Happy summer!

Happy summer friends! Can you believe it is almost August? Time is just flying by and I know, I haven't posted in forEVER...so I'll give you the top ten of 2010 for our little family:

10. I started graduate school (part-time) back in January to get my Master of Arts in Teaching degree in Elementary Education at Belmont University. Working and going to school was definitely interesting (more on this later).

9. Travis and I went to visit my dad and step-mom in San Diego in March for a spring getaway.

8. I trained for and ran my first half-marathon in April. I ran the Country Music Half-Marathon on April 24. My mom came in for the event (and delicious homemade spaghetti and meatballs-for carb loading the night before). The race was a blast, I was seriously smiling the entire time. Travis and I may run together in the 2011 half-marathon.

7. Travis interviewed for summer internships for his MBA program and traveled to NYC, Atlanta and Dallas quite often for meeting upon meeting. At the end of it all he was offered an internship with a great firm in their Private Wealth office.

6. Since early June, Travis has been gone on his internship. He has spent 4 weeks in NYC and is in the midst of his 6 week stint in Dallas. Overall, he has really enjoyed the experience, although I'm ready for him to be back home. :) I do have to say that Oliver and I have done a great job of "holding down the fort," though! Before he left we went to Seacrest Beach in Florida with my sister and family.



5. I had the chance to visit Travis while he was in NYC, we had a blast! We saw the Statue of Liberty, The Met and walked around SoHo and Tribeca. We also ate some great food, including a great meal at Gramercy Tavern.



4. I have also traveled to the South Seas Island Resort on Captiva Island, FL for a girls trip with my cousins, aunt and grandma. We had a wonderful time on the beach, at the pool, eating out and drinking wine on the patio each evening.

3. I had the chance to visit Travis in Dallas too! It was fun to see his office and friends. We even took a quick trip over to Tyler to see his parents and grandparents.

2. Oliver is having fun playing with his pup friends in the neighborhood, each night we typically spend some time playing or walking with Ralph (Pomeranian), Bella (boxer) or Cooper (not sure what his breed is - but super fluffy and cute).

1. I left my job at Vanderbilt and am going to school full-time! This decision was challenging to make, but it really came down to the fact that Travis and I would like to finish our graduate programs at the same time. So I was able to enter the MAT program's internship program for 2010-2011 and will be interning (similar to student teaching) all year, while attending classes at Belmont. This program offers a great way to get teaching experience, a master's degree and a year of "official" teaching under my belt. I am thrilled and am ready to get into my class this fall. I will be interning in a first grade class at a public school near our home in Nashville. I've met my mentor teacher and am excited to work with her for the fall (I'll get a new placement in the spring). Travis and I will both graduate on May 13, 2011! Yahoo!

Elementary schools start on August 12, here in Nashville...so pretty soon I'll really be on my way to becoming a teacher and be getting used to responding to Mrs. Dunn! I couldn't be more excited. :)

Life, recently

Yes, I know I'm an awful blogger these days. So this post might be a little long...bear with me.

We are officially in Nashville (have been for 3+ months) and are really enjoying it. We did the big move at the beginning of August (ask me about the nightmare Uhaul moving story), needless to say, everything made it safe and sound, including Oliver!

I continued to travel back and forth between Nashville and Chicago through the middle of September to wrap-up my job at Northwestern, while Travis started grad school in the middle of August. Once I did the final move to Nashville, I was able to start settling into our new home and life. We have been so blessed in our short time in Nashville thus far, we have made some wonderful couple-friends through Owen, the girls get together at least once a week while the guys are off studying. I have also gotten plugged into a wonderful Bible study through my dear friend Renee. I transferred to the Junior League of Nashville as well, so am starting to meet some new transfers to Nashville through this organization.Our families have all come to town for visits throughout the fall and it has been fun to show them this new city.

Before I left Northwestern, I was able to secure a job with the Vanderbilt Alumni Relations office as their new Special Interest Groups Liaison. I started working at Vandy at the end of September and am learning a lot in this new role.

Travis is really enjoying B-school, and is constantly being challenged and learning many new aspects of business. His classmates come from all backgrounds and many countries, so there is much diversity to draw from.

