The First Year of Marriage!

25 Things I have learned in the first year of marriage (in no particular order):
Bear with me, I can barely see while typing this, I am still in a lot of pain from my LASIK procedure and will write about that experience in about a month when i;m not as traumatized. 

1.  Marriage is absolutely the best thing in the world.
2. The first year is NOT the worst year of your life like everyone says.
3. Time flies and it flies fast. There is no way it has been a year already. Seriously.
4. Snoring is real and you never get used to it unfortunately. 😪
5. Your faith will grow together. I have never in my life felt as close to the Lord as I do now. We are apart of a newlywed Sunday school class that we can be apart of until we have kids!
6. Communication is hard but EXTREMELY important. 
7. You realize you are more selfish than you thought you were. 
8. And you also realize sharing is hard.
9. Marriage is the best decision we have ever made.
10. Its not worth sweating the small stuff (and that they are not important), and it's not about keeping score, you realize you are a team and you love each other so much!
11. You really do fall in love more every day.
12. It is the most amazing thing building your future and family together. 
13. Thinking about having kids in the future is so much fun to imagine!
14. Talking about the future is REALLY exciting!
15. You realize more things bother you than you expected.
16. You can't get a lot done personally such as reading, blogging, etc., because you always want to spend time together. 
17. There is nothing better than waking up to your best friend in the morning!
18. Talking about work is fun and hearing about each other's day. 
19. You will wish you worked together.
20. The other person has your back, is on your side, really wants to listen, and believes you and there is no greater feeling in the world. 
21. You will/can go through some really tough things in your first year of marriage (pneumonia, LASIK) but you are more than willing to sacrifice your time and help the other person.
22. You are a wonderful support team for each other.
23. It is easier to lose weight together.
24. You learn real quickly that in order to save water, you shower together 😉.
25. You never realized you could love someone more than you could ever imagine like this.

          I absolutely can't believe Cody and I have been married for a year already. It seems almost impossible. This has been by far the best year of our lives and we have truly have so much fun together. I am so eternally blessed to have found Cody and to have him as my husband. I am a lucky lucky girl. I have loved more than anything being able to grow up together. Cody is my soul mate and the one God made for me. I love him with all of my heart and can't wait for what the future holds for us. 

         This time last year was the happiest day of our lives. Our wedding was beyond perfect and Cody and I love reminiscing about it all of the time. The honeymoon was beyond magical and we wish all of the time we could re-live it over and over. (we have already booked our beach trip in the same beach house for our second anniversary next June and we are ecstatic) Cody and I love the beach and start getting beach-sick if we don't go at least once a year. We hope to make it our tradition every year for the rest of our lives and who knows. WE may retire there one day!

         For our first anniversary this year, Cody and I look forward to our mini getaway. We have scheduled and booked a little cabin for us in Gatlinburg for the weekend June 2nd-4th. We will be enjoying our awesome cabin with a pool table and exploring down the streets of Gatlinburg since our cabin is 2 1/2 miles from the main strip. Cody and I also will be bringing our wedding cake topper that has been taking up all of the room in our freezer for a year and are thrilled to eat every bite. Yes that is a lot of cake and sugar but that's ok! I lost 5 pounds for this trip lol. But seriously I did and plan to eat the entire thing with Cody! (Be ready for some pictures on instagram and a blog post in the near future!) Cody and I will be taking Friday off of work and really look forward to spending a weekend together away from the hustle and bustle, celebrating our marriage, one year of our union together! See you all soon!!!

With so much love,

Kayla and Cody Raborn 

P.S. Don't forget to check up on our wedding video in our blog tabs under 'Wedding Video!' if you haven't gotten the chance to see our short 6 minute wedding clip!

Big News and Mother's Day!

TWO SURPRISES (KEEP READING)!

So i'm going to spill the beans early on my big life changing news (simply because I need the prayers)! In 3 short days I am going to be getting lasik eye surgery. YES! I am finally going to live my life free of the hassle of glasses/contacts. I couldn't be more happy and terrified all at the same time. I will have 15 minutes of pure torture and terror to have the rest of my life free! I have though about this long and hard trust me. This has been on my heart ever since I was 13 years old. I have just been waiting for the green light, when my eyes stopped changing. As of this past February, my eye prescription had stopped getting worse. It has been stable now for almost 2 years and the doctors said with my age and my eyes, it is the perfect time to do lasik. I didn't waste time and immediately said yes, scheduled a consultation, and started doing as much research as possible. 

