🎄My sister is a college grad!!! 🎄
I am so incredibly proud of her!!!!
As of December 14th 2018 my sister is a college graduate from THE school;), the University of Tennessee with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering with a minor in math and Vols teach with a concentration in power and energy systems. In other words she has an engineering degree AND teaching degree! I have never been a more proud sister in the whole world! All of her hard work, dedication, literal sleepless nights, countless hours studying, sacrifice, fighting adversity even when some were not always supportive, never giving up, and always giving it her 110% and nothing less. She is now a college grad from UT along with myself, my dad, mom, and 10 other family members. (UT is our school lol). Morgan has the option to be an electrical engineer or a high school math teacher but already has an AWESOME job lined up at Eastman chemical company. This is Morgan's time!
Morgan moves to Kingsport in January and gets married to her wonderful fiance in June. I am so proud of Morgan and the paths she has taken along the way!
And hats off to my mom and dad who financially and emotionally made this all happen for Morgan and I. We appreciate all the long hours mom has put towards helping us in every aspect and the dedication for us to succeed. We are very blessed and thankful! It's not every day you see both parents and both children graduate from the same University hence the 3rd pic below as a celebratory family accomplishment.
Morgan walking across the stage receiving her diploma!
I saw this picture idea on Pinterest over 7 years ago when I started college. I always dreamed of us doing that one day and here we are:). My grandparents on my mom's side graduated from UT, my other grandfather did, both of my aunts and uncles, dad, mom, me, and now Morgan! The tradition lives on! You had better believe my kids are going to UT. At this point is it really even an option lol!
VOL VFL!
Morgan and I took this photo at my graduation 2.5 years ago because we would eat together here twice a week at least.
And of course we recreated the pic on Morgan's graduation day.
Me and sister! I am so grateful to have her!
Dyar girls! We are strong!
💗
This picture was from the night before, we ate at Cheesecake Factory to celebrate with the Becker side of the family. (We ate at Crackerbarrel afterwards with the Dyar side to celebrate) #divorcedfamilyprobs.
Since we were all together for Morgan's graduation we decided to go ahead and piggy back off of that and have Nana's Christmas in the mountains! After cracker barrel we stopped by Nana's house and through about 20 times over miscommunication, everyone left us to go to the cabin. That is when it all began. Before we get into the story, lets look peacefully at the picture above of Nana's house beautifully decorated for Christmas and the missing top of her tree (one of us probably accidentally threw away, sorry Nana) :) oh good times.
Now lets get into it....
After Morgan's graduation we were supposed to go right to Cracker barrel to eat but we didn't have our cars to leave right after to the cabin (and we had to take a few more pictures) so we planned on grabbing our cars then heading over to meet everyone. But this was not ok with everyone because we had originally somehow planned to meet at Cracker barrel at 11:30am (when graduation didn't end until 12:30 not including the 30 minute drive, 30 minute car exchange, 15 minute traffic, and 15 minute pictures) and the other Chattanooga people who came up that didn't go to the graduation went to Cracker barrel at 11:30 regardless of us telling them (at 8:30am that morning) we wouldn't be there until like 2:30pm at the earliest 🙄🙄. So we get a panicked call in the middle of taking pictures asking what we were doing hanging around and to go straight to Cracker barrel regardless of us not having enough car space to take us back to Nana's house. We literally had 6 extra people there with no way of getting back to Nana's house because we couldn't stop and get our cars even though this was the plan since the day before. Can't keep the others who got there at 11:30/12:30 waiting 🙄🙄🙄.
So we manically got to the restaurant and everyone was losing their minds. Our table for 20 was 4 seats short and it took us 10 full minutes to figure out how that was. Once we sat down and ordered I was told I couldn't have hash browns by the worker but the person before and after me ordered it fine and got it :(, like whaaa? Don't worry, we fixed it ;).
