Courtney's 30th Birthday

Last Friday was Courtney's 30th birthday and I surprised him with a trip to Las Vegas for the weekend. He was suspicious that I had something planned and once he found out that we were going to Vegas he though that was it. But he was even more surprised to find that his parents were meeting us there as were our friends Chris and Lorin from Dallas! Here are a few of the pictures of our weekend!


umbrellas at the Venetian

with Courtney's parents in the lobby of the Golden Nugget

after dinner at Delmonico inside the Venetian (which we highly recommend if you're looking for a steak in Vegas!)

Kaye & Holt

Chris & Lorin

Click on the photo below to see the rest of our photos!

Courtney's 30th Birthday

A belated Christmas post

Since I am always behind on my blog posts I'm sure it doesn't surprise you that I'm four months late posting photos from Christmas, but nevertheless, enjoy!

The tree:
The table:

The snow:
Sally & I on Christmas morning:

And, Courtney & I bundled up for Christmas Eve service:

Dively 2010

I just wanted to post a couple of pictures of the black tie dinner that we attended on Friday night. Here we are outside of the country club. As you can see, springtime is beautiful here in Kansas City! Also, note that I am wearing the same dress I wore in Rene' & Chris' wedding last year - who says that you can't wear a bridesmaid's dress twice?
And this one is of me and my wonderful friend, Elizabeth who is also a PGY3 wife. We're over halfway done!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Last week I celebrated my 28th birthday! Courtney had to go to a conference in Orlando, FL during the week that wouldn't be over until Saturday (my birthday) so I flew down on Friday and we spent the weekend hanging out and enjoying the beautiful and warm Florida weather. (It was 85 and sunny there, while at our house in KC it was below 20 degrees!)

Here we are on Friday night at the mall where we at at The Cheesecake Factory.

On Satuday we spent the day at EPCOT. (Did you know that you get to go to DisneyWorld for free on your birthday?!)

Check out my cool Happy Birthday button that the Disney people gave me. It was great... every person I saw who worked for Disney (as well as a bunch of visitors) told me happy birthday.
We took this picture of the infamous 'grassy draw' so that Courtney's family could relive some wonderful memories from their first visit to DisneyWorld. If you don't know the story, then you should definitely ask Holt about it.

And here is a photo of Courtney hanging out at the Mexico pavillion.

Texas Tech v. Baylor

I thought I'd post a few photos from the Tech v. Baylor game in Dallas that we went to the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The game was a little iffy at times but we pulled it out and got to see the new Cowboys stadium as well (which is pretty awesome!).

The Fun Theory

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon this video on YouTube detailing a project to see how many more people would go up the stairs if it were made more fun and I loved it. The folks over at Volkswagen have apparently begun a project called The Fun Theory and are doing cool things like adding piano keys to stairs and sound effects to trash cans. Let me know what you think. It brought a smile to my face and I hope it does to yours as well.


And if you are interested in their other videos, check out www.thefuntheory.com

Over the past year...

I know, I know. I haven't posted to our blog in over a year; since last September actually. I've had many of you mention this to me since you've been checking to see if I've posted photographs or other interesting tidbits of our life - but I've been sorely neglecting our blog. Many days I think about updating it, but have sadly not gotten around to it, or have made excuses or simply didn't feel like posting a year's worth of posts.

And, if I did try to update you on the entire past year, I would need to write posts on our trip to Jamaica, and our cruise to the Bahamas (where we finally went scuba diving), and the holidays, and my two-week solo journey to England and Scotland... And that seems to be just a little bit too much to write, so I am starting anew and am going to attempt to be better at blogging and keeping everyone updated on our life from here on out.

And, if you are lucky and I am motivated, I might just post a few photos and stories from the past year in addition to what is going on in the here and now.

Watch This!

As someone who works primarily with eating disorders and body-image issues, I am so excited about the new Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. This is one of their videos.

Girls Trip to Austin & Fredricksburg

Last weekend I went with Rachel and Rene' to Austin for the weekend. On Saturday we went on a wine trail near Fredricksburg and had a wonderful time. (If you like Cabernet Sauvignon - try the reserve from Becker Vineyards!) At Becker we met a funny French man who had his eye on Rachel and stomped some grapes - Lucy style! Then we headed down the road to Torre di Pietra where we sat outside with a glass of Red Flirt and listened to the band. By the time we made it to Fredricksburg, most of the shops were closed but we did manage to stop in at one my favorite German restaurants - Altdorf's - so that I could get my Opa sausage fix. After all of that you'd think we were tired right? Well, Rachel was coming down with a cold but Rene' and I headed out to 6th street in Austin to hang out with my cousin Glenn and people watch. On Sunday we hung out in Austin - ate at the Magnolia Cafe on S. Congress and then browsed around the vintage shops and then explored the Austin botanical gardens as well. It was a great weekend and we had so much fun!

