San Marcos Outlets

So this morning I took the MPRE exam (it's basically a little tiny portion of the Bar exam that you take ahead of time while still in law school). The good news is... I think I passed it. The bad news is... I like to know for sure on these sorts of things, and I don't feel hugely confident about it. It's not a huge deal (even if I don't pass it, I can just take it again in November for the low price of a second $70 fee), but I'd be happier if I had the satisfaction of knowing I passed it.  But regardless, I won't get my results for another five weeks, so I'm just going to stop thinking about it and start enjoying the last couple weeks of summer!  Anyway, speaking of fun summer things... remember that trip to float the river I told you about? Well, I forgot to tell you about where we stopped on the way home - the San Marcos outlets! 

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For those of you who aren't from Texas, the San Marcos outlets are HUGE. Like, every store you've ever heard of having an outlet, they have it here. You could spend days and days in this place. But we were there for one main purpose - Pottery Barn Outlet! 

But before we made it to Pottery Barn, we got sidetracked a few times...

At Brooks Brothers, we found some great shirts for Jeff for just $35 each. And I fell in love with a seersucker blazer and its wayyyy marked down $90 price tag! 

Yay new shirts!

Love love love!

This is easily my new favorite piece of casual Friday attire!

We got distracted again at Polo Ralph Lauren... there were just so many good deals on shirts for Jeff! 

Then there was Restoration Hardware, which was beautiful and wonderful and just like walking through a catalog in real life. But even with those marked-down outlet prices, everything was a bit out of our price range.

Then there was the Crate and Barrel outlet, where we bought a bunch of these candleholders for just a couple bucks each:

Pixie Tealight Holders (source)

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We eventually made it to the Pottery Barn store, which totally surpassed expectations by also being a West Elm and Williams Sonoma outlet (who knew West Elm was affiliated with PB?!?)! It was pretty amazing... SO much stuff. They had a whole giant section full of sofas:

We were there looking for great deals for the Master Bedroom. We were hoping for dressers/nightstands, which we didn't end up finding, but we did find a couple other wonderful things:

Washed Velvet Quilt (source)

We bought the muted aqua-ish one (on bottom)... it's so soft!!

We got really lucky when we walked through the bedroom furniture section. We found the same exact headboard I'd been eyeing in the Pottery Barn catalog, in perfect condition and priced at 60% less than the regular price! 

Raleigh Upholstered Camelback Headboard (source)

To be honest, I had previously decided the headboard in the catalog was too expensive, and I was planning on DIYing a look-alike with wood and batting and such. But that was going to involve a lot of time and effort (and the purchase of a jigsaw), so when we saw the finished product at such a discount, we jumped at the opportunity! 

Plus, once I saw the pretty headboard in person, I was just so impressed by the quality of it that I knew I could never DIY anything that amazing. The fabric quality is great, and the headboard itself is just so plush and thick and sturdy. 

The only downside was that the Pottery Barn Outlet store doesn't provide packaging or wrapping or anything like that for their furniture. So Jeff had to run to a nearby Lowe's for packing plastic and tape (we already had twine to tie it on top of the car), and then we stood outside in the summer afternoon heat, wrapped the headboard, and tied it to the car for the long trip back to Houston. It made it back successfully!

We felt like a couple of shopaholics when we unloaded all our purchases from the car, but I'm so glad we found some things for our bedroom (and some much-needed new clothes for Jeff, and some pretty candleholders... and my seersucker blazer, of course... haha). I can't decide whether it's good or bad that we live so far away from the San Marcos Outlets and can't go more often!