Chuck turns 27

Last year you may remember I basically failed at celebrating Chuck's birthday in Seattle. We went to brunch and I gave him a gift, but overall it wasn't a very exciting birthday. I forgot to make him a cake or dessert of any type and gave him a lame (in my opinion) gift. In my defense, we had JUST moved to Seattle, our furnished apartment had no baking appliances or pans, I had only a day or two to find a birthday present, and we didn't know anyone else in Seattle yet who could celebrate with us. On top of all that, he had to fly to Phoenix the night of his birthday, so spent most the afternoon packing and getting to the airport.

So this year I made an extra effort to make the whole weekend fun and birthday related. Unfortunately, Chuck's birthday weekend happened to fall right before the due date of the first draft his thesis. Stupid thesis trying to ruin my plans! So he had to spend a majority of the weekend writing, but we got to squeeze in a little fun here and there.

On Friday, Valentine's Day, Chuck had made reservations for us at a restaurant in Cambridge we've been meaning to try forever. It was really good food and a lively atmosphere so we had a lot of fun.

Before dinner, Chuck gave me a Valentine's gift in the form of donuts. He knows me so well....  But seriously. Who wants a box of chocolates when you can get heart shaped donuts?

For his birthday gift I had purchased tickets to see a comedian, Mike Birbiglia, at a theater in Boston on Friday night. So after dinner we killed some time in a bookstore and a Starbucks and then headed into Boston for the show. Mike was pretty funny and I'd definitely recommend going to see him if he ever comes to your city. Also the Wilbur Theater, where we saw the show is a great venue to see a show in and it has this trippy ceiling thing going on that will entertain you while you wait for the show to start.

The ceiling design is oval, so it looked like the ceiling was crooked from our seats. Or is the chandelier crooked? (Neither are but tell me it doesn't look like something is off here?)

Saturday and Sunday we barely left the house on account of a blizzard and Chuck's thesis. At one point we left to go to a friend's house for dinner and some Olympics watching, but other than that we didn't really leave the house.

 On Monday, Chuckie's actual birthday, we were both home due to the President's Day holiday. He still had to write his thesis AND do homework for his Tuesday classes, so I tried to make his day still a little fun by cooking him brunch and a late lunch. I basically just kept bringing food to his desk all day.

A french toast sandwich, chicken and cheese quesadillas, and birthday strawberries, because Chuck isn't a huge lover of cake.

That night he took a break from working and we met up with friends at Green Street Grill, another restaurant we've been meaning to try forever that is literally 2 blocks from our apartment.  It was so nice of our friends to come out and celebrate his birthday, even though some of them were also in the middle of thesis writing!  We had a lot of food, a lot of drinks, and sang "Happy Birthday" to Chuck not once, but twice at the table.

Pinkies up!

All in all I think it was a birthday win this year, especially because on Monday night before bed Chuckie told me it was "one of the best birthdays ever." Mission. Accomplished.

Happy 27th Birthday, husband! I think this will be your best year yet!

T-Minus 4 months

Chuck graduates from LGO 4 months from today.

That means we have exactly 4 months to do as many things still on my Boston/Northeast Bucket List as we can. While I'm pretty satisfied with everything we've managed to see and do so far, there is still more to do. That's the beauty of Boston and the Northeast! There's so much to see and do here, I'm pretty sure you would have to live here your whole life to do it all!

Here's my short list. (Like I said, we've done a lot already...)

- Tour Sam Adams Brewery
- Have drinks at the Top of the Hub
- Spend a day exploring the Museum of Science (because I've heard it's the best one)
- Take a day/weekend trip to the Newport Mansions in Rhode Island
- Spot Matt Damon and/or Ben Affleck casually strolling down the sidewalk (What? It could happen.)
- Eat more Mike's Pastry

Winter:1 Chuck&Rachel: 0

You guys. It's cold. Lately Chuck and I haven't felt like doing much of anything that involves going outside, even for just a minute. With the exception of work, we haven't left our apartment much because frankly it's just too much work to get that bundled up all the time and also, staying under a blanket on the couch just seems like a better idea than going out there.  Winter is defeating us.

When we HAVE ventured out into the cold and snow, here's what we've been up to.

