Happy 1 Year Lexington!

(Reader Beware: Novel length post ahead!)

Today marks the one year anniversary of living in Lexington, Kentucky. It has gone by so quickly it's amazing that 12 months have already passed, but the move here was a long time coming.

I remember sitting in my van waiting to pick up Josh and Matt from preschool when my phone rang. It was the match scramble day and I wasn't sure if the call would bring good or bad news. Some schools that Rich interviewed with required you do your intern year at their school, some didn't care if you did it somewhere else. Rich had not requested to match for his intern year so we could stay in Louisville for one extra year. He could do general surgery at U of L instead of internal medicine. It was late in the morning and when I hadn't heard from him by 11:30 AM, I assumed we matched up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin because they required you do your intern year at their school.

Now the phone was ringing and I knew it could go two ways. One would be that you didn't match at all and that would be beyond horrible. You would have to try to find a spot in a program that didn't fill and almost always in a different field than what you tried to match for. The other scenario was that they were calling to tell us Rich matched, but he needed to pick a place to do his PGY1 year. My heart was pounding when I said hello wondering what Rich would say. He told me he matched. My heart skipped a beat because it meant Rich would be a radiologist, he had a spot!! What a relief.

He then broke the big news. When he got the call, she also told him where he matched. This was supposed to be a secret until match day a few days later. He told me he was going to the University of Kentucky! What a surprise and thrill. We wouldn't be moving away too far and it was a great program. Since the University of Kentucky didn't require radiology residents to complete their internship in Lexington, we were free to pursue the one year internship in Louisville. We would have an entire year to find out about Lexington, to sell our home and find a new place to live. It was a great situation for our family.


It's been two years since we knew we would be coming to Lexington and we could not have imagined what a wonderful place this would be for our family. We loved Louisville and all of our great friends, we just didn't like the direction of Louisville's radiology program. Much of our decision to rank UK high was based on the desire remain close to Louisville. We never thought we would find a situation to match our time in there. However, the move to Lexington has opened up new opportunities for our kids. We couldn't find a better elementary school. We are within waking distance of a beautiful park that has walking trails and a river. We are one block from the nicest little league complex I have seen in my life (and that's saying a lot!) and have a neighborhood pool up the street where the boys can swim on a great little swim team. Plus we can still go to Louisville and see friends, attend baby blessings and baptisms and go to the zoo and science center, two of our favorite places. We have loved being in Lexington and know when the time comes to say goodbye it will be very difficult to find a place that can can be as good of a fit .


Now that we knew where we were headed, the next big question was where we were going to live? By the time we really started to look I was quite far along in pregnancy with the girls. We started looking online just for fun and were hopeful about finding something a lot like what we had, but with a basement. With five children, we had out grown our home in Louisville and knew a basement would give them a place to play and store their toys and allow Matt to build his cities without the babies crushing them the minute his back was turned. Plus I didn't think my parents wanted me to call them in the wee hours of the night telling them the kids and I were in the closet under the stairs while the sirens were blaring. And I was not having any more toys in their rooms or in the family room. I had dealt with that for five years and wanted a small toy free zone if possible! That may sound picky, but can't a girl dream?

Rich's Mom came out when the girls were born and we spent hours looking at houses online. We found a realtor and set up a time to go. Kristi took Josh and Matt while Trey was in school, so Rich, his Mom, the girls and I all headed to Lexington to look. The first house was great, but it had a low-maintenance yard. That really meant it was built on a cliff! No thanks and the list went on and on. We were getting discouraged and by our second time I was doubtful we would find anything. Just days before I was to head back to Utah with the kids, my Mom and I with Josh, Matt and the girls in tow came down for one last try. It was the last of the three houses and it just worked. Yes, there was crazy wallpaper (vases, grass and birds!) and old carpet, but it had a basement, was on a cul-de-sac and it just seemed to fit.

Thinking back on it all, I am very glad for it to be a year later. I left the kids in Utah in late June and flew out to close on the houses and move. Rich was wrapping up an intense year of school and it was all overwhelming. The two of us and two movers packed up the house and we spent the night at the Hamilton's (Kristi even left little chocolates on the bed!). Those next three days, we cleaned, unpacked, painted and did very little resting, while Josh and Matt celebrated their 5th birthday without Mom or Dad. When I came back with the kids just a week later my Mom and Kurt flew us out and we said our goodbyes in the Louisville airport where I rented a van and drove to Lexington and met Rich at the house and they flew back to Utah.


The fun had just begun and I was lucky to have two non-moving babies at the time since we peeled wallpaper, painted, got new carpet, changed light fixtures, hung shelves, and organized the house. The boys watched hours of TV, but I kept my guilt to a minimum because I knew once I got it all done, I could stop being a project manager and become a manager of my kids again.


I have to give a special thanks to our Moms for all their help. My Mom spent weeks packing up boxes we got from our daily trip to the "Licorice" Barn (as Matt called it) and transported them to the Hamilton's basement for storage. We scrubbed and cleaned and she fixed a broken closet door, patched a hole in the ceiling and taped blow dryers to the wall when the toilet started leaking just days before we listed the house. Thanks for the yummy tuna casserole and for keeping a baby in your room each night allowing me to remain sane. Thanks Mom. I love you!


To Rich's Mom. Thanks for helping us with the kids, for leaving your own daughter and brand new baby to help us with Brynn and Kaitlyn, for spending hours looking for homes and watching the boys so we could go down for a second trip. For taking a baby each night and going days without rest. I love you!


And thanks to Todd and Kristi for letting us take over your basement for months with all our junk! Todd rented a van, packed all of our things and drove it to us here in Lexington on a day off when Kristi was out of town. It's hard to find friends like that. I love you guys!


It took months to sort it all out and to adjust to the new city, but it certainly feels like home now. And we are always up for visitors!


The entryway The family room The kitchen

The dining room we made into an office

My roomThe boys room The girls room The kid zone (basement)
Your bedroom for when you come to visit!

Things to do when you visit Lexington:


Visit Keeneland Horse Rack Track
Check out Rupp Arean where the UK Wildcats play basketball.

Go to a Lexington Legends (Class A affiliate of the Astros) baseball game.