courtney rebecca

(Apparently, I drafted this post at the beginning of August and never posted it. I'm finding it on November 9... Back-dating FTW!) And again, I've been a bad blogger. I hate to publish any posts without pictures, and I'm just not on our computer very much lately! I'm on the computer all day at work, so when I get home I'd rather do other things, or I just use my iPad. Well, here's what's been going on since I last posted at the end of April. We went to Colorado Springs for the CCU staff retreat. We got to stay at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort (for free!) and we could bring Kingsley. It was nice to meet all of Jason's coworkers, and the best part was when we had a break and Jason and I got to walk around the lake they had on site. So beautiful! We found a new church! We've been attending Bloom Church, and we love it. Our friends James and Loren have been going there too, and it's really fun to get to see them more regularly. We're thankf...

A few weeks ago, we finally painted our bedroom! We still have a ways to go in here, but it looks SO much better. If you don't remember, every single room in our house was painted the same dingy shade of cream/yellow. Gross. We had the main spaces and all the ceilings painted before we moved in, but we still have all the other rooms to do. We decided to do our bedroom first, since we spend the most time in there. Right before we started painting. Gross yellow. After painting! Bonus cute Kingsley on the bed. I used the flash in this picture. I wish I had more to show off, but we kinda took the room apart even more. We moved the headboard out because it wasn't attached to the bed (the bedframe broke in the move) and it was annoying. We plan to get a king size bed, and we have more art to add. We did put up a picture above the left side of the bed to try to even out that window. They aren't centered and there's no where else to put the bed.  We did get...

At the start of the year, I put one of my goals was to hike a 14er. Welllll that is probably not going to happen this year. Maybe next year. But we have been hiking a fair amount! At the end of May, we did a great hike to Maxwell Falls. We had been there before, but we  took the cliff loop rather than taking the path to the falls. We were so glad to make it to the falls this time! They were still a little frozen since it was May. It was pretty cool to see the moving water and the ice at the same time. There were a ton of people out there that day, and we even had a guy nice enough to take our picture together. Another noteworthy fact about this hike: I discovered I DO like almonds on this hike. Yes, I know I'm a nerd. I thought I didn't like almonds because they made my mouth itchy when I was a kid, but it turns out I do. Yum! Another note about this hike... it's a bit uphill on the way out. That is a little disappointing (also, hard) after you've already been hik...

I had no idea what we were missing out on by not having a yard the last few years. It is amazing to be able to step outside and enjoy our own little piece of Colorado. And Kingsley couldn't be happier! I know these flowers in our yard are weeds, but I think they are so pretty! I know it's blurry, but look at his eyes locked on his toy! So adorable. Pure joy when he plays outside! I never get tired of taking pictures of that face. He's just such a pretty boy. I was trying to take pictures of the flowers, so Kingsley had to check things out. While we were out playing yesterday, this squirrel was taunting Kingsley. He would get up in this tree and shake his tail. It was hilarious! A perfect morning. Dirty toes = a good time! And this is where we end up when we have dirty toes! Time to get out? Yesterday was really the first day that we wanted to spend much time outside. I know as the weather warms up and Spri...

Oh once again, I've been a very bad blogger. But I promise I've had a great excuse! Jason and I bought our first house! It was quite an ordeal to have it all work out, but we couldn't be happier that it did. Our amazing realtor Kari had a lot to do with making it all work! We first saw the house on February 2 on a Saturday afternoon. We had started looking a couple of weeks earlier, but we hadn't seen anything that we loved. We had narrowed down a list of what were must-haves in our house and what would be nice-to-haves. When we first looked at pictures of our house, all we saw were arches. Arches in the middle of the living area. Yuck. We almost didn't even come see the house, but we hadn't even seen Kari in a couple of weeks since there was NOTHING on the market, so we decided we would go look, just so we could see her and get to see another house. The front of the house. My car out front, and that's Kari's in the driveway. Wish it was a new c...

Earlier this week, I found out that this Saturday would be National Banana Bread Day. You know I can't resist any sort of reason to bake, and conveniently, I had three bananas ripe and ready to be made into bread! I've been working on making my baked good healthier by using better fats, whole wheat flour, and honey rather than sugar. I sneaked a little granulated sugar into this, but only for the topping and cinnamon swirl! So here you go! My very best recipe for banana bread... Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread! This is adapted from my very favourite recipe blog, Lovin' From the Oven . Just about everything I have tried from there has been amazing. Ingredients 3 ripe bananas 1/3 cup melted butter (salted or unsalted) 1/3 cup honey (raw, unfiltered, and local if you can find it!) 1 egg, beaten 1 tsp vanilla (or as much as you feel like pouring in) 1 tsp baking soda dash of salt (if you used unsalted butter) 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour 1/4 cup granulat...

When we drove to Texas for Christmas, Jason and I tried something that we hadn't before. We listened to an audiobook on the drive! I actually checked out 10 audiobooks so that we would have plenty of choices. A little overkill... We settled on Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I don't think we could have picked a better book for the two of us! It's set in the future, but it all centers around a massive treasure hunt inside an all-encompassing video game called The Oasis. The treasure hunt will give the winner control of The Oasis, but you have to be incredibly knowledgable about the game creator's personal favourites - classic video games and 80s pop culture. Perfect! Even better, it was read by Wil Wheaton. We are a big fan of him since he's kinda a super nerd. I would highly recommend this book if you are interested in video games or 80s pop culture. It was a fantastic book and so much fun for us to listen to on the road!