Ben and Rachel's Marriage Blog

I can’t believe its been over a month!  We’ve been so busy it all just flew by…

I went to the social security office to legally change my name last week so as soon as I get my new card in the mail, I’ll be Rachel Goldenberg.  After almost 24 years as a Nix, its weird getting used to a new last name.  I wonder how long it will take before I don’t have to think about it so much whenever I sign my name.

We have almost all of our gifts put away and the thank you notes are so close to done!  Our apartment feels like ours again and life is back to normal – FINALLY!  It’s a lot of work to get married…

Today I started designing our wedding album.  As you all can guess, I am doing the DIY approach and instead of paying for a pricey designed bound book, I’m doing it all myself.  I only did a couple pages today but here’s a look at the first one I did.

If you haven’t taken a look at our wedding pictures online, CLICK HERE! and use the password: benandrachel

Ben and I were mentioned in this week’s TCOM Memo newsletter.

Click here to view: http://dmaber.iweb.bsu.edu/tcomemo_012910.pdf

I’ve finally found an online photo album site to work with what I want to do to have everyone send me their pictures.

You can view all submitted pictures here: http://s925.photobucket.com/albums/ad94/rachelgoldenberg/Nix-Goldenberg%20Wedding/

You’ll need to enter the password: benandrachel

Albums that I’ve gathered from emails and Facebook are posted by name of photographer in the toolbar on the left side.

Send an email to this address with pictures attached and I will add an album in your name: rachelgoldenberg.37015@uploads.photobucket.com

The rest of our professional pictures are due any time now so hopefully I’ll have them on the PhotoBucket site soon as well!

Finally taking the time to write it all out… here we go:

This is what we left behind in Louisville – the longest cold stretch in city history with over 12 straight days below freezing that started on our wedding day!

We flew into San Juan and took a taxi to the guest house we stayed at the Andalucia.  We had a mini apartment 2 blocks from the beach there.  We grabbed a sandwich at a local diner (I had a cubano and Ben had a steak sandwich with crispy fried things on it that we still don’t know what they were) and then walked to the beach.

I forgot to pack sunglasses since I haven’t used them in cloudy Louisville in a while… I bought some at the Walgreens soon after!

The next day we took a bus into Old San Juan where the streets look like this:

We wandered around for a while and then went to El Morro a 16th century fort.

I have several more pictures of the fort on Facebook if you want to look.   The sky started getting cloudy after spending a while in the fort so we headed back into Old San Juan to get a drink and dinner.  By the time we finished dinner it was POURING rain and we had to run to the bus stop to get back to the room.  We were both SOAKED by the time we got there.

The next couple days didn’t really go as planned.  We had to move our reservations for kayaking and hiking due to all the rain.  It started that night and didn’t stop for a good 4 days.  Everytime we’d think it would clear up we’d get somewhere and see this again…

We spent one day at a local museum, took a taxi to a ferry to a van to a tram for the Bacardi factory tour which was a bust, and then headed into Old San Juan again despite the rain for the San Sebastian Festival.  One street of the city is completely blocked off for a huge party with bars, dancing, street musicians, and stages with bands.

The streets were packed with tourists and lots of locals.  Street vendors sold just about anything you could fry including plantains stuffed with meat, empanadas, burritos, and more.  Ben had to get some arepas!

We had a few drinks and ended up dodging some rain by going to a watch a band play under a tent.  They sang in Spanish and got the crowd involved in every song.  We were amazed to find out that Puerto Ricans LOVE the electic slide!!! Here’s a picture of one band with men on stilts with fire batons!

The next couple days were still rainy and we didn’t take a lot of pictures but this one shows our sentiment for the nonstop rain well…

Our last 2 days were the best of the trip.  The clouds parted and the SUN came out!! We rented a car and drove to El Yunque a HUGE rainforest reserve about 40 minutes from San Juan.  We hiked for 5 hours up a trail that led to the top of a mountain.  It was cloudy when we got to the top but it was still a neat trip.  It was Ben’s favorite thing we did all week.

Here’s a picture I found online of what it should have looked like:

My favorite part of the trip was the next day when we went on a mini road trip across Puerto Rico.  We started by driving through Pinones which is a street lined with shacks selling Puerto Rico fried foods, fruits, and other snacks.  We tried several things we had no clue what they were but it was a lot of fun.  We then got back in the car and drove to Luquillo Beach, supposedly the best beach in PR.

We spent an hour or two laying on the beach and then hopped in the car again to go to Fajardo.  We went on a night kayaking trip down a channel to a laguna filled with microscopic luminescent organisms that lit up whenever you agitated them.  You could make a loud noise and it would scare them all and light up anything they touched making fish underwater look like darts of light.  It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.  It’s impossible to take pictures and even harder to describe how awesome it was to see.  I would do it again in a heartbeat!

Now that we’re back in Louisville its back to work.  We have nothing on our social calendar for a good 2 months which is kind of nice after being constantly busy for the last few months.  Now I have to find something to do with all my free time!!  I’ll try to update the blog with new things as much as I can so keep following us!

Here’s a first look at our wedding photos! I can’t wait to see all of them – but for now, I have to pack for PR!

As the newsroom scrambles to prepare for the winter storm coming tomorrow, all I can think about is GET ME TO THE BEACH!  Here’s what its looking like for next week in sunny Puerto Rico…

Louisville forecast says its gonna get down to the single digits this week so Tuesday cannot come soon enough!

I had several people ask me after the wedding why we put the rings on our index fingers… here’s why:

The ring ceremony consists of the groom placing the ring on the bride’s right index finger. Afterwards, most women move it to the customary “ring finger” of the left hand.

The reason for this Jewish wedding tradition goes back to the time of the Talmud and the differences in beliefs at that time about which finger is closer or more direct to the heart! Christianity taught the ring finger; Judaism taught the index finger.

Like I said earlier, Ben and I spent several hours Sunday afternoon and Monday morning working on unwraping, opening, organizing, and putting away all our wedding gifts.  Here’s some pictures of the mess we made and Junior not helping…

Married life has been pretty good so far.  We came home to a 50 degree apartment and a broken furnace and spent most of yesterday and today in our coats opening presents and reorganizing the kitchen.  It’s heating back up now and hopefully the rest of the winter will be warm! 

I cannot wait to cook again!  We replaced pretty much everything in our kitchen with great presents we got from the wedding.  You should see the  mound of empty boxes.  We can’t believe everyone was so generous and got us such great gifts!!

Now, its time to plan for the honeymoon.  1 week to Puerto Rico!!

I’ve been trolling Facebook looking for good pictures from the wedding (since I obviously didn’t take any and the professionals won’t come in for 3 weeks) and I’ve found quite a few of our friends and family have some skills taking pictures.  Check it out…

In case you missed us on TV at 6:45AM Sunday – here’s a link to the video:

http://www.whas11.com/home/related/Ben-and-Rachel—Congrats-80662022.html

Ben and I are married!  Thanks to everyone who came, thought of us, send presents, and joined in our celebration.  We had a great time and hope you all did too!

We keep sitting around and remembering different things that happened yesterday!  It was such a busy day and went by too fast.  All my hard work paid off and I was so happy with how it all turned out.

I’ll blog more later but for now here’s the last picture of the night!

I’ll be working on finding a way for everyone to upload their pictures soon.  I can’t wait to see them all!!!

Love,

Ben and Rachel GOLDENBERG!!!