Summerness

Remember when I said the blog would now mostly contain cute pics of our nieces and friends' babies? Well. I'm about to deliver on that promise. 

We've spent the last month enjoying our summer, spending time with friends and family, and traveling. Here's a summary of July in pictures. 

We spent 4th of July in Virginia Beach with Chuck's sister and family. It rained most the time we were there so we made the most of it anytime the sun was out!

Colonial Williamsburg

Fireworks on the bay!

I love how their dog sleeps on the steps.

We've been trying to utilize our apartment complex pool this summer more than we did last summer. We've spent a lot of Saturdays at the pool and a super fun Friday night pool cookout with friends.

Chuck's other sister (who lives in Louisville) got a new puppy and he is ADORABLE.

The whole family got together to celebrate my Grandma's birthday!

We went to the lake with friends to celebrate Jen's son Brendan turning 13!

And last but not least, we hung out with this little dude a lot. I CAN'T STAND THE CUTENESS!

That's all for now. An update on the house hunting process coming soon......

Spring Break

Last week was Chuck's spring break. We decided a few weeks back that we wanted to get out of the city for the week and go South, hopefully to somewhere a little warmer. So, we did go South but unfortunately it wasn't any warmer than it was in Boston. But that's ok. We had fun anyway.

The first weekend of the break, we drove down to D.C. which is only about a 6.5-7 hour drive. (I know 7 hours is a lot but after driving from Seattle to Boston, 7 hours is like a piece of cake to us.) We stayed Saturday-Monday, left our car parked the entire time and used the Metro and our feet to get us everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE.

Day 1:
The Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial.

After the monuments, we were starving and wanted to watch some basketball games, so we headed to a restaurant in Chinatown called the Redline which someone had recommended to us. The atmosphere was really cool and there were huge TVs everywhere, but it took so long for them to seat us that by the time we got a table, the restaurant had turned into a club and we were pretty much the only people ordering food. Oh and people were dancing all around us and the bouncer stood right next to our table and kept leaning over me to look out the window. Awesome. We were mad at first but then we just had to laugh. It was pretty ridiculous.

Day 2:
We hit a few of the Smithsonian museums, walked around the Capitol, ate lunch at a hole in the wall place with the locals, walked to the Jefferson Memorial, hit a another museum, and then ate dinner at a place in Arlington called "Ray's the Steaks"- a place our friends and former D.C. residents had recommended as the best place to get an inexpensive steak dinner in the city. They were right. It was so. good.

 Oh yeah- forgot to mention. I'm obsessed with the Metro. It made me never want to ride the subway in Boston or NYC again.

 

Day 3:
We got to the Capitol bright and early (seems everyone else had the same idea) to try to get on a tour of the inside, took a tour of the inside, got passes to go into the gallery to watch the House in session (which lasted 5 minutes and not a single representative was present...), visited the Library of Congress and then last but certainly not least, stopped by the original Georgetown Cupcake to get some treats to take to our next stop- Virginia Beach.

Monday afternoon we drove 3ish hours from D.C. to Virginia Beach to spend the rest of the week with Chuck's sister Shawn and her family. This was our 3rd time in Virginia Beach in 7 months. It's starting to feel like our second (third?) home.

I hardly took any pictures because most of the time we were just doing normal family things. We ate dinner together every night, Chuckie and I took lunch to the girls at school and ate with them in the cafeteria, we played Wii, we played Chess and Scrabble and Clue, we went to the park, we took Caroline to praise team rehearsal at church..... We really tried to take advantage of the fact that they still want to hang out with us and think we're cool. Soon they'll be teenagers and probably think we're boring old people!

On our own, we saw Divergent at the movie theater, walked the mall, had lunch on the beach and then walked the beach even though it was pretty cold, visited a historic house, the deWitt Cottage, on VA Beach that was owned by one of my Grandpa's cousins (and visited by my Grandpa as a kid) and is now the oldest remaining house on the waterfront, became regulars at the Starbucks up the street from Shawn's house, did crossword puzzles, drove to Norfolk and ate lunch and watched a glass blowing class... On our last night in town, the girls had a sitter and the adults went to a local brewery and then a Cuban restaurant. It was the perfect ending to a great vacation!

Oh. And I may have spoiled the family dog, Zoe, a bit much while we were there. This is how she started greeting me in the mornings when I got out of bed. Ready in position for me to rub her belly.

Overall it was an awesome trip.  My only regret, now that I've gone back through pictures, is that we didn't get any pictures of us with the nieces. I guess this just means we'll have to go back to VA Beach sooner rather than later! :)

Home

The holidays came and went, our trip to Louisville flew by, and now we're back in Boston, for what I will sadly refer to as "The Beginning of the End." It's hard to believe (I know I always say that, but it is) that we are ONE school semester away from the end of the LGO program. 5 months. Less than half a year. WHAT?! Excuse me while I shed a few tears.

Ok I'm back.

Anyway, as I told about in my New Year's post, 2014 is going to be an exciting, busy, and crazy year once again. It is definitely going to give 2012 a run for it's money, in terms of busy-ness, change, moving, traveling, and just plain old fun.  But before we get into all that, I will catch you up on our time in Louisville.

This year we were fortunate again to spend 2 full weeks at home for the holidays. Chuck flew in a few days before me, and once I got in town we were going non-stop, just like we always do.

I won't bore you with a play-by-play of our every day in the 'Ville. Instead I've made a nice list of some things we got to enjoy while home.

