Home sweet home!

So I got to go home to good ole Waco, Texas couple weeks ago. For 5 whole days! This trip was particularly exciting because I wasn't going back for a wedding, or holiday where you have every second planned and you leave thinking that you didn't really get to see anyone or eat at your fave restaurant. Plus I left my spouse home to so it was just me kickin' it with my family doing whatever I wanted to do. (For the record: I did miss el husbando while I was gone.)

My to do list was short.
Hang out with friends and family.
Shop at Dillard's.
Eat at favorite restaurants.
Pay homage to the Baylor bookstore. (actually I just wanted to finally get my stinkin' Baylor gnome - see below)

Seems easy enough to fit that in to a 5 day trip, eh?? The answer, my friends, is absolutely not when your "eat at fave restaurants" includes 20 different eateries.

Luckily my mom is awesome and understands my affinity for food. I arrived at the Waco airport  to a mommy, a big hug, and a #1 with cheese, no onion no tomato, what-a-sized with a Diet Dr. Pepper!

We headed straight over to Baylor to see my mom's friend Vicky graduate and then stopped at the bookstore where I thought I'd finally get that friggin' gnome that I've been wanting forever. Yeah, I said gnome. I don't want just any gnome- I want the Baylor "foam finger" gnome. Unlike the Baylor "football" gnome, the "foam finger" gnome isn't sport specific and since I love all things Baylor I wanted a non-biased gnome.

They were sold out at Christmas and of course are currently back ordered. *womp wahhhh* And so I will continue wait for more foam finger gnomes or another non-sport specific gnome to become available at the Baylor Bookstore.

Saturday the parentals, my brother and his wife, along with their dog Wookie and I headed to Brenham, TX to see my Granny (who will be 90 in June - holla!) and aunt/uncle and cousins. No trip to Brenham is complete without a stop at the Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory. So we stopped. And we ate. And it was good.

My brother, his wife Kristen and Wookie!

We made our way back to Waco and ate at Shorty's Pizza Shack. For those of you who are familiar with my little hometown you may be wondering how a brand new restaurant can be on my favorites list seeing as I'd never been there. Turns out "Shorty" of said establishment and I bartended together way back in the days of yore and has recently opened up his own place. and it. was. AWESOME! Great pizza, great atmosphere, and of course a most wonderful owner who was nice enough to pop out of the kitchen on a Saturday night and say hi. If you're in Waco- check it out! It's on 12th St. a block down from the "ghetto H-E-B".

Sunday we went to church and had lunch at Clay Pot! Mmmmm spring rolls, pho, and fried rice! I got to see one of my gal pals, meet her hubby and baby and my mom and I hit up Dillard's where I proceeded to have a coronary in the shoe department. $200 later, we left and picked up a shaved ice on the way home. There's not a single sno-cone stand in the state of Oregon so a sno-cone was a must. It was a glorious Sunday.

Monday I got a bonus favorite when we went to see Dr. Ron. Dr. Ron has been my chiropractor since the lovely nurse recommended I see someone about my curvy back after my scoliosis test in the ninth grade. It doesn't help that I'm also, how do you say,"top heavy". We then hit up Leal's for breakfast tacos and I got my usual lunch order to go (yes you read that right- breakfast and lunch!) to eat later because I had already planned to meet with one of my besties for lunch at Schmaltz's Sandwich Shoppe (think Schlotzsky's but wayyyyy better). I'm embarrassed to say it but for dinner my mom and I hit up Georges and ate fried pickles and crazy wings! Perfect ending to a perfect visit!

it's a hunk o' chicken stuffed with jalapeno & cheese, wrapped in bacon and fried (then dunked in ranch of course!)

Lesson for the day: You can't say small towns don't have good food! (I find it humorous that I'm referring to Waco- a city of over 100,000 as a "small town" while the town I currently live in has something like 8,000 haha!)

It was a wonderful, relaxing weekend which made getting on the plane that much harder!