I had my consultation two months ago and passed with flying colors ready to schedule my procedure. It will be Tuesday May 23rd and that day keeps getting here quicker and quicker. I get more scared by the day but I am trying not to think about it too much. I am just focused on the after, when I never have to wear glasses or try to fight with contacts ever again. I may be sounding dramatic to some but I've lived with glasses 24/7 for the past 10+ years and it has been so far from fun. I could never properly do sports because I struggled so much with contacts and I would get hit in the face with the soccer ball, dent my glasses frames, or get them knocked off in tennis, or slide down my nose when I got sweaty. I constantly fight with keeping my glasses clean sometimes having to clean them up to 6 times a day. Over the years I have gotten permanent scratches on my glasses having my mom buy new lenses and/or frames a lot :/. It is just not ideal for me and my athletic lifestyle. Plus when I swim, go to water parks, take showers, or wake up in the morning, I can't see. Like, not even shapes of figures kind of see. I have very poor vision and when I go to water parks I get lost and will have NO idea how big the park is, where the rides are, I can't see people's faces, it is bad. I mean I honestly can make a list of 1,000 things that I can't/couldn't do with glasses. I have been looking forward to with everything in me, to the age when it was acceptable to get lasik (22) and then waiting until my eyes stabilize. 

I am so excited for the after part. Once my procedure is done and it is a week after my surgery and my eyes have relatively healed, I am a free lady! I get to reap the benefits of my torture! I am so incredibly stoked to do the things I've been dying to do without glasses. I can't even wrap my head around the sheer fact of being able to see when I wake up and not having to have prescription sunglasses outside. I literally can't understand how my eyes can be "fixed"! I absolutely can't understand. It is literally a miracle. I swear after surgery I will be looking everywhere for my glasses out of habit. I can't believe that when I go to the beach I can be in the water looking at the ocean. I can't believe it. I am so excited! Cody and I have planned a beach trip for next summer to celebrate! I have already bought a beautiful pair of sunglasses that I could never wear before because I wouldn't be able to see while driving. Guys this is going to change my life and I am so excited! 

After the surgery I will have to sleep with eye guards for a while and will have to put eye drops in my eyes throughout the day but that's a minor inconvenience. I can handle that. At work I will have to avoid dusty environments for a week until my eyes heal. I am nervous out of my mind for Tuesday May 23rd but I will have an amazing surgeon that I trust and I've got God looking after me. Also I will be having all of your prayers shower down on me. I wouldn't be honest if I didn't tell you that i'm so nervous. I haven't had a good nights sleep in a month. The thoughts of the surgery and details of the surgery have crossed my mind almost every hour. I also worry about freaking out too bad on my surgery day that I may not even have the courage to do it. I am so freaked out and nervous about someone touching my eye none the less cutting on it and zapping it with a laser. It messes with my mind. So PLEASE IF ANYTHING ELSE PRAY FOR ME. From 3:30-7:00pm next Tuesday I will need your constant prayers and thoughts to even help me make it through this tough day. If I could only get past those 15 minutes I've got it made. You can do anything for 15 minutes right? I'm just so blessed I will have Cody by my side during surgery and my mom taking care of me that day and the next. They are my lifesavers, both taking off of school in their busiest times of the school year. I am so blessed for them! You better believe I will be a praying maniac all of Tuesday, but I know with God with me, I will be ok! Again, I would never ask for anything but I am now, pray for me, I've never been able to handle anything regarding eyes and this will take a true miracle for me to get through, but I have faith! I will tell you more about the procedure and the after, in my next post. I'm just too freaked out and nervous now to go into the details. When I blog next you will be hearing all about how it went and I will be glasses and hassle free! 

So onto the next big surprise! As I have mentioned to you a few months ago, Cody has officially begun graduate school and I am so incredibly proud of him! His first day was May 8th and he has been knocking it out of the park! He stays on top of all of his assignments, and will stay up as late as it takes to complete all of his work. He is juggling all of this on top of finishing out the school year, spring football practice, and keeping up with me;). The summer months will be easier on him with school not in session but it will make up for it in the fall. He will have countless nights of hardly any sleep (like this past week) during actual football season. And I will seriously have to pick up the slack around the 'house'. It will be like that for this football season and the next, but he will be completely done the second week of May 2019. But don't worry about me lol, Cody not having school in the summer can help pick up the slack for me (especially during VBS week for me) and always makes delicious dinners for us when I come home from work. He is such a sweetheart! Cody is loving his masters degree in teaching so far and is loving the classes. I will keep updating you on this!

