Happy 2018 everyone! Hopefully by now have all learned to write 2018 since it's already February but the reality is we probably haven't😂 I know I haven't yet😅. I hope 2018 has continued to be the start of a great year for everyone. I wrote a 2017 recap of the last year but realized I forgot to post about the actual 2018 New Year celebrations! Silly me! They were too good to forget to blog about so here we goooo!
So on New Year's Eve, my Mom, Edgar, and Morgan all came over to our apartment for a little celebration. New starts and new beginnings are always so exciting. I think the new year brings opportunity for everyone to improve, start fresh, and make new mindsets and personal goals. So why not celebrate?! My family LOVES celebrations if you hadn't figured out already ha.
The three of them showed up to our apartment around 6:30pm and brought rotisserie chicken, veggies and ranch, and apples with caramel dipping sauce. PERFECT for a small get-together. We munched on our snacks as we watched the Times Square celebration and performers.
We then gathered in the den to play some board games and reflect on the previous year and anticipate the following year. This year is so exciting with lots of plans coming up, the best being Morgan's college graduation this Christmas! Boy are we not counting down the days until December 14th! I am so proud of Morgan!
Around 11:30pm everyone left to avoid being on the roads at the same time as the drunks and Cody and I got to bring in the New Year together just as our own little tiny family with sparkling cider in our hands! It was very special and romantic. It is always imperative to come together every few weeks, have a heart-to-heart, join hands, and smile together as our life unfolds before us, and our marriage continually strengthens as the years go by. I sure do love that man.
5...4....3....2...1... !!!HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
May 2018 be the best year yet!
So moving on to the next day, New Year's day evening...We went over to spend time with Cody's family around dinner time to enjoy each other's company and eat this AMAZING fondue meal that my mother-in-law had planned! So Jamie had been talking about making a Melting Pot-like meal for a while but I didn't quite understand the time, effort, and dedication she was going to put into it. When we walked in around 5:30pm, there was a salad bar (with like 20 toppings), a bread and veggie station (with different cubes of bread and different vegetables) for the cheese fondue, a meat section (with steak, chicken, and shrimp) with vegetable broth and beef broth to cook in, and last but certainly not least, the dessert station (with cut up fruits, peanut butter balls, cakes, cookies, and donuts) to dip into Ghirardelli chocolate fondue. To say I was blown away was an understatement. I didn't know what to say. It was MORE than the Melting Pot and 1,000X more than my expectations. Jamie worked 6 1/2 hours to set all of this up and had planned and prepped for it for weeks. I was so extremely impressed and excited. Once it was all set up we dug in with the first stop, the salad bar.
My personal favorite station was the bread and veggie station. I LOVE bread (don't tell anyone), and I LOOOOVE cheese. Both are bad for my cholesterol but I can't help it.
The meat station was Cody's favorite, it was really fun cooking each bite of meat to perfection because I like to burn mine as Cody says ;).
And my close second favorite, the dessert bar. The pound cake pieces and cut fruit dipped into the luscious Ghirardelli chocolate was heaven. I probably ate mostly dessert and cheese that day :D.
Clean up was easy when we all came together, and the meal itself was a wonderful experience and gave us lots of time to chat! Thank you Jamie!:)
Moving on to actually right after Christmas, before New Years. I never posted about a gender reveal party I went to! My cousin and his wife found out they were expecting around September (after 3 years of marriage) and didn't find out the baby's gender until a few day's after Christmas. My cousin found out, along with his wife's friends, and placed the correct blue or pink balloons in the box. The only ones who didn't know were Laura and everyone else.
We all started piling into the apartment complex clubhouse and were welcomed to blue and pink themed everything. We wore the beads we thought the baby was and wrote it's birth date guesses and gender down in a book. I helped my aunt plan the party and the ideas used. (I have soooo many ideas for things like this and you better believe I will be planning my own gender reveal party one day with all of my ideas and I WILL know the gender before-hand. It will just be a surprise for everyone else :) sorry. #cantdosurprises).
Team pink or team blue?
And the box is opened.... and IT'S A BOY!!!! I knew it! I always knew it was a boy! (*fun fact about me, I am actually very data/research savvy and spent months tracking, charting, and researching gender (scientific) predictions (for everyone in my family expecting) and it was a CLEAR, CLEAR, boy for them. Unfortunately for them, they will be having all boys, sorry guys). So we all knew when they opened the box they would yell out the name that went with whichever gender the baby was, and when they opened the box to blue balloons they shrieked and yelled, James Elijah Dyar (will be called Eli). I was very pleased to see my scientific prediction to be correct and excited to see the name. Very good choice.
