Wrapping up 2020, Looking forward to 2021

 Bye 2020

My word of the year this year was peace and I’m not really sure that I found it. I try so hard to focus every day on my set goal of the year but for this year, I would like to think I eventually found my peace but every time I started to find peace, I was violently smashed back down to the ground. The inspiration of making peace my word of the year this year was trying to move from an abusive/harassing role at work and that miracle happened within 7 days of 2020 (and in general finding peace internally and to bloom where I'm planted). The year started off so good and so strong. Then we closed on our new house after so so much patience, reserved Lucy, went on many trips, found out we were unexpectedly pregnant, and then went and picked Lucy up. I was so happy. From that moment on it was torture. The pandemic hit, the miscarriage happened, then surgery, then broken bones, and it goes on and on. This year had the lowest of lows and some of the highest of highs there is. This year dang near broke me. I honestly don't feel the same. The miscarriage changed me and Lucy dug her way into my heart grounding me and bringing love back into my mentality. So without much further ado, here's a recap of this horrendous year.

We are living in a history book, who would have thought something like a pandemic would happen in our lifetime.

 

January- I was moved roles at work and am working in a position I always saw myself doing. I genuinely love it, I am growing so much, it matches my talents and interests so well, I'm good at it, I'm so thankful and am so happy. 

My cousin Hannah got pregnant and announced her pregnancy this month.

Cody and I moved into house before it was finished (70% done), and closed on new house when it was 75% done. That was an amazing day filled with such inner pride and accomplishment after 4 years of hard work, extreme saving, and helping build the house.

  

February- We braved a 35 hour round trip to Niagara Falls and to see the groundhog over a normal 2 day weekend. We closed out our apartment lease after 4 years. We found our angel dog breeder and reserved Lucy. Lucy's mom Daizi got pregnant with her litter. 

  

March- We finally finished building our house, we threw a big family housewarming party, we got pregnant but didn't know at the time, we went snow skiing 2 days before the country and world shut down for the strike of covid-19. My friend got pregnant and announced her pregnancy to me.

 

April- Our puppies were born April 20th 2020, Lucy at 11:30am. Her half sibling's litter was born 3 days before. At the end of the month, the 26th, I felt off and took a pregnancy test to find out it was positive! Shock of a lifetime!  

 

May- On Mother's Day weekend we told our family about the baby after keeping it to ourselves for 3 weeks. Our first ultrasound was 4 weeks later and we got the news the baby wasn't ok. We met and chose Lucy out of the litter at barely 5 weeks old. We waited for the miscarriage to happen naturally but it didn't . So to fill time and keep our minds off of it all, we built a ton of things around the house including our fence in preparation for Lucy.

 

June- We finally picked up Lucy at almost 7 weeks old on June 7th. It was the best day of my life. We experienced a partial/failed miscarriage from the miscarriage inducing pills not working for us. My cousin Katy was pregnant but didn't tell anyone yet.

 

July- I had to have an emergency D&C after realizing the miscarriage wasn't complete and I started experiencing complications. Katy announced her pregnancy to everyone. Crappy timing for me with all of the babies in our family this year.

August-The most chill month where nothing bad happened.

 

September- I broke my toe pretty significantly and it took 3+ months to heal since it wouldn't heal properly. My cousin Hannah's baby girl Esther was born. My cousin Nathan got got married.

 

October-Lucy's had surgery to get spayed and experienced complications making it an 8 week recovery time instead of 2-4. My other cousin got pregnant but it was still a secret.

November- That cousin announced pregnancy at Thanksgiving. I work I threw my friend/coworker a shower for her baby girl Ellie.

December- Cody and I had to get away and we went to Opryland Resort in Nashville TN for a weekend and had a blast. My friends baby was born!

Our baby's due date was on the 31st, the final gut punch of the year.