On to Mothers Day! Well since my sister has started her internship at Eastman this past week, (I know big exciting things are happening around here!) over Mother's Day my mom was up in Kingsport helping my sister move into her apartment and we weren't able to celebrate. Morgan was able to celebrate with her and take her out to dinner but I will celebrate with mom when she comes down for my surgery. The following weekend we will take her to a tea room for lunch and later on, a trip to the Knoxville Zoo! I can't wait to celebrate mom because she deserves the world and is such an incredible person! I love my mom so much and always strive to be like her. She is the greatest role model in my life and always will be! She is so strong and independent! 

With this being the first Mother's Day that has past being married, It honestly feels different, and that was so unexpected for me. It was such a strange feeling and surprised me. I think Mother's Day for women, between when they get married and are actually pregnant with their first child, are odd because they are in limbo. Between that time gap, motherhood is a complete real possibility but hasn't happened yet, and in a small strange strange way, you actually do feel like a mother but have to remind yourself that you aren't. I don't know, maybe it's God working in your life and heart, showing you in your heart a little glimpse into your future? Like at church when the preacher recognized all the mothers and had them stand up, it was like wait why can't I stand up? I could be a mother any day if I decided and it is strong on my heart to do so one day. Without a doubt I know that is what I am called to do, be a mother; I can just feel it. So when I wasn't able to stand up as one of the mothers I had a feeling of slight hurt because I feel my future kids are so real. What makes it any different from me now and me in 7 years when I have kids. I know the obvious answer is duh, the KIDS!!?! But I am me and still will be me and have and will always have that strong desire to be a mother, that is what God has called me to do. I will feel that same way now and in 7 years. God already knows my future kids. He knows them really well. He already knows what they are going to look like, think like, and what his purpose for them is. He is just waiting to send them to Cody and I in his perfect timing. So mothers day for me just feels so strange now. Maybe it is because I am just that one step closer to actually understanding what it is to be a mom and one step closer to actually being a mom? I am in the age to be a mother, and I am in the right time to become a mother, marriage. So it feels so strange, should they honor future moms? I feel the love and hopes and desires for my future kids now as I will in 7 years, I think about them quite often actually. Sorry I just thought I would share, It is strongly on my heart and I feel so passionate and excited about God's biggest plan for me that I know of in the future (if that really is his plan for me)! :)

P.S. CODY AND I ARE 2 WEEKS AWAY FROM OUR 1ST ANNIVERSARY! We are excited over the moon and will be definitely be posting about our long weekend getaway anniversary trip! On a few days before our anniversary I will be posting a blog about what we have learned in our first year of marriage, and later a post about our actual getaway. I will also be posing a series of instagram's on the day after our anniversary of a few more of our favorite wedding pictures you may or may have not already seen. So be sure to head over there too within the next 3 weeks! Instagram name: kayla_raborn

With so much love,
Kayla Raborn
5-20-17

Nephews Bday and Orange & White Game!

To start off lets just take a minute to look at how incredibly cute my nephew is! He is such a precious child! I was honored to finally be able to attend his birthday party (no thanks to college before) and I loved seeing the joy through his eyes. Kaden had been looking forward to his party for weeks leading up to it and would get so excited with it even being mentioned! He is no longer a baby and is now 3 years old, it is so hard to believe. It seems like just yesterday I was holding him as a precious newborn. 

Kadens birthday party was an awesome safari theme thanks to his creative parents, (ok, creative mamma ;)). I loved seeing his happiness and excitement seeing all of his friends and the joy written across his face as he opened each present!

So I honestly don't know how to transition into the next part of this post because this one is all over the place so i'll just continue on like this is one long flowing post like the others 😂 :).

My 2 year phone contract is up late June so I decided to make the best of my last few months with my current phone and ordered two new phone cases. The one above is my favorite and is rose gold! It is too sparkly even for me but I love it!

.......awkwardly transitioning to my next thought lol....

So every summer since my dad lived in Atlanta, Morgan, my dad, Nana, and I would visit Six Flags Whitewater in Atlanta but now since my dad lives in Texas it is difficult to plan a trip to a city so far away especially when we all have so much going on. But I am going to try really hard to push everyone to go this summer, one for bonding reasons, and two because White Water just added two new epic looking rides!! I found these images of the new rides online the Six Flag website and about shrieked with excitement! Who wouldn't want to try them out! If we go this summer, it will be our seventh or eighth time going! Morgan and I love water parks more than you could know and aren't afraid of any ride. 