A couple weekends ago, my friend Kate invited me to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships which were held in Boston at TD Garden. She received tickets from her family as a Christmas present and I was lucky her husband was out of town and she asked me to go to a couple of the sessions! We spent the entire day there and saw all of the Pair's finals and the Women's Finals. It was especially exciting this year because the winners go to the Olympics in a couple of weeks! It was also fun because Kate knows basically everything about figure skating so not only did I get to enjoy the skating, but I got to learn too.

Here are a few of the skaters you'll see competing in the Olympics in February.

Meryl Davis and Charlie White

Gracie Gold

Marissa Castelli and Simon Shnapir

This past weekend, we drove to Connecticut with our friends Clayton and Christen to watch Louisville play UConn in basketball.  It was a big game because it was College Gameday, so we were the game of the day. The arena is small, so tickets on stubhub were WAY expensive, but luckily we were able to score some cheap tickets from the UofL ticket office a few days before the game!

Before the game, we found one of the only restaurants in Storrs, Connecticut, and it happened to be Chuck's Margarita Grill. I think the restaurant was made for us! We spent a few hours there, eating appetizers, our meals, and of course, enjoying margaritas.  The game was pretty intense because I would guess the stadium was 75% college students. In the middle of the game, their coach got thrown out and things got really heated, but luckily no one bothered us. Louisville came out with a victory which made the trip a lot more fun than if they had lost like they did last time we drove to Connecticut to see them play.

Other than those two events, we've pretty much been hiding in our apartment, watching football, watching movies, cooking food, and... yeah that's about it.

We also saw this gigantic teddy bear at the grocery store.

We lead an exciting life.

Murder Mystery New Year's Eve

This New Year's Eve we decided to spice up our traditional game night with a different type of game.  Several months ago, my sister Laura bought a Groupon for a Murder Mystery Party package. It comes with everything you need to have a full blown Murder Mystery party right in your own house. Everyone gets a character, envelopes with information about your character's personality and history, goals to accomplish at the party, etc. We had several themes to choose from but ultimately voted to do the "30 Year High School Reunion" theme. We decided the only way we could make it successful was if everyone really committed. And commit, we did.

I had planned to write out a whole summary of the night and events, but Laura, who is a long time blogger and hilarious writer, summed up the night better than I ever could have over on her blog. Seriously. It's so good. Especially the Cast of Characters post. You can click the links below to go straight there.

Part 1: Cast of Characters
Part 2: The Case

The night was a huge success and we're already talking about when we can do another Murder Mystery party.

After the murder was solved, a photo booth session took place, drinks were had, games were played, and of course, we watched the ball drop at midnight. The Murder Mystery was most definitely the best part of the night, but another favorite part of the evening for me was right before the ball dropped. We were all sitting/standing around the living room and we decided to go around and share our favorite part of 2013 (besides Grayson's birth, of course). This group of friends is goofy/ridiculous 99% of the time, but that 1% serious time is what always reminds me why I love these people so much. As everyone shared their favorite moments, I teared up (naturally....I cry daily) and Chuck and I both shared that our favorite part of 2013 was finding out we get to move back and spend more time with these crazy people we call family.

And now... a few pictures of the night post-Murder Mystery.

Party Animals

While we were home for the holidays, we partied quite a bit! 

Hagan Family Christmas Party
My extended family has decided that Christmas is not enough of a theme for our annual Saturday before Christmas party together. So a few years ago they started adding a theme on top of Christmas. So far we've had Mexican Christmas, Chinese Christmas, and this year, Cowboy/Country Christmas. We all dress the part, bring food and games/things to do that relate to the theme. My sisters and I use the party as an excuse to wear appropriately themed mustaches. Three years of themed parties, three sets of mustaches.

We made sure Lucy was dressed in the theme too, even though she wasn't invited to the party.

Fake guns on the table, gentlemen.

We ate chili and other country food, took pictures of ourselves looking like tough cowboys, did a "piece of junk" gift exchange where everyone brought a piece of junk from home and traded it in a game of "Dirty Santa," (we each donated the $10 we usually spend on gifts for this exchange to Kosair instead), and played games, including the "make reindeer antlers out of panty hose and balloons" team game, which our team came in last but was decided had the best antlers. Well, we decided we had the best antlers. I don't know about everyone else.

We added an extra balloon after the fact to make them actually stand up instead of laying straight across like a giant caterpillar....