Summary shot

Here's to 2021 the year of Hope

On a note filled with Hope (my 2021 word of the year) this year I plan to lose more weight, invest some money, save up for Cody’s dream truck, hopefully have Cody finish masters degree, kick the covid crisis to the curb so we can move on with life, hopefully get pregnant eventually, enjoy the holidays in a normal way next year, and celebrate my second year at my dream job right now. There is so much going on in these next 8-10 months, I’m so excited. I'm going to ignore the bad this next year and blissfully carry on. I have extreme Hope for this year and the future of our little family. I have no worries because God is on our side. I hate to say I really feel like 2021 will be my year but I have every ounce of Hope on it. I predict the covid crazies will end June 1st 2021 and I’m sticking to that. 

Thank God the nightmare of May 2020-December 2020 is over. A year of struggle.

With so much love,

Kayla Raborn

12/31/2020

Christmas 2020

 Merry Christmas!!!!

At work they had gifts and socially distanced parties! It was so much fun! One of the days there was a virtual ugly sweater contest and breakfast. It is neat how Shaw makes the holidays fun even with the circumstances. 

Cody was part of the virtual teaching the last 1.5 weeks of the semester so he taught from home and every morning I left for work Lucy was so sad and so confused. She always looked at me like this until I either cried or gave her a treat to distract her and run out the door.....still crying. Boy I love Lucy.

On my first day off for Christmas break from work, Cody and I finally found a place Lucy could get pictures with Santa!!! I was not going to give up and we found that Bass Pro was still participating in this event. I would have been CRUSHED if we didn't get pictures with Santa for Lucy's first Christmas. 

I was so proud of Lucy for how well she did in such a new environment, she skated on in with us and sat down right in front of Santa and put her hat on like a champ and it took 5 seconds to get that perfect picture. She was enamored by Santa! XD. Then we explored the store and got her favorite toys.

I thought we had gotten off scotch free but then on the drive back home Lucy threw up 5 times EVERYWHERE. Yep she gets so carsick. Luckily before the picture she only projectile vomited so it didn't get on any of us. When we got home I literally brought the water hose in the car and just started spraying.

The next weekend we went to the UT game with Nana, Dad, and his buddy because we snagged 4 free tickets! Even though we knew we wouldn't win it was still fun to be at the event. 

The weekend before Christmas my mom came down and took pictures of our little family for our annual Christmas cards! She did a FANTASTIC job and we hope to do this for the next 4 years as well, next year hopefully pregnant, the next year hopefully with our first baby, the next year pregnant again hopefully, the next year hopefully with our second baby then we might take a break haha. 

 

For Christmas Eve we had Cody's family Christmas and we knocked it out of the park with gifts this year! Our nephews Kaden and Kamren LOVED the gifts we bought!! Jamie and Miles were so sweet they even though of Lucy during this more difficult Christmas for us. That absolutely meant the world to me. 

 

On Christmas morning Lucy LOVED getting presents from Santa so much! I had Cody take her out in the morning and while they were out I put all of the presents out and when she came back in she went straight for her big lamb lamb! Then she proceeded to open every present ON HER OWN!!! She loved the treats, new toys, and do-dads that barked and moved on their own. She chased this one squirrel toy around for hours!!! Of course all of her toys only lasted about an hour each before she tore them to shreds but I was still happy. I just can't believe it was such a success! She had a ball! It's so much fun being a fur parent! Even Cody had fun watching her get so excited for each toy!

 

 

It snowed/sleeted/hailed on Christmas eve so technically this was Lucy's first snow! She kept trying to catch all of the snowflakes in her mouth lol.

 

I'd say Lucy is a spoiled pup or she was really good for Santa!

A few days later my mom came down to visit and we had her Christmas!! It was a ton of fun and we ended the day hiking and eating Cheesecake Factory!

  

We hiked for 2 hours, 4 miles in the mountains of Apison with Maya, Morgan's dog! It was a blast!!

 

Knoxville got some snow so mom had to hurry back home after visiting us. Sweet Sasha loved the snow!

Dad came over and Edgar and Cody cooked Gumbo together!!

Lucy loves Morgan!

I loved playing board games, looking at houses and Christmas lights and just catching up with Morgan! It was so much fun!

This year may have been the toughest year of my life but at least me, Cody, and Lucy lived to have Christmas together. The way this year way going I was a constant mess worrying about what else would happen to me/us.

With love,

Kayla Raborn

12/25/2020