We are going to travel back to Chicago for Christmas and Tyler for New Year's to see our families and friends in IL and TX. We are excited to be on this journey in life, and are enjoying this experience immensley. Merry Christmas to any blog followers out there and many blessings in 2010.

xo RLD

Nashvegas here we come!

So, this has been in the works for quite a while, but now it's official...we are moving to Nashville!

Travis will be a MBA Candidate in the Vanderbilt Owen School of Management class of 2011!

We are so excited for this new adventure in our lives and cannot wait to live in a new city that has so much to offer. We have been planning for this transition for a long time, but now all of the pieces are finally in place.

Travis was accepted to Vandy back in March, and we decided that this was the time for him to go back and pursue his dream of getting a MBA. We decided on the full time program so he will be able to completley focus on his school, networking and let's be serious..having fun!

This was not an easy decision to make as it requires him to leave a job that he enjoys (his last day with J.P. Morgan is this Friday...eek!). I will be leaving my job at Northwestern in September, which of course is bittersweet. I will need to find a job in Nashville, since I will be the sole breadwinner for the next two years, but there has already been some headway on this. We had to figure out what to do with our condo in Evanston that wouldn't sell, but were able to find awesome renters, yay! We had to find a place to live in Nashville (done and done, thanks to AMAZING friends who are willing to scope out potential homes all over Nashville). And, all of this craziness wouldn't be complete, without us moving out of our condo at the end of June, putting EVERYTHING we own into two Uhaul storage units, and living with the 'rents for a month in Schaumburg! Ha! What a crazy adventure, but we are having a blast so far, and we haven't even gotten to Nashville yet!

All I can say is that God has been very good to us thus far, and has completley answered our prayers and is providing guidance and peace as we begin this new journey in our third year of marriage.

We are so thrilled to have this opportunity, although there have been plenty of freak out moments (mostly on my part), but the excitement of doing something new and completley different just makes me smile.

Of course Oliver will be coming along for the journey, he won't know what hit him once he arrives in Nashville and no longer has his Grandma (a.k.a. my mom) taking such great care of him all day long! But we are promising many long walks, and visits to the dog park.

So, here we go, on to our next chapter. I will be sure to keep you updated along the way, and forgive me if my ramblings on this blog become boring, but I am also trying to keep a sort of "journal" to look back on someday.

Oh Oliver!

Well, our little rascal puppy is always keeping us on our toes! The other night, I was cleaning out our medicine cabinets and trying to get organized and put some meds on the toliet in the bathroom.

I forgot about this for a while, and at about 10:30 p.m. Travis finds Oliver in our guestroom chewing on a pack of pills. Travis picks up the pack and asks me what Oliver is chewing on, and I start to freak out...our 6 month old puppy (who is only 10 lbs.) has just eaten 8 laxatives!! (I know, kinda gross). I don't even want to know what 8 of those suckers would do to a human, let alone, a tiny dog!

I immediatley called Animal 911 (our local emergency vet) and they tell me that I need to call Animal Poison control before bringing Oliver in. I just knew that he would need to go in regardless, so Travis and I jumped in the car with O-dog to head over there, while I was on the phone with Poison Control.

Poison Control said that, yes, we would need to bring him in to Animal 911 and that we would immediatley need to induce vomiting. After Oliver emptied the majority of his little tummy, the vet told us that he would need to stay overnight with an IV, to stay hydrated, but that he should be Ok.

All went well overnight, with the exception of a 5:00 a.m. potty break, which was described to me as a minor explosion. Poor little guy waited all night and held it in until he was taken outside...:(

In the morning, I went to pick him up and was told that he needed to go to his normal vet to be hooked up to an IV for the day to prevent dehydration. So off to Dr. Slack we went, and the rest of the day he was fine on his IV.

I brought him home last night, and he has been resting and is feeling much better.

Boy did I learn a huge lesson about how careful we need to be with our precious little animals. We will be doing a much better job of keeping things out of his reach from now on.

It's a good thing he is doing better because tonight he graduates from puppy class!

