Blaine Anderson- The Inspiration

I have never explained the inspiration for the title of my blog, so just for fun, I've decided to share how I got the title "Somewhere Only We Know."

The short version of the story is that "Somewhere Only We Know" is the title of a popular song by the band Keane. If you listened to pop music in 2004-2005, you probably know this song. I didn't really know anything about the band Keane, but I knew when I heard this song that I loved it. I'm not sure why I loved it so much, but all I know is that out of the 100 songs on my 1st generation iPod shuffle, I played this on repeat for pretty much all of the year 2005 and 2006. Every playlist I made on my computer or iPod for the rest of college included this song.

Timeout: Y'all almost forgot about the 1st generation iPod shuffle, didn't ya? Man that thing was awesome.

Anyway. Fast forward several years to circa 2011 when Chuckie and I started watching Glee. (Timeout again: Yes it's cheesy and silly. Yes the plotlines are pretty unrealisitc. Yes, the actors playing high school kids are all really in their 20s and 30s. No, we don't care about any of those things. Because Glee is fun and happy when most shows on TV are about murders and other sad or gross things. And we like the music. The end.) So there was an episode where Blaine, my favorite character on the show, sings "Somewhere Only We Know" to Kurt in front of the whole school with the Warblers singin' back up and oh man was it glorious and oh man did it rekindle my love for this song.

So obviously, the day after the I saw that show, I purchased Blaine's version of the song on my iPhone because I had long lost the song in the transitions from computer to laptop and iPod shuffle to iPod nano to iPhone 4.

 

 

P.S. I do a REALLY great impression of Blaine. Like, you'd think he was standing right in front of you, that's how good I am.  Just ask me sometime and I'll do it for you. 

So now fast forward to March 2012. I always knew if Chuck got into LGO that I would start a blog to chronicle our adventures and keep our family up-to-date. So when we found out he got in, I started thinking of a blog title. I tried several different things but they were all taken, so then I decided to resort to my iPod. I scrolled through my song list looking for any kind of title that would make sense with what my blog was going to be about.

Here were some of the songs I saved as options as I scrolled through alphabetically.

"The Best Is Yet To Come"  (Michael Buble)
"Defying Gravity" (Wicked. It doesn't make much sense but man I freakin' love that song.)
"Feels Like Today" (Rascal Flatts)
"Go Your Own Way" (Fleetwood Mac)
"Many the Miles" (Sara Bareilles. This one was my runner up.)
"Nicest Kids in Town" (Hairspray. Initially I thought this made sense because we were Southerners going to a Northern city where the reputation is that people are mean but as I've told you before, they aren't mean. Plus there are a lot of people in Boston nicer than us. So I'm glad I didn't choose this.)
"Remember the Time" (Michael Jackson)
"Somewhere Only We Know" (Glee. YES. WINNER.)
"Take Me There" (Rascal Flatts)
"Uncharted" (Sara Bareilles. This was my second runner up.)

Ok, before I go any further, YES I KNOW I HAVE AMAZING TASTE IN MUSIC. 

So, I debated between Somewhere Only We Know and the two Sara Bareilles songs for about 1 minute before I decided I had to use the Keane/Glee song. It was perfect. Everyone in LGO has the same experience, yet totally different. We all move from different places, all participate in different things, make different friends, move to different internship locations... No one else will ever have the exact experience that Chuckie and I are having during these two years. Therefore, this adventure truly is Somewhere Only WE Know.

Or maybe I just like the song so much I wanted to name the blog after it. You can decide for yourself.

Twin Falls, Ballard Locks and Meredith Grey

This past weekend was one of my favorite weekends since we moved to Seattle.

 

Saturday morning, we picked up Chuck's classmate Orion and headed out of the city to go on a hike and see some sites. We drove about 45 minutes to Twin Falls for a hike that had nice scenery but wasn't too strenuous. My favorite kind. :)

 

 

It was a little rainy but the trees provided some nice coverage and eventually the skies cleared up.

 

At one point we got adventurous and hiked off the path down to the water to get a better look at one of the falls.

 

 

We wanted to explore more so we planned to stop at Snoqualmie Falls on the way back but we missed the exit and I had to be at work soon anyway, so we will have to do that one another weekend.

 

On Sunday we slept in a little and then ventured out to take advantage of the sunny day! We heard from Chuck's other classmate, Gold, that we should check out the Ballard Locks sometime so we headed to Ballard, one of our favorite neighborhoods in Seattle. The Locks were awesome and I highly suggest checking them out if you are in Seattle! I wish we had known about this place when my sister and parents were in town visiting.