I mean look at this! It looks so awesome!!!

Moving on to my next out-of-order topic....

It's April, that time of year again! The month Cody proposed to me! Can you believe it has been two years since Cody has proposed?? I love reminiscing back to that very special day. Cody planned the proposal out for weeks, down to every detail and I was so happy (if you wish to hear the whole story or if you have forgotten, one of the main tabs of the blog has the engagement story/video on it!).

Man was I beyond excited. It was one of the best days of my life because it meant I was going to be with my Cody for the rest of my life!! 😍😍

To celebrate the engagement anniversary, Cody took me back to our engagement spot at the exact restaurant in Knoxville and we had an amazing romantic dinner.

This is our tree!!💗

And I'm sorry to post kissing pictures, that is not my thing but the reason is, I can NEVER take a kissing picture at all and if I do we are not even in the picture. So yes this picture was actually taken by Cody and I had to brag on him because I was EXTREMELY impressed. (Especially since I am the selfie queen and can not grasp why I cannot master this skill lol) 

So after dinner we headed to Nana's house for the Dyar family weekend! We were planning on attending the orange and white game on Saturday! So for the rest of Friday night until 3am we played board games, watched movies, told stories and ate lots of Nana's fudge! I love love loved being able to spend time with my dad. I miss him so much and cherish every moment we get when he is visiting Tennessee. It was sad to see him go at the end of the weekend. 

I had to capture the whole gang before everyone dispersed at the end of the weekend.

On Saturday morning we all woke up and ate at IHop for a delicious breakfast and then headed to the orange and white game. We were all for the orange team. Unfortunately the game was canceled at half time due to the inclement weather. When we got home we got to spend quality time together and eat our Nana's mexican meal. 

Tonya and I worked our dinner off by a hula hooping session while everyone else re-watched the orange and white game on tv. 

The next morning Cody and I went to the church we were married in and headed home not too long after that. But not for course without having breakfast together! I wasn't too sad to go back home because I had an exciting week of work ahead. It's amazing when you truly do love your job, you actually look forward to Monday's! I love Shaw! So as you see below, our little group program I have been apart of for the past 10 weeks at Shaw was coming to an end so we celebrated our graduation by going to Andretii's in Atlanta for go kart racing! It was an absolute blast! I will truly miss everyone in our group. It was such a sweet surprise to have this time to celebrate and bond together before we all went our separate ways to our different plants. 

So last night Cody and I went on a date night to five guys and had a sonic milkshake for dessert! We then went and ran at our old high school (where we "met") and reminisced together. We are quite the nostalgic couple/people if you haven't noticed already :).

This was my date night shirt from last night and I just had to brag on my Gigi. She got me this shirt from Easter and I absolutely LOVE it! It is so stylish; thank you Gigi!

So the month of May for me looks pretty calm but I have BIG life changing plans for May 23rd that I am absolutely TERRIFIED and thrilled about (no it is not a baby ;)). I don't think I'm ready to share yet what it is but I'm sure I'll spill the beans before the big day! Just until then can you keep me in your prayers, I am very nervous about this big event/thing and would greatly appreciate it! Talk to you soon!

With so much love,

Kayla Raborn!

4-29-17

P.S. I just wanted to say thank you guys for reading my blog. I love blogging so incredibly much and it means the world to me that you come on here to read about my life and thoughts! I hope you always enjoy! If you ever have any thoughts or comments please always feel free to leave them below! (if you know how because I don't and am trying to figure it out for you guys)

Pneumonia and Easter

Yes you read that right.....PNEUMONIA. Around April 6th I started to feel like I was coming down with a cold so I took extra vitamin C, and made sure to wash my hands a lot, and got lots of rest. Well as the week progressed I started feeling worse and worse and worse to the point that I was already on antibiotics and cough medicine and was still sick to the point I couldn't get out of bed. Having gone to the doctor beforehand and being prescribed with that first antibiotics (and being almost done with it) and still getting worse, Cody immediately took me to urgent care where they quickly determined from a chest x-ray that I indeed had pneumonia. Let me tell you, the level at which your chest aches from having pneumonia is like no other. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to cough, it hurt to lay down, it hurt to stand. It just hurt. So at the urgent care they gave me two more antibiotics, a strong antibiotic shot, a steroid breathing treatment, and an inhaler. Even with all of that it took me three more days to even be able to get out of bed. Pneumonia sucks. And my energy levels were terrible and I am still currently fighting to fully get my energy back. I am not a sick person, I probably get sick once a year and it is usually a minor cold. So how I got this pneumonia totally baffles me.  In a way it kind of reminds me of that time I got swine flu in high school. Now THAT was bad (105 degree fever, hallucinations, yeah it was bad).