Once we left somehow my van was there in the parking lot to take to Nana's. Through the craziness, don't even ask how that miracle got there. At this point we realized we still had to take Morgan and Edgar to get their car at Gigi's (which we didn't even end up taking because everyone left us 🙄🙄🙄). We got the car and arrived at Nana's to see her pulling out of the driveway, the last person to leave. It's like whatttt???? They got tired of waiting 30 minutes and left WITH THE EXTRA ROOM IN THEIR CARS. Leaving us once again with too many people with the amount of cars allowed at the cabin. The cabin allowed 5 cars and we had 6. (4 of those 6 cars only had 2 people in them 😡😡) so we literally had no choice but to cram 7 people in our car WITH all of our luggage's. Ridiculous. We finally all got in the car and 10 minutes down the road WE had to turn back because someone at the cabin forgot something at the house. Once we really got on the road again, we didn't know which way to go so just turned it over to GPS. WORST IDEA EVER.
Apparently the cabin we were going to was so new that it didn't exist on GPS yet so we were lead on the wrong side of the mountain. All was well until the last mile of the trip. As we slowly approached the last mile to the cabin we noticed the roads getting narrower but not bad at all....until the GPS told us to turn down little cove road. It was gravel, mud, and one lane for two way traffic.....of what seemed like a vertical path. Cody was driving and my little mini van was spinning out desperately trying to get up the mountain. We had no other choice and were wondering how the others made it. We had no phone service and GPS lost signal. The higher we got, the bigger the cliff inches away from the car grew, and the more the tires spun in place. It got so steep there was a point our car just stopped and Cody quickly put it in park. We saw a lady in her towel racing towards us with her dog flailing her arms yelling to stop. Once she caught up with us she yelled, stop you can't go up there! It's too dangerous and too steep. We explained we had no choice but she showed us an off route, less dangerous path. But now we were stuck on a huge incline unable to turn around....
So we had to BACK. DOWN. THE. MOUNTAIN. We were all so panicked and somehow got to the bottom barreling down with no brake control the whole way. Cody is a saint. At this point Morgan and I were just begging to go home, it was not worth dying over but everyone else insisted we keep going. So we went on the other path the bath towel lady directed us on and it honestly wasn't much better and was getting dark. Why is it always getting dark? Seriously. It got to the point that Morgan and I got out of the car and walked the rest of the way. Like 2 miles up an almost vertical incline. Morgan and I got a huge head start ahead of the car (not knowing how much further we needed to go) and everything was going fine until we hear the rumbling of the car engine closing in behind us. We turn around and barely have the chance to register what was happening and jump out of the way flattening ourselves to the embankment on the left-hand shoulder barely missing our car whipping by with Cody barreling past us. If Cody stopped, the van wouldn't have the momentum to make it up the path. Morgan and I ran to catch up and jumped back in going the rest of the way. Once we arrived at the cabin, to say we were shaken was a severe understatement.
The rest of the evening we got to calm down and enjoy the fruits of our labor, our awesome cabin complete with an indoor heated swimming pool and theater room!
My outfit! :)
The calm before the storm. The view was oh so beautiful. In reality what we didn't know at the time is we were supposed to be on the other side of that mountain coming from down town not the Maryville side.
When we finally saw the cabin it was like Laaaaaand! What a beautiful sight.
Right after we about died. We were really really really high up.
This quote kept flashing through my head with Clark Griswold's voice to not give up.
The beautiful kitchen.
Arcade room!
Sweet theater room which we spent from 11pm-2:30am every night.
We swam in here 3-4 times a day! We are such kids at heart! We made whirlpools running around in circles and blared music!
The upstairs with 4 huge bedrooms.
We then iced cookies and ate pizza.
Never skip traditions regardless if you almost died hours before.
The next morning we woke up and opened presents! We gave Nana a Disney gift card inside elf snot :):):) our prank of the year.
My cousin-in-law Laura and little James Elijah Dyar!
Cody was teaching the little guy about run plays and routes.
One of the gifts we all got were unique socks! We couldn't skip out on a family picture!!
We got such sweet sweet gifts from Nana and enjoyed telling stories and spending time together!
Outfit of the day!
OOTD
Later that night we headed over to the Island at Pigeon Forge and explored the shops and met at Margaritaville for dinner! The food was so delicious and the company was amazing!
Getting to the island we were told to drive like we were going to the Apple barn which was the wrong direction and were caught in a bunch of traffic, oops. Once arriving at the restaurant we were told we couldn't be seated until we had the whole party there and waited for everyone after the long walk to the car.
