Happy New Year everyone!! I hope everyone is recovering just fine from all the NYE activities.

This year, I stayed in ATX to celebrate the new year, and I’m just as happy as everyone else that 2016 is over. Although 2016 was the year for like realizing stuff (shouts to Kylie), I’m excited to see all of the change and improvement for everyone and myself in 2017. For me, 2016 was full of changes, good and bad, traveling, self-improvement, and moving on to bigger and better things.
I wanted to share a couple of my outfits and adventures leading up to this new year!!
Starting with the day before NYE, I went out to Blackfinn Ameripub at the Domain with my family. This is a great place to go to get drinks or a yummy dinner. They serve tons of craft beers and cocktails, including my favorite, the Peach Sangria. In addition, they also offer all types of food, from burgers to pasta. My personal favorite to order is the BBQ Chicken Macaroni! It’s creamy macaroni with roasted chicken, topped with BBQ sauce. Trust me, you need to try it!
It was a little chilly the day we went, so I wore a light weight sweater with a new olive jacket I got from Nordstrom Rack for only $20! (Normally $78). Other steals I found are Madden Girl booties at DSW for only $44, and there’s 40% off a ton of make-up at MAC. Also, the Mariah Carey collection at MAC is out, and glittery as ever. I grabbed the All I Want frosted lipstick ASAP!


Following up on this, I went out to a few of my favorite spots in ATX to celebrate NYE! I started out with dinner on Soco at Hopdoddy Burger Bar, which is an Austin original burger bar. My personal favorite is the Goodnight Burger, containing BBQ sauce, caramelized onions, cheddar, and their amazing “sassy sauce”. The best part is $1 of that burger is donated to Lone Star Paralysis! Also, their truffle fries are out of this world!! I think I go for the fries more than the burgers.
After dinner, we walked down to the Soco bridge to watch the annual NYE fireworks over Lady Bird Lake. It’s absolutely beautiful to see the firework show with the Austin skyline in the background. I usually head over to the Long Center Lawn to watch the show, but the bridge was conveniently located and actually less crowded than the lawn. So this is now my secret spot….

Finally, I headed over to the sixth street area to hit up a few of the bars and it was crazy crowded down there! I know that shouldn’t be shocking, but I think the crowd of last night is comparable to SXSW. It was literally a river of people that you would see after a football game let out, as one of my friends pointed out. It was hard getting over there since I was on my own after splitting up from one group of friends to another. I literally spent an hour driving in a circle just to find a parking spot and to avoid running over all the people down there! Once I found a spot, my friends and I walked past this bar on fifth street that looked a lot of fun and so we decided to go ahead and wait in line to get in. They played a mix of music such as rap, pop, throwbacks, disco, you name it, and not to mention even the people in the line were rowdy and fun. As soon as I got in the door, I realized it was the HandleBar. I’ve only heard great things about this place, and I can’t believe I stumbled in without realizing it! Check the photos below for my outfit and all the fun we had!

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I hope you had an amazing New Year celebration, no matter where you are! Cheers to 2017!!
xx,
Rachelle