- Parties. I think all the parties deserve their own post because there were just so many of them and so many pictures.... We attended an ABUNDANCE of parties. My Hagan Family Christmas, a Tacky Christmas Sweater party with friends, Christmas Eve Eve with my girlfriends, Gamenight Friends Wine, Cheese and Pajama Christmas Party, Gamenight Friends New Year's party, UofL/UK basketball & UofL football bowl game watch party... We partied our booties off.

- Games. We played a lot of games with a lot of different groups of people while home. Scattergories, Pandemic, Cards Against Humanity, Charades, Card Tricks, What's Yours Like?, LRC, Lego Creationary.... Some were played more than once and with several different groups of people. We love us some games.

A group of friends and family playing a game at my parents' house one night:

 One morning, Liz and Shane invited us over to play Pandemic, our new favorite game, and they cooked breakfast for us. We have good friends.

- FOOD. We ate. A lot. Like everyone else does around the holidays, we gorged ourselves on appetizers at parties, cookies and chocolate, eating out at least twice a day.... It was intense. But so good because who doesn't love good food ALL THE TIME?

-Little Friends. We hung out with a lot of little friends while home. Obviously we spent a lot of time with 3 of our nieces who live in Louisville. We even babysat them one night which was a lot of fun and also a little crazy- but everyone ate dinner, went to sleep before their parents came home, no one got injured, and only one thing got broken. Not half bad! We also saw our mini gamenight friends Grayson and Brendan, my friend Shannon's 6 month old Jayson, my cousin's daughter Addison, and our friend's hilarious kids Trace and Cary.

Chuckie and Grayson

Me and Jayson

 Proof that we fed the girls while we babysat and proof that Sloane is a gangsta:

We taught them how to play "Sardines" while we babysat. You know, the game that's basically hide and seek except when you find the person you hide with them until everyone is hiding except one person? They got the idea.... kinda...

 Chuckie and Amelia watching the older two sing karaoke on their new karaoke machine:

- Apartment shopping. Now that we know we are moving back to Louisville for sure, we decided we better look for a place to live. We won't be back to Louisville again until we move back for good (we may be back once or twice in May but just for 2-3 days to go to graduations and a wedding, so I'm not counting those) so we had to go to some places while we could to see them in person. It was really exciting to go shopping because apartments are WAY cheaper in Louisville than in Boston and Seattle and also because Chuck and I have never had our own place in Louisville before! So even though we're going home, it will feel totally different having our own place there for the first time!

So those are some of the highlights of the trip. In between all those things there were chill time with family, shopping, the movie theater, and more eating. I swear we ate more than we did anything else.

The sunset on January 1, 2014. A beautiful start to the New Year!

Nieces Say the Darndest Things

Remember that show "Kids Say the Darndest Things"? I loved that show! Chuckie and I have 5 nieces and they would all be stars on that show if it came back to TV.

Technically they are all his nieces, but I claim them as mine too because 1) we're married and that's how it works and 2) he and I have been dating since before any of them were ever born. None of them know Chuckie without Rachel, and I like it that way.

The girls range in age from 2 to 10. They are all sweet and beautiful little girls, and they're ALLLLLLL kinds of funny. It's so fun to see the world through their eyes and hear their thoughts on things that we, as adults, probably never even think twice about. It's kind of like being in those AT&T commercials 24/7.

While we were all in Virginia, the girls had some pretty funny things to say.  Here's some of the conversations from the weekend, and a lot of pictures of the girls because if I'm being honest, about 75% of the pictures I took last weekend were of them.

While in the car on the way home from Busch Gardens....Sloane (2nd grade): When are you done with school?
Chuck: In June I'll be done with school FOREVER.
Sloane. Ugh. Lucky.....

While watching the Lady Gaga and the Muppets special on Thanksgiving.....(Which may have been the highlight of the weekend. Seriously. So funny.)

Ava: Lady Gaga forgot her shirt!
Sloane: And her nose is running! (Mistook her nose ring for snot.)
Caroline: If there's a Lady Gaga, is there also a Manny Gaga?

Next song, Elton John joins Lady Gaga onstage.
Sloane: Who's that guy? Is that Manny Gaga?
Ava: He's not very good........ (talking about Elton John)
Sloane: Now she's not wearing pants! I can almost see her butt!
Caroline: Look she has a tattoo!

Next song....
Ava: Her face is skinny and weird.
Sloane: And her hair is bigger than her body!
Caroline: Oh! She's not wearing pants again.

I told Ava I own the exact same onesie. I think she thought I was joking. Sadly, I was not.

While playing piano....Amelia (age 2): This is my piano.
Me: Oh did you bring it with you?
Amelia: Yeah. In the car. It's mine.

Also while playing piano.....
Amelia: Sloane is my Ariel.

While eating chips and salsa......Caroline (5th grade): Chips and salsa are my third favorite food. My first favorite is a chocolate volcano explosion from that one rainforest restaurant. My second favorite is cheeseburgers. And then chips and salsa.

While coloring at the table.....Audrey (age 4): Do you kiss Chuckie? That's gross. You can only kiss if you're married. Then you just have to deal with it.

While doing Thanksgiving crafts....Audrey: I'm drawing a snowman. Because I'm thankful for a snowman.

While sitting on the couch....Amelia: My Chuckie is my little friend.

While me, Chuck and Caroline are in the car on the way to the grocery on Thanksgiving Day to get a couple last minute items...Caroline: When we go in the grocery, I'll show you how I get TWO cookies from the bakery by telling them I need an extra one for my little brother. (I like her style.) 

They crack me up. And I know I'm slightly biased... But you can't tell me these aren't the 5 most adorable little girls you've ever seen.