After dinner it was still relatively early so I was excited we could ride the Ferris wheel and get back to the cabin to swim early but we had to drop the baby off in one of the cars to go back to the cabin with Wade and Jody. So we got up from the table and some went to the bathroom and were told to not leave that spot to wait for them while the rest of us went downstairs to wait for Wade and Jody to bring the car around. We didn't know Wade and Jody had to park so far away so we waited for an hour and a half and couldn't go to the ferris wheel before everyone could go. What I didn't realize was one person didn't want to ride the ferris wheel so that person could have waited for Wade and Jody with the baby while the rest of us waited in the long line for the tickets and the even longer line for the ferris wheel. That way we could have been done in the hour and a half and could have all gone home at the same time. By the time we got home Wade and Jody had gone to bed and Nick and Laura went upstairs to bed. Luckily the rest of us could swim together and play online Jackbox games on the TV in the theater room! That was the best!
The ferris wheel in the background.
The view was quite beautiful. Well worth the wait. Nana was so sweet to treat us all to that.
The beautiful fountain lights!
My outfit for the last day and the breathtaking views! It was so hard to leave. Cody and I along with Nick, Laura, and the baby had to leave right after Apple barn.
Once we reached apple barn in the morning we were a little late because we made a wrong turn and had to fight 20 extra minutes of traffic on the gatlinburg strip. We were a little panicked because breakfast closed at 10:30am (it was 10:20am) and we all had to be there to place our reservation. We got there in the nick of time but Apple barn still had us wait 40 minutes so me, Cody, Morgan, and Nathan explored the shops around while the fam said they would text us when we were seated. After some time went by we called to ask if we had been seated yet and our family told us yes they had been seated for 15 minutes so we ran back and everyone had eaten most of the nice warm appetizers of apple fritters and apple muffins. Like whaaaat?! Why did no one tell us. Did anyone realize we weren't there? We were a little irked. I still wonder at what point they would have called us to tell us they were seated, like when they were leaving? Seriously.
After we ate we went to the Christmas shoppe and browsed and unfortunately had to leave from there. It was so much fun!
I usually leave out the details of Christmas's like this to save feelings and misinterpretations and stories at other's expense but honestly this was the 100% exactly the way the weekend played out. This is my family and honestly this is what I love about them. We are a smart group of people that when gathered together lose our minds and have mob mentality and somehow logic is robbed from us, like forever.
There is never a dull moment and the stories are fun to remember and share. I am a very realistic person, not pessimistic, not optimistic. If you don't know me you won't know I told the Christmas weekend story out of humor and reality and that alone. I never can share what really happens and that makes me sad. This is my blog and I enjoy sharing the reality of life and intend to do so more. I keep it 100% real with you guys with my personal self and life and so now my stories and trips are going to be too!
And any family members that are reading this, I love you truly! I had the best weekend and honestly look forward to this weekend more than any other the entire year. Some joke that they won't come back the next year but that makes me so sad I can't even think about how that makes Nana feel when she puts so much time, love, effort, anticipation, and excitement into making this weekend perfect. We wouldn't even be here without her. I always want us to spend Christmas together no matter how we feel towards each other. I love you all so much! Nana is the best to put up with our crazy butts!
The next day, Monday I had to go to work. I was exhausted but so happy inside. I get recharged when I am around my family, but its the lack of sleep that gets me;). Driving to work that morning the morning dew was so beautiful it looked like frost or ice!
Unfortunately later that night the group of female engineers I work with and our HR manager got together to honor a co-worker of our's life who tragically passed away a few weeks ago. She was 26. Our hearts are broken.
We made her family a gift showing that we love their sweet daughter and will forever. She touched our lives with her sweet soul and spunky fun personality. We will miss her every day.
We got to eat and tell fun stories together as we stayed longer to paint more boards.
Since Morgan has moved to Kingsport (but will live in Knoxville until the first day of work) her stuff is out of Gigi and Granddad's house now and Sasha has reclaimed her spot!
Merry Christmas everyone! Stay tuned for more Christmas, New Year, devotional, house update, career building, and New York City trip posts within these next few months!
Love,
Kayla
12/26/18
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