 

The locks are where boats transfer from the lake to Puget Sound and from the Sound to the lake. Initially I thought this was weird- why can't the boats just drive on through? But apparently the locks are there to maintain the water levels in the lakes. I know I won't describe it well so here is a link to the wikipedia page if you want to read more about how it works. Ballard Locks

 

Here is a boat going through from the lake to the sound. He ties up to this little wall, then they close the gates on both sides of him and start to lower the water level.

 

Now he's way down there!

 

 Then once the water was level with the water in the sound, they opened the gate and he drove off! The whole process took less than 10 minutes. We were amazed.

While standing there, Chuckie noticed a little animal in the water and said he thought it was a seal. We watched for a few minutes for it to come back up and sure enough, it was a little seal! We were really excited about seeing a seal just out in the wild because the only seals we've ever seen were in a zoo. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the little guys. :(

 

As we were leaving, a bunch of "big" boats were coming through and were all going to be transfered at the same time. We would have stayed to watch but our parking time was up so we had to get back to the car.

 

 

After the Locks, we drove back into the heart of Ballard and parked and looked for a lunch place. We got sidetracked by a Gourmet Popcorn store (which Gold had also told us about) where we bought some delicious Hawaiian Salted Caramel Popcorn. Yum. You can purchase their popcorn online here: http://www.kukuruza.com/   I highly recommend it!  After our quick detour, we stopped for lunch/dinner at "The Matador" which we were drawn to mainly because the sign said "Restaurant and Tequila Bar" which to us meant Mexican food and well, tequila. We were sold.

 

 After our late lunch/early dinner, I made Chuck drive us around to find Meredith Grey's house which, I had read earlier in the week, was on Comstock Street in Queen Anne. You know Meredith Grey.

The fictional character from Grey's Anatomy (a show we used to love until it got really weird around the 5th season and we stopped watching.) And while all the filming of the show takes place in LA, including the indoor scenes at Meredith's house, the OUTDOOR shots of her house are from a house in the Queen Anne neighborhood. So we're driving along, looking for Comstock Street and instead, we found this.

 The most amazing views of the skyline and Puget Sound we have seen since moving here. Everyone says the best views are from the Space Needle but honestly I think this is better, because we got a view of everything INCLUDING the Space Needle. This is yet another place I wish we would have known about when my family was in town. The view was breathtaking. But no one has told us about this park! We found it by complete accident! Thank you, Meredith Grey!  (For anyone visiting Seattle, you can find this viewpoint by googling "Kerry Park.")

 After our stop at the surprise park, we found her house 2 blocks later and then on our way out, realized it was only a few blocks away from the Top Pot donuts we ate at on my birthday!

 

That was it for our outdoor adventures this weekend. We also spent a good amount of time watching movies. Two at the theater and one at home. We saw The Great Gatsby, Iron Man 3, and rented the first Star Trek so we can go see the 2nd Star Trek in theaters soon. All 3 were really really good but I have to say Iron Man 3 was by far the favorite. You just can't beat a superheros and Robert Downey Jr.'s humor.



Post Derby Louisville

Our recent trip to Louisville was different from our past two visits since Chuck started the LGO program.  The first time we visited home was the week of our wedding. The second time we visited home it was Christmas and New Year's. This time, though we had Derby and a wedding, the rest of the week was pretty open and unplanned. We were able to fit in some things we haven't been able to do and see some people we haven't been able to see on our last 2 trips. It was great!

The Monday after Derby, we spent the day cruising around Louisville, grabbing Panera Bread with my sister, buying up some National Championship stuff at the Neutral Zone, and hanging out at Shannon's house with the nieces. Then, after a quick stop at an MCC Youth Leaders meeting, we met up with my college roomie Holly and her husband Matt for dinner and ice cream.  Holly and I hadn't seen each other in about a  year and a half but have kept in touch with the occasional text or facebook message.  So we did some catching up and of course we did a little reminiscing about the good old days in the dorm when we did nothing but watch Oprah, Gilmore Girls, and drink Dr. Pepper.  It was so fun! We definitely won't let another year and a half go by without seeing each other again!

 

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were spent doing more of the same. Chuck and I went our separate ways a lot as he met up with friends for coffee and old work friends at GE, while I met up with old work friends and my sisters. We spent time at his parents' houses and my parents' house, his sister's hosue,  Havana Rumba, denist appointments and hair appointments, lunch dates, coffee dates, breakfast dates... Pretty much whatever we wanted. It was great to be in Louisville and just BE.