So when Easter started to roll around we had some major Easter plans. We were going to travel to Knoxville to visit both sets of grandparents and go to our new church for the first time for their Easter Service! We were so excited! But when my pneumonia hit I felt so sick we had to miss all of that so instead my mom and sister came down to Chattanooga to cheer me up the Saturday before Easter Sunday. I was barely trucking along so I just laid on my bean bag on the floor talking to everyone.

We did manage to still take Easter pictures!

Of course Morgan and I were coloring Frozen pictures :):)

Even though I felt like crap my sweet mama had me an early Easter basket. It really did lift my spirits! I had candy, a new study bible, Wife after God book, and some serving utensils from our wedding registry silverware set! And I may have had a cheery look on my face but don't let that fool you, just look at how pale my face was! 😨

Look at this gorgeous tree outside my moms house!!

While I had to stay in bed most of the time I got a little stir crazy and straightened up the kitchen to make me feel a little better about being cooped up. At least I could look at an orderly kitchen!

So during the bad week of pneumonia I strictly ate soup, ice cream, pop-sickles, and drank hot chocolate or hot tea. I never had an appetite but my throat hurt so bad I would just die from needing relief so that would be the only time I would eat, just to get relief for my on-fire throat. 

Oh and of course I had to make my famous smoothie. I tried to get some protein and good nutrition in to speed my recovery. 

And to relax my chest and lungs I took lots of baths with my lovely bath bombs from Easter from my mama! Sometimes I even put two in like this day 😂

Another thing that made me feel better too was my Shaw jacket I got from work when I came back. It was a nice gift and I feel so proud to wear it!

As I started to feel better, life of course became more normal and Cody and I had to celebrate with a date night! We hadn't been out in what seemed like a few months!

Oh and to follow up with my new short hair, phantom hair is a real thing! I have it all the time still. I still feel the long hair that isn't there anymore. I also have to adjust the level at which my arm is when I am combing my hair because it was always level with the center of my rib cage when I used to comb my hair but now as you can see, I no longer have hair there so I have to move my arm up half a foot to start reaching any hair to brush. It is so odd. Just little things like that. Also I am trying to learn how to negotiate with my new hair length. When I had hair down to my waist I had it down-pat, I knew when to move it to avoid getting it shut in car doors, how to move it, how to comb it, how to sweet-talk it into participating, and just how it was. Now I am learning that not all of those things necessarily work still and I have to learn how my new hair acts. For example, I can no longer go to bed with my hair wet. Since it is so short it gets pushed in every which way and when I wake up it is stuck like that. With my longer hair I was able to have the hair itself weigh itself down to lie flat after a bad hair day from waking up. 

This is what it looks like from the back at it's natural curly state. I literally wake up with my hair looking like this (picture above). 

One major perk about my new hair length is it doesn't get in the way anymore and I can put it in these cute styles and it will stay and work! It is so exciting! Just look at that cute bun! It used to never be able to do that!! I'm so proud, LOL.

To unwind, Cody took me to the park where we laid out a blanket and read our devotionals and felt the cool breeze blow over us. The grass and the dandelions were especially beautiful that day. It was such a peaceful spring afternoon. We ended the park adventure by throwing the football to each other, Cody's favorite!

I hope you have a great rest of your week!

With so much love,

Kayla 

4-29-17

Locks of Love and Life Update!

Hi everyone! SURPRISE!!! I did a little something....

I DONATED 11 INCHES OF MY HAIR TO LOCKS OF LOVE!

Ever since I was a little kid I had wanted to donate my hair to locks of love but selfishly was always too scared and/or didn't want my hair to be a boy cut after the fact. That is why I waited and finally grew my hair out for over a year and a half to be able to donate my 10+ inches. My hair is now only 20 inches long. It was EXTREMELY difficult maintaining hair as long as mine for such a long time. I ran in to more inconveniences than you could ever imagine. For starters it would take me over 15 minutes to fight with it after the shower to comb through all of the tangles (which I am NOT ok with). By doing this I would lose a lot of hair from trying to de-tangle it and with each passing day my hair would get a little thinner. I would have to keep it in a braid or pony tail every day to be able to ONLY fight with it for over 15 minutes after a shower. When I would lean on my elbow on a surface I would raise my head up and yank my hair because it was under my elbow and I didn't know. When I laid down for bed my hair would wrap around my torso and pull the fool out of my hair in my sleep. Cody would also lay on it from his side of the bed and I wouldn't be able to move my head even a centimeter to reach him to push him off. 

