Let me just say a quick disclaimer, these next 4 months I won't be posting much due to school being back in session and to be honest NOTHING exciting happens during school time EVER for me. I will put my wedding planning on hold until Christmas break when I will be job interviewing and major major wedding planning. See the reason we wanted to be engaged for more than a year is because you have to reserve venues and things you want literally 1 year in advance. This summer we have taken care of the things that need a year reservation and at Christmas time we have left that month open for the things that need to be decided 6 months or less close to the wedding. I have no idea how people are engaged for only 6 months or less, I don't know how they are able to get anything they want! With our engagement being 13.6 months we still ran into many, "We are booked June 4th 2016"! It's like how in the world are you booked over a year in advance! Kudos to those 4 month engage-rs or less!
Let me rewind and pick back up where I wrote last. So soon after my birthday weekend Cody and I headed over to All Occasions Rentals to find out more about our wedding decor. I won't show too many pics to you guys because I still want the element of surprise when you show up at the wedding in 9.5 months!
Wedding colors galore!!
Now remember, these are my wedding colors but don't worry, it will be a classy white wedding with touches and hints of these two colors popping up in different places.
Check out this beautiful sunset on the way to our semi-nightly jumpfit class!
I just wanted to share this pic of my never ending hair! God has blessed me with this much hair to work with forever. My hair is one of my favorite physical assets of me! Now there are some major downfalls of having this much hair and it being so poofy, on multiple occasions I have gotten into the shower and shook my hair to start washing it and have a beetle fall right out onto the shower floor. Yep. During the summer days when I am outside a lot, they like to set up camp in my hair for the day. Aren't I lucky! And man don't even get me started on low shower pressure and 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioners, grrr :(. PEOPLE IT'S NOT CONDITIONER AT ALL! :)
One cool thing a few weeks ago was Cody and I were able to go to our second drive-in movie ever! We had a blast and got front row seats! Apparently there aren't any speakers and each car had to provide their own with the radio station but I didn't want to risk our car not starting from being on battery for 4 hours. So we got to watch two semi-silent movies!! The experiance was so fun we didnt' even care! The two movies we saw were Pixels and Minions. I do have to say Cody and I may or may not have fallen asleep during the minions movie since it was 2 am so don't ask us about it;).
In preparation for our Texas trip we searched for a good old shady hat. I found this beauty at Dicks Sporting Goods! The sun didn't stand a chance with me! (if you could have only seen how big the hat actually was lol!)
One disappointing thing lately was this selfie stick.
This is my second selfie stick and neither of them ever worked for me :_( I think I have given up on the selfie bandwagon. Too bad I really wanted it to work.
One really really exciting thing/milestone in our engaged lives is Cody coached his first scrimmage as a high school coach! So naturally I had to take pictures!
All the prayers helped tremendously and our prayers were answered! Cody is now student teaching at Farragut High School and coaching on their football team! We just had to wait on God's timing instead of our own. We struggled for this to work out for over half a year! I have never been so proud of my fiance! He is a fantastic coach and has so much knowledge and passion for football. I truly believe he is the next football prodigy, leaving out all biased opinions! He is good! I've never seen anyone his age know just as much and more than most college coaches! (I would know, I come from a family of college coaches) It was so bright that day! Cody also lead the team huddle and called all of the plays!
Before moving on let me give a quick recognition to this amazing person!
Nana has taken Cody and I in for 3 summers out of the 5 I have been in college and opened the door willingly to her house! She is gracious to let us have the two bedrooms upstairs and be able to store our stuff and cook in her house! She is a saving grace and has such a big heart! Thank you so much Nana! We will remember that forever! Oh and she cooked her famous home-cooked meals for us once a week! We were spoiled!!
Thanks to my dad just last week Cody, me, Morgan, and her boyfriend Edgar took a trip to Texas to stay with dad! My dad got us our plane tickets and planned a packed fun 4 day vacation for us to celebrate the end of my summer research, me and Morgan's classes, and all four of us starting back school again. I was a much needed trip. I feel like with college I haven't done anything these past 4 almost 5 years. I can't wait to get my life back!
The beginning of our trip started out on Thursday at 3:00pm with 4 hours of driving to the Atlanta airport and a 3 hour flight followed by a 1 hour drive to dad's place. We were exhausted but THRILLED our plane was on time! THANK THE LORD! Morgan and I have had our fair share with airports and flying and know what can happen. But thankfully every single thing went smoothly and the airport was a breeze! I'm traveling at night more often! Cody and Edgar had really never been in an airport or on a plane before so I was so happy to be able to share this first time experience together! (Oh and when the flight attendants say you might want to check your bag because it doesn't look like it's going to fit, check your dang bag people!! Don't be those people who swear their 5 foot bag will fit in the overhead compartments. We had many people in front of us stubborn as ever holding up the line for 30+ minutes because of this. Bottom line folks, use your brain!)
