courtney rebecca

To celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary, Jason and I took a little weekend getaway down to Colorado Springs at the beginning of August. Neither of us had been, so it was fun to get to be tourists together! On Thursday night we dropped Kingsley off with his friend Charlie and drove down to the Springs. We had a bit of trouble getting checked in, but once we had the right room, it was great! We went to dinner at a little French place that I saw on Yelp and it was amazing! It couldn't have been a better start to our weekend away. We also got some Black Forest cake from a bakery there, since that was the flavor of Jason's groom's cake. Friday morning we got up and drove to Manitou Springs to get on the cog railway for Pikes Peak! We rode the railway up the mountain and it was so cool. We could watch out the window the whole way. It took about an hour and a half to get up there. We got to stay at the top and take pictures for about 45 minutes, then we rode back down. ...

I am so proud. After over a month of working on it (off and on), I finally finished my first quilt! For some reason I was having anxiety about quilting and especially binding it, but it ended up being totally fine. I don't know why I was so worried. It turned out great! Mission accomplished... he likes it!

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!

I went to ACU Leadership Camps every summer for 12 years in a row. TWELVE YEARS. The last two, I was on staff. Camps was a huge part of my life, and it was where I did a lot of spiritual growing up. I can genuinely say that camps changed my life. The only thing I never got to do for camps was be a group leader. My sister was on staff this year, and my dad planned to go lead a group so he could be there and spend some time with her. It worked out perfectly for me to fly down (with them, since it was the week after they were here) and lead a group with him! It's hard to describe what Kadesh (the high school camp) really is. It's not exactly a fun camp. You are in a small group with 8-10 other kids and 2 adult group leaders. And you study the Bible. In the afternoon, you do service projects. And you worship worship worship as a camp. It's amazing. Kadesh is set up in a way that you get to know people really fast and really REAL. It's incredible to see the way God wor...

The month of July was absolutely nuts. And it all started off with a wonderful visit from my parents and sister! The three of them arrived on Tuesday, early in the morning. I picked them up from the airport and took them to our little house! We spent the rest of the day running errands and shopping. It was so much fun to just be with them. We went to Costco, which is becoming somewhat of a regular occurrence when they are here. The highlight of the day was our visit to the Apple Store! My sister got a new MacBook Pro, my mom got an iPad, and we got an iPad as well! We were completely surprised when my parents bought the iPad for us! It was so sweet. That first night they were here, we took everyone out to one of our favourite restaurants for Indian food. It was so much fun to have them try some of our favourite food with us. On Wednesday, it was Fourth of July! Jason got to stay home from work, so we decided to do the classic burgers at home. We spent most of the morning walki...

"In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up . You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you." Matthew 5:48, The Message. Blowing my mind right now. Lord, teach me how to live my God-created identity. Teach me what it means to live as your child.

I finished my first quilt top today! I think it turned out pretty cute. Now the only thing left to do is baste it, quilt it, and bind it. Ha, only. I did forget to buy binding fabric and backing fabric when I bought the original fabric, so I'm going to have to wait until it gets here to do it. I'm thinking of the back being all the polka dot fabric, but with a cream background instead of black. And then the binding I'm thinking... yellow. Or maybe green. I wanted red, but I couldn't find anything that worked. I probably won't finish this until the end of July, since my family will be in town next week and then I'm going back with them to Texas the following week. I'm sure I'll have plenty of things to blog about between now and then though. For now, it feels amazing to have made (half of) something that looks like a real thing!