Now since I have donated 11 inches off of my hair and it is now "short", it is SO much thicker and looks SO much healthier. And the best part of all of this was for the cause! I am able to contribute to a hair piece for a child with a lifelong incurable illness called alopecia areata. I would do this all over again in a flash just to know a little girl will be getting some gorgeous locks for life. I am so excited for this reason and wish I could grow more hair quickly to be able to donate again soon and over and over.

The decision to donate has been on my heart for a really long time and i'm so blessed God has given me the opportunity to do so. I hadn't really thought about it too too much for the past 10 years but for whatever reason for the last 2 years I had been reluctant to cut it. After canceling appointment after appointment for trims, I couldn't figure out why. I truly believe God had laid it on my heart to do this and it just took me this long to see his desire for me. Once it popped in my head about 3 weeks ago I knew what I had to do. And it was the easiest decision of my life. 

Now I'm sorry to make this sound like a big deal but let me tell you, this is a HUGE deal to me. I literally have not had hair this short since I was 6 or 7 years old. And that was just because that's just the longest it had gotten in my life and happens to be as short then as it is now. My hair has ALWAYS been long. I have never trimmed it more than 2 inches IN MY LIFE. I normally don't even like to go over a 1 inch trim. It will take me time to adjust to it but I instantly LOVED from the second of the first snip of the scissors. That pleasantly surprised me! I always imagined I would miss it to the point of possibly crying but its neat to see God work in your heart and life. Now I run my fingers through my hair and my hand keeps on going through air. Now I cant reach my hair it if I put my hand behind my back. Now it takes 45 SECONDS to comb my hair and free it of tangles after a shower. And Cody loves my hair. I also look older! I love it so much! It doesn't get caught in doors, couches (yes weird but true for really long hair), or car doors. I can now put my hair in a clip because I don't have to layer it 3-4 times due to the length and thickness because of that. 

The days leading up to the hair appointment I did my Locks of Love research to learn the rules and regulations and brought my bag to collect my hair and my tape measure. I will be sending off the hair with a picture of myself very soon!

Here is my long hair before the fact straightened to get an accurate length of my hair.

My beautiful sister straightened it for me!

Here is a before picture of it curly. This was the morning of my hair appointment. 

And the back! It was down to the top of my pants!

After snipping the three pony tails I went to un-highlight my hair basically. I'm ready to go more natural. My natural hair now isn't as blonde as it was as a child.

Crazy to feel the new length.

After!

I had it straightened with a little bit of curl to go for an even newer look for the day.

I love how it blows in the wind! And surprisingly, my head feels a lot lighter! I think it took a few pounds off of my head lol. 

And the back! Now when it is curly after my next shower, it will be even shorter from the curls. Now there isn't as much weight, my hair should appear curlier! #bonus!

So on to the other aspects of my life! I am enjoying my new job so incredibly much! Everyone is so nice and I am so happy every day! 

Also my sweet mother-in-law surprised me with a monogrammed tote with my new initials! It is so perfect for travel, work, church, and date nights!

Life was pretty hectic the last week but Cody made it all better the second he came home with these BEAUTIFUL sparkly spring flowers. He is such a sweetheart always thinking of me!

Last weekend we celebrated my moms birthday! We all had a blast going out to eat, on a walk, seeing Beauty and the Beast, and playing board games. It is a blessing every second I can get to spend time with my mama and Morgan!

We all went to Cody and I's church on Sunday and had a blast. I love worshiping all together!

Next weekend we will be going to my nephews 3rd birthday and the following weekend we will be volunteering for the egg hunt for the little children at our church. The following weekend after Easter my dad and whole rest of the Dyar side are going to be at the orange and white game and spend a fun weekend together at Nana's house! 

With so much love,

Kayla Raborn

4-2-17

My Famous Smoothie Recipe!!

Delicious Smoothie Recipe!!!

*color may not always be appealing but doesn't reflect true delicious-ness

Would you like to know one of my favorite smoothie recipes of all time!?! Now I am by no means an expert smoothie maker but I have always wanted to be able to make amazing smoothies that I would actually eat! From my 15 year old self and up, I learned how to eat healthy and that your food choices can positively or negatively impact your body. I became health conscious and really learned how good quality foods can help your body function, and how each food impacts your body! 