Here is a little collage of what our Friday consisted of:
Driving to Schlitterbahn water park
Schlitterbahn was an absolute blast! Even though it took us 5 hours to get 1 hour away we still made the most of our day! (forgot tickets and anything else that could go wrong, we were the Griswalds for the day:)) My favorite ride was an uphill water coaster! We closed the park down at 8:00pm! Wish we could have stayed longer! Oh and only Cody got burned I say that was a success! Only 1/6! Poor Cody.
After the water park we stopped at the Twisted Root restaurant to pick up burgers. This pic reminds me of the sun-burnt windy nights at the beach. I loved it!
We found a t-rex there and had to take a pic.
Look at my handsome man!
Morgan loves her lemonade!
And my daddy!
Dad was sweet enough to buy us all matching tshirts from his company which we visited on Saturday! I love where he works! Bazaar Voice! They were all sized XXL so we had a nice tent lol!
On Saturday morning we had a delicious lunch at a gorgeous restaurant called the Oasis! We used to eat there for special occasions when we lived in Texas. I was so excited to show Cody all of the neat places where I grew up.
Breathtaking view! Even more gorgeous than I remembered.
I found this beautiful horse statue!
And of course they had a football statue!
On Sunday it came time to leave to Knoxville. My dad and his girlfriend Tonya got up early in the morning for us and got the famous Round Rock donuts. The pictures don't do it justice! The yellow on the inside of the donuts, yeah that's the buttery-ness! I could easily eat an entire box!!
Oh and before I forget, we visited Amy's ice cream. We always loved Amy's! It didn't disappoint! They have marble cows to climb on and take a pic so we added one to our past collection of Amy's marble cow pictures.
We finally got to sit together!! The plane was also on time! We love Delta Airlines!!
The breathtaking view from Cody's window up in the air! It reminds me of God's love for us, never ending!
So now Wednesday rolls around and it is yet again time to move into my apartment. I am in love with my new place! I have finally not gotten the short end of the stick!
Only took us three carts full this year and 1.5 hours to move in! Score!!
I am so grateful for Mom, Morgan, Gigi, Granddad, and Nana to take time out of their busy schedule to help me move in! I am especially grateful for my mom during this new move! I practically begged her the night before to take off of work to come help me! I was desperate and so overwhelmed! I don't think I have ever begged my mom like that but she asked her principal and was able to sneak away for 2 hours! She was such an amazing help just what I needed and I knew she would be!
I finally have a room to myself after 22 years of life! I can't stand being shoved in tight spaces to live with complete strangers so I am ecstatic! Thank the Lord for senior year. (My 5th year go engineering major!)
My wonderful spacious living room with breathtaking views!
Oh and I was second most excited about this, who am I kidding, the whole thing was a surprise! I had such low expectations. I am so happy and blessed! I was thrilled to see this apartment building had a small grocery store!! Just what I needed!
One of the 360 views my place has!!
And a workout room!! Oh my goodness I am so excited for this!!!
Free laundry facilities!!!
And a multi-media room with ping-pong, air hockey, billiards, a tv, and a pool area outside!! I am one happy girl! And Cody is just 30 minutes away opposed to 6 hours and Morgan is 5 streets away! I'm in heaven!!
I don't look forward to this school year at all but I need to pray and have a positive attitude. It is so hard. College has torn my confidence to shreds and walks on the pieces every day. I am NOT a fan.
One happy thing is in both of my summer classes I made a B!! I am so happy!!! Hard work rarely pays off in college classes but this time it did!
Guess what is happening tomorrow?!?! WEDDING DRESS SHOPPING! Yes the time has finally come and the last of my summer wedding planning is here! I am shopping at Davids bridal with my family and Cody's family tomorrow and I couldn't be more thrilled!! All this eating well and exercising more has really paid off! I have lost a total of 15 pounds this summer!!
Things are moving so fast in life and I am so excited about that! Let me tell you I absolutely can't wait to marry Cody! Whenever we have date nights or just talk, we frequently bring up our married life! Cody and I have been talking about getting married since a year and a half into our dating life. We always knew that's what we wanted and couldn't wait for the future! I feel like even after 4.4 years of dating I still can't get enough time with him and never will be able to. Which is a good thing! Cody and I LOVE spending time together and sharing every day of our life together. When we get married I can't wait to have our own place to go to and just be together! He is my best friend and truly I can't wait to spend the rest of our lives together. He is such an amazing supporter and listener and helps make me a better person. I feel the most like myself when I am with him. I feel like we are going to have a really really really good life together.
Love,
Kayla Dyar (Raborn)
P.S.- 295 days left to the wedding!!