 

Thursday night we hung out at Chuckie's sister's house and after we left I told him that our evening was exactly what I miss about living in Louisville. That night we had grilled out steaks, played with the girls in the backyard on the swingset and then sat in his sister's kitchen for a few hours just talking about some serious and some not-so-serious things. Those are exactly the types of nights I miss having all the time, with both his family and mine. (As we all know, grilling out is also a favorite activity for my family, since my dad thinks he is Bobby Flay and everything.) The times when you're not really doing anything but grilling out and talking and laughing and having a good time just being together. Those are the best times with family.

 

Friday we met my cousin Ethan for lunch and then headed off to Cincinnati for our friend Jared's wedding. We checked into our hotel, got ready, and headed to the church just in time for the ceremony. The ceremony was beautiful and we were so happy we could be there. I love witnessing our close friends get married and know that they are so in love and have found happiness. Congratulations, Amber and Jared!

 Jared's groom's cake- a chili cheese dog. If you know Jared, you know this is the perfect cake for him.

 The happy couple!

 The other happy couple!

 

The reception was a blast and then it was back to the hotel for the after party, which the bride and groom joined us for! Once again, we were up until 3:30 am and completely messed up all the sleep we had been making up since the previous weekend. But it was worth it.

 

Saturday we were back in Louisville for our last full day in town. That afternoon we went to a local bar/restaurant where a fundraiser was being held for our friend, Rebekah, from high school who was injured in the Boston Marathon Bombing. (Rebekah was in marching band with us at Eastern and was a good friend of ours. We haven't seen her in about 2 years but have kept in touch like everyone does these days, via social media.) Bekah was at the marathon with her boyfriend and her son, watching her boyfriend's family in the race. She has some pretty bad injuries and is still, a month later, in the hospital.  Bekah has a long road to recovery and has already had 11 surgeries to save her left leg. This fundraiser was put on by some awesome ladies we went to high school with who, though they haven't spoken to Bekah or seen her in years, decided to take action and raise money for her and her family. We stopped by and bid on some auction items, bought some food and raffle tickets to do what we could for the cause.

 

 

That evening we met up with family and friends at El Toro to say goodbye and then spent the rest of the evening at our favorite Louisville bar, Thirsty Ernie's.

 

Sunday was Mother's Day, so after church we had a quick celebration at Shannon's house and then a quick celebration at my house before we headed to the airport. Here's Uncle Chuckie with a last minute picture with a few of his nieces. (They asked me to take this picture of them with him, by the way. Adorbs.)

 

 My sis bought some bookends for my mom. My mom then proceeded to put her modern day book (iPad) and Amazon Kindle gift card in the bookends and then we had a discussion about how hundreds of years from now people will find bookends and wonder what the heck they are.

Mother's Day picture!

And an early Father's Day picture!

 

It was another great trip home and we're looking forward to another trip in July! More details on that to come...

We Go Hard

You know that Jay-Z song that's like "Brooklyn we go hard, we go hard..."? If you didn't already know it, you may have heard it used in the trailer for the new Jackie Robinson movie recently. Anyway, Chuckie and I like that song and we randomly sing it for no reason sometimes ever since we saw the Jackie Robinson movie. And last week, we sang it a lot, but with our own lyrics. When I sang it, I sang "Chuckie, we go hard, we go hard..." and when he sang, it was "Rachel, we go hard, we go hard..." Why, you might be asking yourself? Because last week in Kentucky, WE WENT HARD.  And by this I mean we ran, nonstop, all day and all night, every day. We packed our days and nights like we usually do when visiting home, but this time we did it on no sleep. It'll probably take me a few posts to sum up our trip, so I've decided to make this post just "Weekend 1."

Last Thursday, we took the redeye from Seattle to Cincinnati. Big mistake. First, we almost didn't even get on the plane because of an issue with an incompetent Delta employee who for some reason unbooked our flight for us and booked us a one way ticket from Cincy to Seattle when Chuckie called to change a flight time for our return flight earlier in the day. I won't even go into the details because it's long and stupid but basically some saint of an employee fixed it for us last minute and somehow got us back on the redeye flight right in time.

So Friday morning we arrived in Louisville on what is also known as Oaks Day. Schools are closed, many businesses close, and if they don't- their employees take a sick day or vacation day. It is basically like an extra holiday. If you're not familiar with the Kentucky Derby and horse racing- Oaks Day is basically the same thing but the fillies race in the Oaks race. Oaks Day is all about the ladies. So after we picked up our rental car in Cincy, we drove home and went straight to Chuckie's sisters' house to see the family before they headed off to the track. Immediately we were eating donuts, catching up with his sisters and brothers-in-law and drinking Bloody Marys. Let me remind you that at this point, I had slept 0 hours and Chuckie had slept MAYBE 1 hour. Then we were off to his dad's house where we would be staying for the week. After visiting with him for a bit, we both fell asleep for about an hour and a half. Then it was showers and off to my parents' house to visit and watch the Oaks race. My sister was heading to the Barnstable Brown Party to take pictures for her job, so we took pictures of her all dressed up before she left. She sent me the following pictures later that night from the party.

