Happy New Year!! Happy New Decade!!!!
Here's to 2020!!! So much hope, so much peace, so much love for this decade to come. I am pumped and ready. But not ready for the fact that in 10 years I will be close to 37 years old YUCK😣 but hopefully with our precious 2-3 babies?!
Let's start this decade, year, and post with a little catch up from the last half of December, new Shaw job position, New Year celebrations, decade recap, and the house update!
House Timeline:
December 12th 2019: Cody had a significant foot surgery, non-weight bearing for 2 months.
December 17th 2019: The flooring was installed in our house.
December 22nd 2019: We got a rental agreement to move into the house before official closing.
December 24th and 26th 2019: We started moving boxes into the house *I packed and moved almost every single box* *INSERT BACK PAIN*
December 27th 2019: We hired movers to move the furniture in. We were able to stay in the house for our first night!!!
December 31st 2019: The movers drove more furniture down from my moms house.
January 12th 2020: We ( I ) feverishly unpacked our last box!
January 13th 2020: We FINALLY closed on the house! So surreal. Celebrate!
February 19th 2020: Our apartment lease is up and we will be 100% out of our apartment. Gotta clean clean clean!
March 7th 2020: We will finish building the house. We've been working hard to get that last 20% built, since, well, we are kind of living in an unfinished house.......
March 8th 2020: Family housewarming party.
We had our families Christmas's and spent almost every waking minute at home fixing up our house for 3 weeks straight. We are still fixing up our house and having the cabinet people finish our cabinets so we can unpack our 15 boxes of kitchen items on the floor of our kitchen, having our hot water fixed, air units fixed, holes in sheet rock patched, major gas leaks fixed, garbage disposal cleaned out after it was used as a receptacle for electrical wire, tape, spare metals, and screws, our front door stained (which we have been trying to get the guy to finish since August, seriously😤😤), the rooms painted, wifi installed, sidewalk repaired, trash can delivered, couch delivered, etc. New Years was big for us as we celebrated our new house. What a sense of accomplishment! I am so incredibly proud of us!
Let's also take a moment to pause and recap the last decade, here's to one of the most important decades of my life, here's to the 2010's:
2010: Finishing my junior year and the first year at East Hamilton, the new high school in the county. Wake boarded on my 16th birthday (which was technically 10 1/2 years ago).
2011: "Met", started talking to, and dated Cody. Graduated from East Hamilton as the first graduating class ranked #8. Started college at my dream school, UTK, in Biomedical engineering.
2012: Realized college is misery but go vols!
2013: Kept pushing through school and changed to Materials Science Engineering.
2014: Still in college, had the most amazing Oak Ridge National Laboratory internship over the summer!
2015: Got engaged to the love of my life 💓💓, was a graduate assistant at UT under one of my professors continuing x-ray diffraction study, Cody moved to Knoxville for student teaching at Farragut high/middle and graduated college.
2016: Cody moved to Chattanooga (meaning we would live there), got his first job as an interim teacher at Howard high, I graduated from UTK as a Materials Science Engineer. Finished our 5+ year long distance relationship, got married on June 4th, had an AMAZING Panama City Beach and Disney honeymoon. We moved into our apartment (unknowingly staying there for the next 4 years). Cody got his job at Brainerd high.
2017: I got the job of my dreams at Shaw Industries as an Innovation engineer (then LEAN, then process, then project engineer). I got LASIK eye surgery. Cody and I celebrated our 1st anniversary in a log cabin in Gatlinburg enjoying our cake topper! Cody got his job at Soddy Daisy High. December 26th we started the house building process.
2018: We bought our lot in Apison TN on April 23rd!!
2019: We broke ground April 23rd!!
2020: We closed, moved in, and finished building our house. Moved out of our apartment, and I got a dream position at central lab, my favorite place at Shaw, now in Dalton. We took many adventures, and will get our precious fur baby in the summer.
The last decade was so monumental in my life, I won't forget a second of it. I learned so much about myself, I grew up, and became the young adult I am now. I learned how to be patient, calm, and loving in every situation. I learned how to embrace change. I learned how important family was, I created my own family with Cody, and I learned that life is precious and to have as much fun as possible.
In the next decade, I will learn how to be selfless, and have more to love outside of myself (kids) and create a beautiful life worth living for us. I will cherish every precious moment God gives us, keep an open mind, stay close to God, not try to plan every aspect of my life out, and to look at every door opened. After the next 4 years are up, I will know that my life won't be revolved around waiting unlike the last 10 years of my life currently. I never want to live another time of my life just waiting waiting waiting waiting and WAITING. Because Cody and I set out to wait patiently on every single aspect of our life until the right time, (and doing things the right way) we have spent every day of every year WAITING on what was next for us that we needed so desperately and having to rely on others a lot of the time. Waiting on my drivers license, high school graduation, start of college, ending long distance from Cody, getting engaged, finishing college, getting married, moving into our apartment, getting a job, starting our house, packing our apartment up, finishing our house, traveling, getting a dog (5 months away :)), getting pregnant (2.5 years away Lord willing), having 2-3 children, earning money..... After 5 more years and we give birth to our second kid, I am done waiting. Not on anything. We will live life in the moment, every day, and every second. This is what I picture to be a wonderful life together.
For Christmas this year, Cody and I went without a single decoration as we were fully expecting to be in our house by then so once again, we sat around our typical coffee table playing Christmas music on our phones opening our presents to each other.
I got Cody a mini pool table, and a Lucy ornament for when we get our doggie and will have her running around the Christmas tree this time next year.
For Nana's Chrismtas, we went to the aquarium!
That pavilion is the place Cody and I fell in love! We were slow dancing at prom right there!
Dyar gang.
After 15 years, I FINALLY saw the penguins!!!
Most of the weekend was spent at our house playing games and helping us put stuff away. That was one of the most special Christmas's we had had in a good while.
The story behind the giant kit kat is that every year my family plays a football competition of who will win with the most guesses on the winners of the college football games. And almost every year I win. What can I say? I'm a realist.
I was so honored to win this year so as my prize, uncle Wade gave me this GIANT kit kat. It was actually quite touching.
Gigi's Christmas was special. We all made it (minus Jacob on his mission) which we weren't expecting, and got our matching pj picture, opened presents, played games, and I got to visit my dad one last time before he had to go back to New York.
Even Sashie got a stocking!!
Christmas morning stretches
For Cody's Nana's Christmas, we played the white elephant gift exchange and at sandwiches together!
The Raborn men, all boys, not a single grandaughter. So sad lol. I pray Cody and I can change that for the next generation.
The game.
New Years was so special, we had just moved everything in and sat down for the first time. We cracked open the sparkling cider and relaxed trying to picture the ball drop in our heads as we didn't have cable set up yet. Morgan enjoyed New Years at Edgar's house!
In the next few years I plan on writing even more blog posts that are more personable, telling some funny stories, keeping you in the loop when we start to expand our family, etc. I have big plans for this blog! I hope to keep you guys here and you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them!!! :)
Cheers to 2020!
With so much love,
Kayla Raborn
1/25/20
