Road Trip: Days 5 - 12

Days 5-12

We stayed in Louisville for about a week during the cross country trek to visit friends and family once again.  This was our 3rd visit to Louisville in 4 months. I'm afraid our friends and family are starting to feel spoiled! ;)  I'm glad we were able to visit several times this summer though since we probably won't be visiting Kentucky again until Christmas break.

The week was very busy as it always is at home. Dinners and chill time with our families, a trip to Lexington to see my little sis and cousin, church, the pool, catch-up lunches with friends, etc etc etc.

My favorite part of our visit was the weekend. Friday night we had dinner at Havana Rumba (obviously- we freakin' love that place STILL) with our combined families. Saturday was our 1st anniversary. We went out to my Uncle Tony and Aunt Kelly's house for a swim party with all of my aunts and uncles during the day, then to Jeff Ruby's for our anniversary dinner, then to our friend Jen and Matt's house where we sat around the fire pit in the backyard with some of our best friends just talking and laughing until way too late in the night. :) Sunday was church, lunch, and then we spent the entire day at the pool playing with the nieces and relaxing. Do weekends get any better than that one?

The trip was entirely too short, as it always is, and we will miss home until we visit again in December!

And now... pictures.

I love this little face!

Sami and Anna out to dinner in Lexington after a full day of walking UK's campus, the mall and a movie.

I got to meet little baby Jayson while in town! Jayson is the baby of my former supervisor and now just my friend, Shannon. It was so fun to see them and hold the little guy. He will be so big next time I see him!

Dinner at Havana Rumba. Yum.

 

 

 

 

The perfect pool day out at my aunt and uncle's. 

Our anniversary- a picture of a picture taken and given to us by Jeff Ruby's. :)

 

 Candles on our wedding cake topper?  A little weird but we went with it. :)

Another perfect pool day.

For these pics I said "Jump in the pool and do a funny pose and I'll take your picture in the air."  And they did!

1st Anniversary

Today we celebrate 11 and 1. Eleven years of Chuckie and Rachel, 1 year of Mr. and Mrs. Cummings.

It's hard to believe that our wedding was already a year ago. I feel like it was just yesterday! I've always heard that the first year of marriage is the hardest. Well if that's true, (which I'm sure a lot of people could argue) then I'll take it, because this has honestly been one of our best years yet, if not THE best one.  We have had more adventures, more fun, more travels, more laughter, and more togetherness than ever.  We've learned even more about each other which I didn't think was possible at this point.  We are (almost) always on the same page and we love drinking margaritas together. We have fun going out and being active but we also have fun staying home and doing nothing. I swear we have more fun brushing our teeth together sometimes than some people probably have in a whole day.

Chuckie is my best friend and I'm so lucky to have him to share all these exciting experiences with.

This, ladies and gentleman, is my husband:

I wouldn't want to brush my teeth next to anyone else.

March 7, 2012

This sounds really dramatic... but I'm saying it anyway because I don't know how else to start this post. So here it goes.

One year ago today, our lives changed forever.

Ok. Got that over with so now I can tell you why.

Last year at this time, we knew Chuckie would find out soon about LGO. Current students told us that when you're accepted, you get a phone call from Don, the head of the program. For whatever reason, we were expecting the phone calls (or no phone calls) to happen the week of the 10th-11th. We had psyched ourselves up for months leading up to this- the GMAT, the application process and due date, waiting to see if he would get an interview, the actual interview... It was several months of agony. (Well, for me anyway. I'm a very impatient person.) So by early March, we were more than ready to find out if we were going to uproot our lives in Kentucky or if we should plan to settle in for another year while Chuckie re-applied and/or applied to other schools he was interested in.

So Wednesday, March 7th, we were hanging out at my parents house watching a UofL basketball game (surprise, surprise) with my dad, when a voicemail appeared on Chuck's phone. He had turned it off earlier during the game because it was acting up. Around 9 o'clock when he turned the phone back on, the voicemail appeared. Of course, he had missed a call in the 10 minutes his phone was off. He looked to see who it was from and said "It's a 617 number..." and started to listen. I could tell instantly by his face what it was, and I knew 617 was Boston's area code.

When he hung up he said, "Well, that was Don. Telling me I've been accepted to LGO!" I think I started screaming, my dad jumped out of his chair and high fived us and Chuck immediately started making phone calls to his parents and sisters to share the good news. My dad reveled in the fact that he was the first one to find out because he was "in the right place at the right time" and we waited for my mom to get home to tell her the news.

That night and the days following were so exciting but also full of mixed emotions. We both had great jobs in Louisville, great friends, a good routine and of course our families. Why would we want to leave all of that behind? Move to a city where we knew no one? Give up our weekly paychecks? Move away in the middle of planning our wedding? Miss our family and friends who mean everything to us? Because it's an adventure. Because we will grow. Because grad school has always been Chuckie's goal. Because it's an investment in our future. Because WHO SAYS NO TO MIT???

While LGO didn't technically start until June, I will always think of March 7th as the beginning of our LGO journey.  And I know I keep saying  "we" and "us" and "our journey" and talking like I'm in the program too so I need to note that while I am not up doing homework until 3 am, taking classes, tests, going to meetings, working for these partner companies, etc etc (Chuckie and LGO classmates- you're amazing, I don't know how you all do it), the SOs are VERY MUCH a part of the LGO program and this is our adventure too.  And we get the better end of the deal because while our LGOs are studying and doing homework, we're having happy hours and exploring Boston. :)

It's been a crazy year and we're looking forward to the adventures still ahead of us the next year and 3 months of the program. It's already going by so fast!