courtney rebecca

While I was gone at Kadesh, Jason went to New Orleans for his first conference with his new job. When we both got back, we were exhausted! We had a couple of days before... our friends Drew & Jared came to visit! We met Drew and Jared when Jason taught a U100 class at ACU when we were juniors. I helped out during Welcome Week and off and on throughout the semester. It was so much fun to get to help introduce new students to ACU! We've kept in touch with a few of the kids (right, kids and they're 2 years younger than us) in that group. Drew and Jared wanted a road trip destination, and we happen to live in an awesome place, so they came to visit. While they stayed for the weekend we went hiking, ate lots of good food, watched movies, AND introduced Drew to Arrested Development. We spent a lot of time just hanging out and talking. These guys are our kind of people!

We have some fantastic friends, both here and far away. It is especially wonderful when we get to see our friends from far away! Kyle and Elizabeth came to visit last weekend! They drove up on Thursday and stayed until Monday. We had three full days together and it was so much fun. I'm going to do a run down of what we did (to help me remember later!) and add a few pictures for you to enjoy! Friday: Breakfast at French Press, everyone freaked out over the bennies, drive to downtown, park on 16th st, walk walk walk, H&M!!!, shopping for dresses, futile belt search, Tattered Cover, walking back, back to the house, nap time, out for dinner, sushi appetizer, Baker St. for dinner, back to the house to watch Sherlock! Saturday: Breakfast at home, drive to get DayQuil and sleds, drive up to Evergreen and wow them with the view (you're not getting a pic, because I love to take people up there!), go ice skating on Evergreen Lake for 20 minutes because it was 50 degrees, skated...

I'm a terrible blogger. I think it's my addiction to Twitter and Facebook. I've already said everything there is to say! We went hiking on Wednesday up in Evergreen with our lovely favourite Denver friends, James & Loren. Yes, they're our friends from college, but they finally moved up here! We are so thrilled to have them here. It's like no time has passed at all since we last got to spend tons of time with them. Except we finally all have jobs, and we no longer live in Texas. Anyway, we went up to hike in Evergreen because it was close to 100 degrees in Denver. What?! I thought I moved out of Texas to get away from the heat! It was about 10-15 degrees cooler in Evergreen, so we were there. We hiked about 4 miles in the Alderfer/Three Sisters Park, and it was gorgeous. I'm so glad we went.

Decision: I'm going to start wearing my hair in pigtail braids again this summer. Look how cute Katelyn and I were in December 2006!

Today I am thankful for my librarian friends. We're all in a tough place right now with the budget cuts, but I have two really good librarian friends who are so wonderful. We're all supporting each other through this hard time, and we all want good things for each other! Today, my friend N's job, which we thought she was for sure going to lose, was posted for all applicants. That means that she can apply for it! And certainly her principal will have her back, because she's done a great job this year. I'm so thrilled for her opportunity, and I'm hopeful I'll be in the same situation soon. Our other friend L hasn't been so lucky... she's been pushed out of her job and she has to go teach in the classroom for three years before they'll let her back in the library. A tad ridiculous, as she's done such a good job this year. But whatever... Today I met up with N & L for happy hour at Baker St. Pub. It's so awesome how different we all are, ...

This has been a fabulous day for this Texas girl. Three things! First! Our dearest friends J&L have moved here! Well, L is here for good, and J will be joining her when he can get a transfer at work. But both of them are here this weekend, and I love it. I have been giddy all day, even when we were hanging out with them, just at the thought of them being here!! They are the most wonderful friends, and we have missed them so much since leaving Texas. L will be finishing up her pharmacy school rotations here, then she will be a pharmacist! How neat is that? I am looking forward to more time with them, starting with church in the morning, and continuing on with (I hope!) Thursday night TV nights and endless hangouts... ah, I love having friends that like doing the same things as me! Second! Since they are sweet sweet sweet, J&L brought me a half gallon of my very favourite food in the world: Blue Bell Ice Cream. I squealed over the ice cream almost as much as seeing them again for...

In my first year of teaching, I taught an AP Calculus class. I only had 5 students in the class because it was a really small rural school. Since it was such a small class, I became really close to my students. It also didn't hurt that I'm only five years older than these students. We could relate about a lot of things since we were so close in age, but I was still an authority figure for them. It was a really hard class, but we all worked together to get through it. It was absolutely nuts to have a first year teacher teaching the AP Calculus class, but we made it through! I'm now Facebook friends with all five of my students from that year, but I'm closest to one of them. At the school I taught at, every teacher would "adopt" two seniors to be their senior kids. I had a Senior Son and a Senior Daughter, both in my Calculus class. I still talk to my Senior Daughter, Kyla, pretty regularly. In fact, I've been texting her today! She is in college to be an el...

I had the best day yesterday. So in 4th grade, I met a girl named Elyssa. She was the coolest girl ever! We were best friends from just about the minute we met. We went to school and church together and spent just about every waking moment together that we could. I remember spending a TON of time at her house from 4th through 6th grade. I moved away after 6th grade, but we still kept in touch pretty well, and even went to camp together one summer in 1998 or 1999. But I haven't spent any real amount of time with her since then. She did come to my wedding with her husband, even though I had to miss hers for another one I was in on the same day. But seeing each other about 10 minutes in the last 10 years? Crazy! But yesterday, I got to spend the whole day with her. And it was awesome. Everything that made me love being her friend when we were 9 was still there. She's hilarious, nerdy, random, kind, goofy, and super fun. We like a lot of the same things, but still have enough diffe...