Yep. That's my sister with Terry O'Quinn and Emilio Estevez, or as I like to call them, John Locke and Gordon Bombay.

Then we went to El Nopal to meet up with more family after Oaks. Then we went to a bar in St. Matthews to meet up with friends. We went home around 3 am.

Saturday morning, also known as Derby Day, also known as the best day of the year to be in Louisville, KY, also known as Day Two With Hardly Any Sleep, we got up and headed out to pick up our Best Man Branden and head to the track, after a much needed Starbucks stop, of course. We met up with family and rode into the backside of the track. (I wrote about the backside in last years' Derby post on the blog so I'm not going to go into that again.) The backside was so much fun, as always, but OF COURSE, it rained all day. (I think I say "of course" too much.) But that didn't stop us from spending some QT with the fam, eating good food, betting on every race, losing every race, and checking out the Derby horses in their barns and on their walk over to the Paddock before the race. For all who have asked why we don't dress up and wear fancy clothes and hats to the backside, well, just take a look at these pictures and you'll see why. Rain and mud are much more manageable in jeans and rainboots.

 

 

 

 

 

After the main event was over, we left the track and Chuckie, Branden and I drove out to my Uncle Tony's house where my family and some of our friends were wrapping up the annual Hagan Derby Party.  It was fun, if only for a short time, mainly because we finally got to meet Baby Grayson! He was just as chubby and cute as I thought he'd be!

Here's where you think I might say then we went home. But no. We went out to a bar again. My BFF Lauren was in town with her family and fiance for Derby and they were leaving Sunday morning so this was the only chance we had to see them. And then we stayed out until 3 am. Again. But it was worth it.

 

Sunday morning, Chuckie and I had plans to see his older sister, Shawn, and her family off before they left town, then meet our friends at Wild Eggs (my FAVORITE) and then go to church. But when I woke up after 5 hours of sleep, I felt like I'd been hit by a truck and a little like I might barf. I told Chuckie I needed to go back to sleep and miss everything and then I cried. I'm not sure I've ever been so tired it made me cry. So I went back to sleep and Chuckie, AKA the robot who needs no sleep, went and did all of those things without me. I have no idea how he did it.

The rest of Sunday was pretty restful. We went to my BFF Liz's house for a cook-in (a cookout that was pushed inside because of rain), got to hang out with Baby Grayson some more, and then went to my parents' house to hang with them and my cousin and her family (who are from New Jersey and were also in town for Derby) before heading home to try to get to bed before 3 am.

And that was just the first 3 days.  Like I said, WE GO HARD.

Talk Derby to Me

Tonight at 11 pm, Chuckie and I get on a plane headed for Kentucky! We'll be landing in Kentucky tomorrow morning right in time for the best weekend in the Bluegrass state all year long-  Oaks and Derby weekend!

Stole this picture from Lauren. She texted it to me and Chuckie yesterday. So jealous!

Last year I told you a little about our Derby traditions in this blog post and I observed that we may miss Derby for at least a couple of years while at MIT. But thank goodness I was wrong!  Because Chuckie is on internship, he has the freedom to take days off when needed (or wanted), so he was able to take the time off.

Since we did the big Hagan party last year, this year we will be joining Chuck's family at the Derby on the backside of the track. Lawn chairs set up between the barns and drinks and food and horses and trainers and betting and family and maybe a Pitino sighting and probably some rain, because it pretty much ALWAYS rains on Derby day.

On top of the excitement of going to the Derby, seeing our friends and family in Louisville, and getting a break from Seattle, here are a few things I'm extra excited aboout.

- We get to see Chuckie's older sister and her family who we haven't seen since our wedding in August!
- We get to see my best friend Lauren and her fiance and finally celebrate their engagement , as they are in town for Derby.
- We get to meet our little baby friend, Grayson, for the first time and tell him all about how we guessed the correct date of his birth. Also I get to squeeze his chubby cheeks.
- We get to see my best friend Liz and her new fiance Shane and celebrate THEIR engagement! (Lots of fun engagements lately.)
- And last but not least, we planned our trip so we'd be in town just long enough to make it to our friend Jared's wedding next Friday in Northern Kentucky. It's going to be a blast and we're so happy for him and his new soon-to-be wife!

It's only a week-long trip this time but I know we'll make the most of it. We just have to make sure we get at least a couple hours of sleep on our red-eye flight tonight.

Louisville, get ready! The Cummings (Cummingses?) will be there when you wake up tomorrow!