So I always envied those perfect smoothies and delicious looking recipes but didn't know how to make them, and I didn't want to make unhealthy ones (because most are) and/or I always made them wrong! 

I haven't tried to make many smoothies because of how disastrous they have always turned out and let me tell you, for me, 'just add ice' for thickness NEVER worked. Either my blender was bad or too good and the smoothies turned out thinner than water.

If you are looking for an extremely healthy minimal calories smoothie that tastes out of this world, there are a few things you will need before you even get started on ingredients!

So first of all lets talk blenders.....

You need a good blender period. It is the difference between a good smoothie and a bad one. If you have a poor blender, you will never have a good smoothie. Splurge and spend that extra money upfront to buy a good blender so you don't waste money buying and re-buying ingredients because you think you made the smoothie incorrectly. Trust me. Now I personally have the magic bullet which is incredible. Absolutely incredible. I don't know about many other brands but do your research. I hear Nutribullet is great too!

Second of all, know your ingredients. When you look up smoothie recipes online, there will always be added sugars and unhealthy items in their ingredient list that is 'mandatory' for taste. Well that is not the case at all because what is a smoothie? FRUIT. What does fruit naturally have? SUGAR. And lots of it! Why do you think people who suffer from diabetes can't have a lot of fruit? So that means if you even have a little bit of fruit, that's all the sugar you will need. Period. If recipes tell you to add honey, actual sugar or other sweeteners, or chocolate, something is wrong. Stick to the basic foods found in nature as best as possible. 

Ok enough talk, this wasn't even supposed to be a chatty post but that's me. Here is my personal recipe that is the only smoothie I will eat truly.

Post Workout Dream:

Huge handful of baby spinach ~1 cup

1 small 5oz container of PLAIN Greek yogurt                                              (can be flavored but that means extra sugar 😬)

1 full cup of frozen fruit                                                                      (may be a little taller than the rim of the measuring cup)

1 frozen SLICED banana                                                                   (The banana is extremely important for thickness )

1/4 cup Trop50 OJ                                                          (Tropicana 50 calorie orange juice because it has only half the sugar)

makes 1 serving (about 12-14oz) 

Approximately 300 calories or less (great for post workout especially if you want to add a scoop of your favorite vanilla protein powder for extra protein. But remember that will add an extra 100-150 calories to your smoothie which is ok, just warning you)

So here is the break down:

1. So to make your smoothie, start with your base; this is something substantial, or the most flavorful part of the smoothie which is the fruit. I usually use frozen cherries, raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries. And for the frozen banana, try slicing it before freezing to make slicing easier for you. You could even add protein powder also on this step. Don't quote me on this, I have not tried adding protein powder yet and I assume you would need more OJ for it to blend at all.
2. Next, add your binding agent which kind of holds the smoothie ingredients together, if you want to think of it that way, which is the yogurt and the Orange juice. 
3. Then add the fun stuff or extras. I consider the spinach the fun stuff because you can add as much spinach as you please to help get in your veggies for the day, and you honestly can't taste it AT ALL. I have put up to 2 cups of spinach in and it's true, you can't taste it at all in the smoothie because of the sweet fruit! Something else you could try is peanut butter. That might be weird to some because it is a smoothie not a milkshake but I am saying this for all the peanut butter lovers out there including myself! The only problem is the extra calories. But if you want to avoid that I suggest PB2! You can find this in the peanut butter isle at Walmart. PB2 is powdered peanut butter, perfect for smoothies and is only less than a fraction of the calories of a serving of real peanut butter. And it tastes great! PB2 is only 45 calories per serving compared to 190 of the normal peanut butter. 
4. Now I am still new to the smoothie world, so I will start finding new yummy healthy recipes by trial and error in the future but for now I am quite please with my smoothie. Anyway you can always modify my current recipe or any others you find to spice things up! Think of how many different fruit options there are for example and go from there! Have fun with it!

Literally post workout enjoying the delicious-ness

Enjoy! 

Kayla R.

3-26-17

P.S. I am trying to add a little variety to my blog especially since the wedding is over, I don't have any kids, and many of you may not know me and my family. So I am trying to add what I would like to see if I was someone from the outside looking in! I hope to start adding a variety and you can find a topic you like and I can write more about it! I love writing so much so I would love to share!

Topics in the future:

Faith

Workouts

50 things about me

My story

My dreams

Shopping wishlists

Engineering talks

New Job and Working Life!!!

