Introducing....

Meet Kaitlin Grace Shinlever!


This pretty much sums up my weekend! How precious is this baby? I spent my weekend up in Waynesboro, VA with the new mom and dad, new baby, and the new grandparents. We seriously had the best time just hanging out and loving on the new family. If I could describe Kaitlin from this weekend, I would say she is snugly, cuddly, and tan! Ha! But seriously, Kaitlin is such a cutie and my heart melts when she grabs hold of my shirt. I had a great time in the Boro with the family and loved that I stayed in my sweatpants the entire weekend! :)

Going to meet Kaitlin Grace tomorrow!!

I am flying out bright and early Friday morning to head to Virginia to meet my niece! So excited to meet her, hold her, and take lots and lots of pictures. Not excited about getting up early and flying by myself. But it will be worth it!! So excited!!!

With all the excitement with Kaitlin going on this week, I forgot to mention one very important part of this week. My Twilight DVD came in! I AM PUMPED to own it and watch the deleted scenes and all the commentary!! I pre-ordered my copy weeks ago... and it finally came in this week! I took a picture, but will have to add it on later. My camera is already packed!

Speaking of Twilight..... I went to get my haircut today. It was a disaster to say the least. I went to get a "trim." I asked my person to "cut one and a half to two inches." And six to seven inches later I look like Alice Cullen (see picture below). SAD DAY!!! Rachel is NOT happy!

Oh What a Night...

Mom and Dad came in yesterday to help pack up some of my stuff and to go see Jersey Boys!! It was amazing! This is definitely one of my new favorites musicals! One of the original members of the Four Seasons lives in Nashville and was at the show with us last night. That made the experience even cooler! I love it!!

Another exciting thing happened last night.... Kory called to let us know that they were at the hospital. I talked to him about 2am last night and they had been there a few hours. This morning she is still going strong and the nurses are predicting Kaitlin will be here this afternoon. I will definitely blog about that later!

**UPDATE** Kaitlin Grace Shinlever was born 11:01 am. She is 8lbs 7 oz and 19.5 long. Amy and Kaitlin are both doing great and Kory didn't faint! ha! I will update with pictures as soon as I get them! Or visit Amy and Kory's blog! Praise the Lord!

7:27

I do not even know what to write about today! It was a range of emotions for this girl. I am going to make a list of things that went on today because I am not sure how to process all of this yet.

• Teaching my first couple of classes at Julia Green - I love teaching these precious kids and finally feel like I am on the right path of a job! yay!
• Still waiting on Kaitlin - Amy's due date is actually tomorrow, but have been thinking the baby would be here 2 weeks ago. Everyday is tough for Amy and today she is feeling very sick. Waiting is the hardest part.
• Gunman at MTSU - I know I am over dramatic, but this was one of the scariest feelings ever. To evacuate and then be on lock down is just a weird feeling. Everything is fine now and I am very thankful.
• Invasion Young Life - I am obsessed with Young Life and the students at BA. Seriously, this is my favorite part of my life! Tonight was a little different and we invaded Brentwood High Young Life club. It was kinda chaos and we had such a huge turn out, but it was very overwhelming at the same time.
• One of the lighter moments of my day was when I was at BA for lunch and someone asked me why we meet for Young Life at 7:27. I said it is just one of those weird things that young life did. One of my precious girls said, Oh I told my parents it was a bible verse! So I have been looking for a good one with 7:27. So cute!
  

So all in all a pretty eventful, exciting day for me. I am looking forward a boring day sometime soon, but am loving where I am!

Weekend update

Last week was such a blur! It was crazy busy with school and work so I was so thankful for some fun this weekend! After class on Saturday I got to spend some quality time with Lauren who was in town from Austin. Probably my favorite time of the weekend was just sitting on her bed, talking, laughing and hanging out. It felt like we were back in college! Later that night we went to dinner at Virago and then out. Here are the girls at dinner.


Today was also a great day! Spring is finally here and has brought warmer weather! Today some girls from our small group went to Brushfire to celebrate Kim and Gracies birthdays! Brushfire is a paint your own pottery place! I am not artistic at all, I painted a UT platter and I think it turned out ok! I am very sad I did not get a picture of it to post on here, but will for sure put the finished product when I get it! I do have a picture of Adrienne working hard on her painting!

