of John's MUSC classmates, then went and got dinner at Todaros. Lastly we went to 356 and met up with Kacie and Lee and we finally got to congratulate them in person on their engagement!

That night we spent the night at Reed and Meredith's and Tayler and Matt came too.

On Sunday we went to Newspring in Anderson with a big group (Matt & Tayler, the Segars, my mom, Lindsey, and Jonathon) and went to Outback for lunch with the Segars. We said goodbye to Tripp and then headed back to Greenville so they could come to my mom's house and see the wedding video! They left shortly after that and John and I took that time to spend some time together downtown doing what we used to do all the time - get Starbucks and walk over the Reedy River Falls bridge.

We also stopped by TJ's new place in Greenville and hung out with him and Turner for a bit. We went home for dinner with mom, Lindsey, and Jonathon and mom made amazing marinated shrimp skewers. For dessert we ate the apple pie I'd made in MI for mom and then we played Mexican train dominos :)

We left Monday around 9am, and started the long drive home. We stopped in KY for lunch (picked up Buffalo Wild Wings :) - thank goodness for Blackberrys!!) and also listened to our book on tape. It was such a great trip and we already miss everyone we got to see! Unfortunately we won't be headed home for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but we are looking forward to our family visiting us around Christmas time!

Pretty drive home