Football has been the theme of these past couple weekends. Other theme contenders: deep fried foods, beer, sweat or a combination of the three. My inner sports fanatic was unleashed. Normally being the type of football spectator who is more interested in the glitter on the helmets than the score of the game, I have definitely surprised myself.
On Friday, we traveled to Bryan’s alma-mater WSU for a weekend of college fun. And fun, we had. The drive over was quite the adventure.
Highlights include:
- Bry and Joe in the backseat car-dancing to their hearts delight.
- Corbin’s and my eye-rolls after said car-dance moves.
- Rolling across the Palouse, during what may have been the most beautiful sunset ever.
- This barn.
Once we reached Pullman it was ON. We stopped at Sella’s for their epic calzones and 64 oz. beers. Because they were necessary.
Regular glass vs 64 ouncer
Yep.
Gettin Fratty
We checked in to the hotel and rendezvoused with our posse – Leann, Melissa, Little M, and Kyle. It was then decided that it was time for THE COUG. A WSU institution, The Coug is a virtual melting pot where students from all corners of campus collide into one sweaty, beer-drinking mass of crimson-and-gray-wearing fanatics.
SO cute, we are.
Having already consumed one or four a few more beers m’self, I took er relatively easy. I wore my crimson. I perspired. I was well on my way to inevitable Coug-dom. We called it a night around midnight and cabbed it back to the Holiday Inn for a good night’s sleep in preparation for an epic day of WSU fun.
The morning kicked off with another WSU-Alum rite-of-passage, the Holiday Inn free continental breakfast. Sugary fruit loops, bagels chalked full of preservatives . Cinnamon rolls so perfectly drizzled with bright white icing that it could only be plucked straight from the clear packaging where it lay nestled, frozen amongst hundreds of clones in a cardboard box.
My heaven.
We played with babies Els and M in the hallway. I could seriously play with these gals everyday.
After a twist of the curling iron and a set of whispy half lashes, we headed over to Crimson & Gray where school spirit is the name of the game. This store has anything and everything Coug. Camo coug. Pink coug. 1/2 Coug, 1/2 Husky. ANYTHING.
After that, we packed up the car and headed over to campus for a much-anticipated tour.
Cutest Tour Guide.
I saw The Cub and subsequently the PEP BAND. Oh law. I luuurve me some pep bands. Or marching bands. Any band will do.
Music Building – Woo hoo!
We then descended upon the majesty that is Bryan’s fraternity. I have to admit, ABC Family’s Greek left my expectations for what a fraternity looks like a bit skewed. Visions of deep, mahogany walls dressed in masculine oil paintings of brothers from yesteryear faded into bare concrete, boy smells and a bowl of Captain Crunch left sitting in a window sill. While Theta Chi was far from a pure paradigm of my brain’s version of a fraternity, one thing was painstakingly clear. Fun is and was had in this house. Memories were made and lifelong friendships were formed. Which to me is far more important than boring guys in navy sport coats and surfaces reeking of Lemon Pledge.
Then, Melissa was kind enough to take me to her sorority Chi Omega. As I walked in the doors, I was all “Elle Woods? Are you here?”. I was elated that one of the members volunteered to give us a house tour and provide me (the sorority-girl who never was) a tiny glimpse inside a real sorority.
Twas more than I could have ever imagined. Favorites included the “getting ready rooms” where girls are provided a closet, dresser and day bed in shared rooms where they can store all their bits & pieces. The makeup-obsessed, wanna-be beauty pageant contestant inside of me was shrieking in excitement but I think I managed to contain my enthusiasm because really, the idea of these rooms is quite pragmatic.
After our house tour concluded, we thanked our lovely tour guide and I gave serious thought to getting a face lift so I could go back to college just to be in a sorority.
Walking back to The Coug I couldn’t help but notice a couple of startling trends among today’s female youth, The high-waisted short and huge t-shirts made in to dresses. Let me start by saying that just because you like a trend does not (by any means) mean that you should go ahead and wear it.
We have all fallen victim to such trends and I have resigned to the fact that I, like so many others, had a mullet.
High-wasted shorts absolutely swarmed the WSU campus and lemme just tell you, it was as if the girls from “Hey Dude” were reincarnated. Oh lord. Hey Dude. For all you Generation Y’ers out there: HOW MUCH DO YOU MISS HEY DUDE?
I blame Pinterest for the XXL t-shirts fashioned into corset-style lace-up tube dresses. COME ON ladies, stop abusing Pinterest.
Once we grew hungry, we all ordered lunch. A Coug burger + fries for Bryan and obviously a corn dog for me. Fried to a deep golden brown and dipped in ranch. Oh sweet baby Jesus, it was GOOD.
Since The Coug now serves hard-alcohol (a recent and controversial addition) I happily sipped a double vodka/soda in lieu of beer. Oh. And this.
I sweated and had a blast hobnobbing (jeez, I am old) with our friends. Then…it was GAME TIME B*TCHES.
We headed to Martin Stadium and found our seats in the hot sun. The first half was good and bad. Good because the Cougs were cleaning house with Southern Utah. Bad because my face was melting off.
Little M and her baby-sized foam finger
During halftime we hydrated with $5 waters and walked back to the car with little M. Who needs sports entertainment when you have an adorable toddler to play with?
Weeeeeeeeeee!
“Hey Mom – over here!!”
She might be the cutest thing in the world.
Not surprisingly, the Cougs beat southern Utah 48-10. We determined the celebration would be held at the hotel with a massive pizza and beer.
Our hotel room party was quite the rager. Complete with baby monitors and tired soon-to-be 30 somethings. My bestie Holly and her boyfriend Matt (who live in Moscow, ID) joined the mix and good ol’ fashioned hotel-room fun was had.
The next morning we said farewell to Kyle, Melissa and little M and hit the road, Seattle bound.
A little bit heavier and a lot Cougier. Til next time Pullman!
I also got the bottoms in this style. I chose this because the top was $7.98 and the bottoms were $5.86. Oh, and because it is push-up. DUH.
This one, I only got the bottoms in and they are SUPER comfortable. I plan to wear it with multiple colored tops.
Haha it totally looks like I am just posting underwear on the blog. Oh well. So, I am not crazy about cherries or red, BUT this has little ties with cherry print and I have a top at home with a cherry print, so the red cherry print wins.
On an un-related Haul for Hawaii note, I picked up this body mist from Victoria’s Secret because it’s one of my absolute favorites and I need it in my life.
thenataliediaries.com 