I love my crazy family! We can't wait to find out what the theme is for next year.

Christmas Eve Eve
Every year since my senior year of high school, I get together with my girlfriends Emily and Elizabeth on December 23 for what we've dubbed our Christmas Eve Eve celebration.  We eat a lot of food, decorate Christmas cookies, and exchange gifts. It's always a good time and fun to spend a few hours feeling like we're still kids. :)

Tacky Christmas Sweater Party
Our friends Justin and Jenny have started a tradition of hosting a Tacky Sweater party right before Christmas. The party is always full of people who now live out of town but come home for the holidays to see their families. It's so much fun to see our old friends who we haven't seen all year and catch up with them, play games, and this year, sing karaoke. Oh man did we sing some karaoke. Elizabeth and I gave an emotional, heart-wrenching performance of Wrecking Ball. It changed people's lives. Or maybe made them all hate us. We aren't sure. But it was pretty memorable to say the least.

Wine and Cheese Pajama Christmas Party
Our Gamenight friends decided this year to have the Christmas Party separate from the New Year's party since we were doing the Murder Mystery thing for New Year's this year. Since the two parties were only 2 days apart, we thought we should do something different and classy, hence the wine and cheese. Then someone suggested a pajama party, so then it turned into a Wine and Cheese pajama party. (Our friends are ridiculous, as you may remember from previous stories about them.) We ate a lot, drank some wine, and exchanged gifts "Secret Santa" style.

Chuckie and Shane both came in superhero onesies. Unplanned. Perfect.

Obviously Grayson participated in the pajama theme because he's a dedicated Gamenight member.

New Year's Murder Mystery Party
I just decided this party will get it's very own post. There are just way too many pictures and things to tell about. Here's one picture to hold you over. Stay tuned.

UofL Sports Day
This year, the UK vs UofL basketball game fell on the same day as the UofL football bowl game. So obviously this deserved a party. With my parents, sisters and Chuckie's dad, we headed down the street to our friends Andy and Clay's house (who were out of town, btw, and were ok with us going over there anyway!) and watched both games on their gigantic projector screen.  Oh and of course there was a lot of gameday food. Did you have any doubt?

We lost the basketball game to UK (womp womp) but won our bowl game against Miami. So it was a good day overall. 

And that concludes the recap of parties! Murder Mystery New Year's Eve post coming soon.

Christmas 2013

Christmas this year was as busy as ever. We had a lot of places to be, a lot of gifts to give, and a lot of food to eat. Just as Christmas should be.

Christmas Eve morning we spent baking and wrapping presents. Nothing like waiting 'til the last minute, right? That afternoon, we drove out to my Grandma's house to spend time with her and exchange gifts. That night we attended 3, yes 3, church services. Catholic Church with Chuckie's sister and her family, Presbyterian Church with my family, and Disciples of Christ Church with a mixture of both our families. And we had a quick dinner at O'Charley's somewhere in between all the church. Yes I know 3 services at 3 different churches is a bit much, but Christmas is about Jesus and family, so what better way to spend Christmas Eve than at church with family?

Dad, conducting the handbell choir at Springdale.

 

Christmas morning we woke up at my parent's house, had coffee and opened presents, and then cooked brunch.

All of us went in together on cooking classes for my parents, and also this amazing Breaking Bad themed cutting board featuring Heisenberg and the words "Let's Cook." Probably our best gift ever.

 Sami as a present.

Chuckie cookin' up some sausage.

The Grandmas- having Bourbon Balls before brunch.  Because they're awesome like that.

 Soon after brunch we headed off to our next stop, Shannon and Miguel's.

Christmas presents and wrapping paper everywhere: the sign of a great Christmas.

Someone got a makeup kit from Santa and decided to test it out on Amelia!

Audrey loved her little Beanie Boo from Grammy. 

This face... So proud of the ornament she made at school and gave to Shannon. :)

 A little blurry but still cute.

Brother and sister realizing they are both kinda blind in just their left eyes.

After we ate dinner, we headed over to Chuckie's dad's house where a few of Chuckie's aunts, uncles and cousins were hanging out. We ate a little and played Scattergories. Then after everyone left, we sat in the living room and just chatted until almost midnight. It was a fun night. I forgot to take any pictures because I was trying so hard to win at Scattergories. :( I guess there's always next year!