Table Topics

My new favorite thing is Adrienne's table topics box (I think that is what it is called). Basically, it is just a bunch a icebreaker type questions. We played it all the way to Windy Gap, while we at Windy Gap, and then pretty much everyday since. Well today I thought of a question that would be great for the box! If you could eat at one restaurant for the rest of your life, what would it be? I think someone has asked me something like this before and my answer was Chick-fl-a ( I love everything there). But today my answer would have to be Panera. I did not even realize it, but I ate all three of my meals at Panera today. Yes, it happened by accident. This morning I woke up early to get started on my school work that is due this weekend. So after I showered and was ready to get started I got sucked into the Today show and then Regis and Kelly. I had to get out of my apartment if I really wanted to get anything done. The library does not open until 9:30 so I had to go somewhere else. Enter: Panera. What a great idea! They open really early for breakfast, and I had plans to meet my friend Lauren there for lunch! Perfect! So I go to Panera and find a cozy, quiet spot to do some work and feel guilty so I had to buy some breakfast. Then a few hours pass and my friend Lauren had to cancel our lunch date so I kept working and grabbed a sandwich before heading to work. Right after work I change into my study pants (basically any cute black work out pants would be worthy of my study pants) and then head off to..... yes Panera. I am not sure what draws me there. Perhaps it is the free wi-fi, or the cookies. I am not sure, but thanks Panera for a great day!

The up-side to working out

I really do not have time to post, or even to work out this week. But I am so stressed I needed to do something for me. So I got up this morning and went to the Y. I feel so much better about myself when I am able to get in a good workout! But this morning, I also had a little reward waiting for me at the Y... a celebrity sighting! I LOVE seeing celebrities here in Nashville! Working out right next to me today was Vince Gill! I spotted Vince with his personal trainer as they walked by my treadmill. When I saw them, I was not sure if it was him. But being the successful CSI person I am, I took out my headphones to listen to him talk and see if I could figure this out. And sure enough, it was him! He has a country, but soft sweet voice and I knew it was him. He was on the machine to my left so it was very exciting. I worked out a little bit longer today because of my celebrity sighting. Now I am off the library where I am almost positive there will be no celebrity sightings.

This is what I did this weekend...

This makes me depressed. Seriously, this is how I spent the majority of my weekend. School is getting crazy busy. This week is going to really rough with one midterm and a 15-page grant to write. Next week will also be really tough, but I will blog about that later. Note: the picture above was not posed.... but this is what my bed actually looks like. Depressing.

In other news, today was selection Sunday for the NCAA basketball tournament! March Madness is in full swing! I have not filled out my bracket yet, but it is going to be amazing. I always seem to do well. Last year I got second place in my office pool! So close! Thanks Dad and Amy for teaching me about this so long ago! Tennessee had kind of a disappointing day. We played in the SEC championship game but lost to Mississippi State. It was a very close game, and very exciting to watch! We are going to the NCAA tournament, but got ranked 9th. Tough day!

I like it, I love it

Yet another reason I love Nashville... professional sports! I am so thankful to have had a chance to go to a Predators Hockey game tonight! I love going to sporting events. If I go on a date in the near future, this would be a dream date for me (tell your friends). Any good sporting event is always so much fun! To be honest, I really do not know much about hockey, but I am learning. These games are so much fun!

Not only did I get to go to the game, I got to enjoy the game from a Suite! It was..... sweet! ha! Thanks Leslie Ann and Jason for this wonderful time! Although the Predators lost to the Rangers, we still had a ton of fun!

I know this is the worst picture ever... but I told Amy I would post a picture of us doing the "fang fingers." Fang fingers are my favorite part about going to Predators games! Here I look.... well just scary.

Give me your eyes

One reason I love Nashville is because of nights like tonight. Tonight I went to a benefit concert called "Save David's Eyes" and got to hear some amazing artists/songwriters. Brandon Heath is my major crush and my hero. Brandon put together this concert and has the biggest heart of anyone I know. He is so amazing. You can read more about Save David's Eyes on Brandon's website. http://www.brandonheath.net/index2.php



Here are some of my cute friends who went to the concert tonight. We had so much fun at Moe's for dinner and then at the concert. I am sad we did not get Karrie did not get to be in the picture :( but we had such a fun night! I can not wait till we do this again!

I can't believe I just made a blog....

I LOVE reading other people's blogs! But what do I have to say that is important? I guess we shall see!!! I could either really love this and become an expert blogger, or this could be embarrassing and this could be my first and last post.

So what do you think about the name? I struggled to try to think of something. Most of my friends who have blogs are married so they name their blog their name. Someone at work suggested I name it RIF-RAF (like my initials) and I LOVED that idea! But did you know riff-raff meant garbage? Not cool! Another definition of riff-raff is low class. So I decided on Rachel's Rendezvous. It sounds a little scandalous to me. :)