Hey guys! Sorry for keeping you in the dark a little bit about my job hunting search but guess what?!?! I GOT A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so incredibly thrilled to share that I have a job after 4 months of searching! I work at Shaw Industries as an Operations Management Trainee Engineer as part of the innovation group! I am so incredibly proud of myself, my new company, and more specifically my plant! I love the people, and what i'm doing, and everything about it! I work wonderful hours, everyone is so nice, and it is so incredible to finally see my hard work in school finally pay off! 

I didn't want to mention anything until it was official and now it is!! I had fun finding work clothes and learning about the safely gear I will have to wear every day, and was nervous out of my mind for my first day on February 20th but really had nothing to worry about! The Operations Management Trainee program works by us trainees finding our niche in the company after many area rotations and after 3-9 months, applying to hire on with that specific position we find that we like! I think that is genius!

*Now just a little disclaimer for the near future, I like to keep my work life and home life completely separate and I will hardly ever mention or discuss anything about my job from here on out, so that is why I wanted to dedicate a whole blog post about my new job now so you are informed also! :)

My first day! I was so proud of my badge!

Every day to work for my safety, I have to wear ear protection, my hair up (and hair nets sometimes), safety glasses, a visibility vest above, steel toed boots, no jewelry whatsoever (no not even my wedding rings 😭😭😭 but that's ok, I'll get over it) and long pants. 

I also got a Shaw hot chocolate mug which I am going to use every day since it has gotten so cold in the recent weeks! I was given the mug with candy and a Shaw fortune cookie dipped in white chocolate and blue sprinkles as shown below! I am proud of my mug!

I also got a beautiful pink Shaw hat (sorry for the mirror image backward letters) that I will wear so so much since I am a big hat person!

The other day Shaw celebrated their 50th anniversary of their company and I feel so lucky to be hired in on their 50th! The company celebrated it's employees in the Dalton convention center with games, key note speakers, virtual reality tours, door prizes, and gift shops! It was good experience for me to be in Dalton because I will be traveling a little bit all over Georgia in these next few months of being an OMT. 

The weekend leading up to my first day of work, me, Cody, mom, Morgan, Edgar, and Nana all went to the UT family weekend basketball game which we won!!! And got to see an amazing half time show of the North Dakota acrobats team!

After the game to celebrate my new job, I got to pick our dinner restaurant and I chose a very fitting place, Calhoun's on the river, where Cody and I had our rehearsal dinner! It was very special and sentimental to us and just perfect! (if you know me, I love sentimental!) We also got seated at a table with an awesome view of the river!

Working Life: 

So adjusting to working life has surprisingly been fairly easy! I was very surprised how well I adjusted to waking up 5 hours earlier than I was used! I had to learn how to balancing relax time with the hours given after work before bed time. I also had to learn how to balancing errands and chores on the weekend along with working in vital Cody time such as hiking, working out, doing fun stuff together! Between feeding the cows (for Cody's dad while he is recovering from knee surgery), to our volunteer hours, doctors/dentist visits, church events, bible studies, working long hours, Cody's football, and visiting family, Cody and I are NEVER home. We are there to sleep and eat and that's pretty much it and we are loving it! But with that being said, we are learning to prioritize and spend as much time together as we can!

So to implement our priorities ("us" time) we schedule to always workout together especially on Saturday night because that is our favorite thing in the world! We have so much fun together doing box jumps or free weights and we also love doing our marriage Sunday school class bible studies together during our workout breaks at the gym! No one is there and it very peaceful and special! It is a time to strengthen us physically and spiritually while we continue to grow closer together. I love spending time with my Cody!! The picture above is me climbing their monkey bar structure. I love climbing things and can't help it being an ex-gymnast! Fun fact: I was a gymnast for 8 years!

On Friday nights Cody and I get dressed up and go on a date night! This ensures that we spend quality time away from the house together at least once a week! This past Friday we went to dinner and saw the new movie Logan!

On Sunday's we like to hike or go on a walk! It is one of our favorite things to do together!! We love to talk and catch up on each other's lives even more during this peaceful time! ( I would have a picture of Cody but like i've mentioned before, he doesn't care for pictures lol)

Learning what my new normal is and balancing work life and family life has been extremely fun and I am just so blessed beyond belief to have been given this wonderful opportunity to grow and learn, and can now help provide for our little family! I can't wait to find my purpose in work and do great things! I am so excited!!

Love,

Kayla Raborn!

3-6-17