*But what I didn't know was if it were a girl, they were going to name their potential baby girl the name Cody and I picked out. We have had that name picked out for our child for over 5 years. That is not ok in any realm. That is the ultimate form of betrayal to me. My kids will be my world. That is one of the reasons we are actually waiting to have kids so we can be 100% prepared and save up as much money as possible to be able to give them everything they need in their life. It's hard to wait in life and even have the maturity/ability to do so, but when you do wait for Gods plan and not your own, the rewards are great. So when they told me that, it was the ultimate betrayal and the future mama bear in me came out.They figured just because they had the first child, they had first dibs and it wouldn't matter. That's not exactly how it works. It's a good thing they had a boy. Don't cross me. 😡
That is not typical of me, and I am NOT confrontational, mad or mean in any way to anyone, but when you make it personal....😒I don't shy away.
First business trip:
Now onto my first business trip opportunity, a few days after new years, my boss came to me and asked if I would be willing to travel to Wisconsin with one of my coworkers for product development. Of course I jumped at the opportunity and left the next Monday morning to the frozen tundra of Wisconsin for a week.
I was all packed and ready to go with my run sheets pre-made and laminated, and all the winter clothes I could find.
We flew out of Chattanooga in a small plane and had a layover in Charlotte, NC. The sky was absolutely breathtaking.
We worked 16 hour days and I learned how to withstand -7 degree weather. Wonderful growing opportunities for me, definitely.
It didn't actually get extremely cold until the last two days but we unfortunately caught the beginning of a snow storm.
Back home Sasha was enjoying her first snow as an adult dog and she loved it! She couldn't get enough of it and kept eating it haha. Who knew it was actually going to snow back at home too! The first snow of the season!
On Friday we headed home and had a layover in Chicago and Texas and JUST missed the brunt of the bad weather. I am very thankful for that trip!
Once I got home, Cody was extremely glad to see me (as I was to see him) and I almost immediately ordered a new luggage that actually had a working handle ha. I love the teal blue color and am extremely grateful for Morgan to let me borrow her pink luggage that I broke 😓, sorry sis.
Life update:
So after the trip, I had a little bit of a hard time adjusting back into life's normal routine but was also happy to be back with Cody. We went on a date night and spent a lot of quality time together running important errands and drinking Starbucks.
On that Saturday morning I made Cody a new recipe I had found on Pinterest on one of my 5, three hour flights. The bacon egg cups were a hit and super easy to make! Literally 2 ingredients! Bacon was wrapped around the muffin tin and an egg was cracked in the middle, all on top of PAM.
Last weekend I put my essential oils diffuser to good use when Cody was stressed out and needed energy for the papers he had to write for his online masters degree. For an essential oils stress blend concoction, drop 3 drops of rosemary, lemon, and peppermint essential oils into the diffuser, plug it in, and reap the benefits of the energizing mist produced!
I love the unexpected blue hue that was also a neat feature to the diffuser.
So after setting the diffuser for Cody, I got out of his hair and headed to my local greenway for some fresh air and to reconnect to nature. I LOVE the outdoors; especially when it is a little chilly outside. I spent like 2 1/2 hours here :).
On Sunday after church, I really wanted to use one of my gift cards that I had gotten for Christmas from Gigi. So I went to TJ Maxx and got this gorgeous purse and raspberry lotion, perfect for Valentines day coming up! I was so excited to spend the gift card and finally get the perfect purse I had been wanting! Thank you Gigi!
With so much love,
Kayla
2-4-17
P.S.- I am thinking about making a post about me and Cody's near future plans because we have some exciting things coming down the line and I can't wait to share! Also I plan to make 2018 a little more real and posting about what 20-somethings can go through in life and growing closer to God through lifes trials and tribulations while growing in his path for you. Just feel like sharing :).
Thank you for always reading my blogs! It means the world to me! If you know me personally you know I am an extremely real person, passionate, and genuine. I am kind to really everyone I meet and am actually a little bit shy. This blog is my outlet to let the thoughts out that I am often too shy to share around others. Like always, welcome to my blog!
