Don't Forget!

Happy Friday! Today's post is a quick one but it's got some pretty exciting content!

Have you entered my giveaway with JORD Wood Watches?

It’s active now and runs until February 28th, 2017 at 11:59PM. 

Click here to see my post all about JORD and click here to enter the giveaway!

xoxo,

Olive Green Dress

One thing I own a lot of but don't wear often is dresses. As the weather warms up here in Ohio one of my wardrobe goals is to incorporate dresses into my daily wardrobe, haha. Dresses make getting dressed so much easier and all you have to do is pick out a pair of shoes and some accessories and you're good to go!

When I shot these photos yesterday it was gray and rainy so I kind of matched my outfit to the weather. I've had this olive green dress in my closet for a couple months now and thanks to the unseasonably warm temperatures I was finally able to wear it within having to be all bundled up!

Do you wear dresses a lot?

xoxo,

South Carolina Recap

The past three days my mom and I have been traveling to and from Columbia, South Carolina. I mentioned it in yesterday's post but The University of South Carolina is high up on my list of schools and I wanted to see the campus again before I finally make my decision! We were only in Columbia for a day but we had a lot going on so I'm going to be briefly recapping that with y'all today!

Sunday morning we hit the road shortly after 7am. From my hometown, it's about an 8ish hour drive to Columbia depending on traffic. It's an easy drive down, I'm pretty sure you only change highways two or three times. We drive down through Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, and then South Carolina. As you probably already know, my blogger bestie Katie lives in North Carolina and it just so happened that we passed right through her town so my mom and I made a brief stop to say hi to Katie!

A couple hours later when we had made it to Columbia, we did a little bit of shopping at an outdoor shopping mall before heading to the hotel. I actually purchased the dress that I'm going to wear for my graduation party and oh my goodness am I so excited about it! 

Once we got to our hotel (which was right on USC's campus!) we relaxed for a little bit before hopping back in the car to drive through Greek Village. If you've never seen USC's Greek Village, oh my goodness, the houses are STUNNING! 

After driving through Greek Village, we headed over to the Vista which is an area of campus with lots of restaurants. We ended up grabbing dinner at Wild Wing and then afterwards we stopped by Kaminsky's which is this super cute dessert cafe that has the cutest sweet treats and the best milkshakes! 

Monday morning we were up bright and early again as we were able to sit in on an 8am class. As much as I dreaded getting up at 6am in order to be out the door by 7:15 to walk across campus to our class, I'm so glad we did! It was super cool to be able to sit in on a class and afterwards I got to speak with the professor and a couple of the students! 

After our class ended, which was about 9:30, my mom and I headed over to the Horseshoe which is the heart of campus. We were meeting a current student at 10 but since we were early we just found a sunny bench and waited.

The student we met with showed us this darling coffee shop where we sipped on iced coffee and chatted for over an hour and a half! It was so nice to be able to hear from a current USC student, especially all about sorority rush which I'm definitely planning on doing if I choose to attend USC!

After we finished up at the coffee shop my mom and I headed to Pink Sorbet which is the Lilly Pulitzer signature store in Columbia! I was able to snag another popover as well as a cute notecard set! We then grabbed lunch at Eggs Up Grille before heading back up north to Ohio.

Even though we weren't in Columbia for very long, I'm so glad we went back down because it really helped me in my college decision!

Have you ever been to Columbia?

Stripes at South Carolina

Let me start off by mentioning that it was 75º when my mom and I took these photos and it was SO nice! Compared to the typical 30º we're used to back up north in Ohio, it was so nice to be able to shoot an outfit post without having to be all bundled up!

Yesterday my mom and I spent the day in Columbia, South Carolina which is where The University of South Carolina is. USC has been on my radar since 6th grade and after I got accepted back in December, I'd been dying to get back down to Columbia to see the school with students on the campus. 

The weather was absolutely perfect, sunny and blue skies, so I wore this darling striped dress from Tommy Hilfiger and paired my new Sperry sneakers with the dress. Comfy shoes are essential for walking around a college campus and these Sperry ones are SO comfortable. This outfit has a very nautical feel with all the navy, white, and red which makes me super excited for spring break in a couple of weeks! 

What's your go-to outfit for touring colleges?

xoxo,

Northern Prepster Travels

It's safe to say that I've traveled more in these last three months than I have in the past two years. Most of my traveling is courtesy of being a senior in high school who is looking at colleges but I'm not complaining.

Back in December of 2016, my dad and I flew down to Atlanta, Georgia where we then drove to Auburn, Alabama to tour Auburn University. Two weeks ago my dad and I drove down to Clemson, South Carolina to tour Clemson University. Currently, my mom and I are in Columbia, South Carolina as we are getting ready to tour the University of South Carolina tomorrow morning.

I am so close to making my final college decision! It should be only a matter of days before I'll be able to have a new place to call home. I'm super excited to be done with the stress of the college process and I'm also excited to share all about it with y'all! I'll have a South Carolina recap post up later this week but for now I'll include a few photos that I've taken so far!

While driving down we happened to be passing through Katie's hometown so a pitstop was necessary to briefly catch up with her! Katie is my blogger & real life bestie and it was SO nice to see her again since the last time we had seen each other in person was last March over spring break!

Have you traveled anywhere recently?

xoxo,

The College Search

Hands down, the most popular question I get asked by y'all via email and through Instagram is where I'm going to school next year. Trust me, if I knew where I was going, y'all would've heard all about it by now. While I am almost positive I've made my decision, I'm still weighing my pros and cons. But until my decision is final, I decided to talk briefly about the schools that I looked at and then the five schools that I ended up applying to. 

After I formally declare a school to attend I'm going to be writing all about the college process and organizing it into several posts for y'all to read but for now I'll just include a ton of photos from the schools that I toured and then the schools that I ended up applying to! I'll go into greater detail on the reasoning behind each school I looked at and applied to after I am officially done with the college application process! Hopefully this post will answer some of the questions that I've been receiving a lot recently, haha.

Schools That I Looked At But Didn't Apply To

Furman University

Elon University

University of Georgia

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

North Carolina State University

Shockingly, I can not find any photos that I took while at NC State...

Schools That I Applied To

University of South Carolina

Even though I've been visiting the campus since I was in 6th grade, the only photo I could find of UofSC is a photo of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority house, haha! Isn't it gorgeous, though?

Clemson University

Auburn University

The Ohio State University

I'm embarrassed to say that I do not have any photos of OSU's campus. I live extremely close to campus and am in utter shock that I don't have a single photo of the campus. 

Miami University of Ohio

Please pardon the grainy quality of these photos, these were taken on my iPhone as I didn't travel with my DSLR this day. 

To my fellow seniors, where did y'all look at & where did you apply?

xoxo,