P.S. Special news coming from the Dunns next week (no, it's not a baby)!

Still here!

We're still here! Just been very busy over the past few months. With a new puppy, work trip to France and vacation to Florida we've been going, going, going...

Oliver is doing great! He is growing and is now 9.3 lbs. according to the vet last Friday. Our little "O-Dog" is providing us with lots of entertainment and keeping us on our toes all the time. He is doing much better with house breaking, although we are still using the puppy pads for those long days when we are at work. I do come home for lunch everyday to take him out, which has been helpful on the checkbook as well, because I no longer eat out for lunch! Save money, get a puppy! Haha! Not so much, we never realized all the expenses that would come with this little bundle of energy, but he is worth every penny. Now that he is almost 6 months old, he is finally pretty close to being done with all of his vaccines and check-ups too.

I had the chance to host another alumni tour in April to the Dordogne region of France. My colleague also came along and we had a great time touring this beautiful region with 22 Northwestern passengers.

Travis and I celebrated our 2nd Anniversary on Cinco de Mayo in Captiva, Florida. My aunt and uncle have a beautiful condo in the South Seas Plantation down there which we were able to stay in for the week. We had a wonderful time relaxing on the beach, cooling off in the pool, eating on the patio which overlooks an amazing marina, and watching the sunset every night. It was so nice to get away as just the two of us, and have a week to relax with no agenda.

So that's a brief update of what's been going on over the past few months...I'm really going to try to be better with this whole blogging thing!


Captiva, Florida

Dordogne, France

O-Dog! :)

Meet Oliver!

This was a very exciting weekend for Travis and I. Not only was it Valentine's Day, but we got our very first puppy!

Meet Oliver...

Oliver is a spunky 10 week old Morkie (Maltese and Yorkie mix). We had been talking about getting a smaller dog for a while, and then I started doing LOTS of research on different types of dogs, and we decided that this little guy was for us!

He came from a small town outside of Springfield, IL called Rochester, so we spent our Valentine's Day driving to pick him up and bring him home. The ride home was very interesting, since he'd never been in a car before, he got a little carsick, but once that was taken care of, him became the cutest little snuggle bug ever, as I held him on my lap in the backseat for the 4 hour drive back North to Evanston.

He is settling into our home very well, but we still have him in our guest room/hallway/bathroom, as we don't think he is quite ready for the whole condo yet. He has a lot of energy and loves to play fetch with us. He is already starting to recognize his name, and has gotten much better about using his potty pads. We seem to be off to a great start with him, but I know that training will take a lot of patience and dedication on our part. We are up for the challenge though!

We also took him outside today to walk around, and he was so scared! He has never been outside to walk around, and the fact that it is about 30 degrees here doesn't help much either. We will get him used to all of these new experiences over time, and hopefully he'll be up for playing on the dog beach this Spring and Summer with all of the other Evanstonian pups!
I'm sure I'll have many posts in the future dedicated to Oliver, as he certainly has already captured my heart!

Travis and I were pretty tired out after all of the driving yesterday (well Travis did all of the driving), so we decided to order Chili's To Go for our romantic Valentine's dinner and drink some delicious Allegrini wine, which is from a vineyard that we visited last year in Italy. Yum!

Valentine's Day 2009 was certainly a hit for the Dunn's and our newest "additions."

It's about time

Hello blogging world! I apologize for my extreme absence over the past few months. Things have been quite busy for us with the holidays and traveling and such. Lots has happenend over November, December and January including a trip to San Diego for Thanksgiving, work trip to the east coast (Virginia, D.C., and Philly), Christmas in Chicago, New Years in Texas (Tyler and Austin), and a work trip to Texas.

I called the most recent trip the "Tour de Texas," as I visited all of my Northwestern clubs in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Houston. I drove between all four cities over four days and ended the week with a great girls weekend in Houston with my college roommates Haley, Sarah and Ashley. We had such a great time relaxing, eating junk food, staying up late, getting massages and our nails done! It was a much needed visit, and we plan to make this our annual tradition.

Haley, Ashley and Sarah enjoying their pedicures

Yummy lunch at Tiny Boxwoods in Houston