Click on the Picasa album for all of the photos!

Austin Girls Trip - August 2008

Red Raider Basement

1 coat primer + 5 coats TTU red paint + 1 can black paint + new tv stand and a slipcover + 3 weekends of work = our very own Red Raider basement. It may have taken us awhile (okay it took almost forever!) but the we have finally finished painting the basement and putting it back together again. One of our favorite parts of the room is the new TV stand as now we don't have to look at all of the cords hanging down and whatnot. We may add some other things to the walls and if Susan has her way we'll add some curtains as well but for the most part the room is done in time for football season. Let us know what you think.

Texas Tech Basement

Cookout time!

Well, obviously we have been slacking in the blogging department this summer, so I'll try to get things updated so you'll know what we've been up to. Back in June we hosted a cookout for the other residents and their families and had a great time seeing everyone and meeting the new Ortho residents. We also had some wonderful food! I'll go ahead and give a shout out to Megan for the salsa and lemon bars as they got tons of compliments - and I will concede to Courtney that many people wanted to try his spicy blue cheese burger, contrary to my original predictions. On any account here are some photos of the event:

Breckenridge, CO

This may be a little late for this post but I wanted to show off a really cool photo of Courtney taken by our friend Stacey Kelly. We spent several days at the beginning of March in Breckenridge, CO so that Courtney could get his fix of skiing (I spend most of the time relaxing and shopping) with Brendan and Stacey Kelly - our friends from Lubbock. When we get around to getting the rest of the photos developed (they are on my 35mm) I will post them as well.

The New Floor is Done!

Well, we spent the majority of Courtney's vacation time this month putting down new wood floors in the kitchen, dining room and utility room with the help of my parents who were willing to come up and lend a hand. We also painted the rooms as well. The utility room is now Burnt Almond and the dining room and kitchen are French Tarragon (Behr). Courtney and my dad also spray painted our chandelier so instead of an off white 80s light fixture, we now have a more modern one. We found the floors at Lumber Liquidators and got a good deal on a lot that they were almost out of. Although we were nervous about having enough of the flooring to do all three rooms, we ended up with one box left over. On any account the flooring went well and we are so happy to have the linoleum gone and new color on our walls! Please check out the picasa album below to see all the photos and let us know what you think!

New Floor

Renew Photos

For those of you who are curious to see where Susan works, you are in luck. As Renew hosted an open house a week ago to showcase the new expansion, we had some great photos taken of the offices to add to our webpage.

Susan's Office

Renew Waiting Room

Renew Group Room

You can also click on the photo below to see a web album including the other therapists' offices as well.

Renew

Susan is Online!

Now that Susan's transition to Renew is fully underway, she has created her own website. Let us know what you think!

www.susancowden.com

If you'd like to learn more about Renew Eating Disorder Recovery Center, the place where she'll be working, you can see them at:

www.renewkc.com

Happy Groundhog Day!

Reports say that the famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning, predicting six more weeks of winter. However, I'm putting my money on the groundhog from Georgia, Gen. Beauregard Lee, who says spring is on its way! I've had enough snow and cold weather for this winter!

Tastebook

I found this really cool webpage the other day called Tastebook. It is a recipe storage/cookbook maker site. Basically I can load all of the recipes I want to my free account on tastebook and can access them anywhere I have internet access. Then, when I am ready I can order an actual hardcover cookbook with my recipes in it. How many recipes you ask? up to 100 - But what if I don't have 100 recipes? Well, you can order it and they give you recipe credits and as you add more, they'll send you the pages to add to your cookbook. And that's not even the coolest part about it all. I can share my recipes with anyone (all you have to do is click on the link on the right to see what I've added so far) and if you have an account with tastebook you can add my recipes to your book or I could add your recipes to my book. Cool huh?

Anyway, I've only added about 7 recipes to my book so far but when I actually order the book I'll let you know how it turns out. Feel free to browse my recipes and let me know if you create your own tastebook so we can share recipes!

Christmas 2007

We got to host Susan's parents for Christmas this year at our house and we got to have a white Christmas as well. On Christmas Eve, Dianne made us enchiladas and we went to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at Pine Ridge and that was really nice. On Christmas day we opened presents and had a lunch of standing rib roast, potatoes with crunchy shit on top, fruit salad, dinner rolls and green beans. For dessert we had buttermilk pie, pecan pie and apple pie. All in all, we were able just to hang around the house and relax for a few days (except for the doorbell wiring project...) and show Dianne and Larry around the city. Here are a couple of photos from Christmas as well:

Getting Ready for Christmas!

Well, with Courtney being a resident, we are going to be spending our holidays at our new house this year. We hosted Courtney's parents, grandparents and great aunt for Thanksgiving and had a wonderful time! Food was eaten, dominoes were played and Dean checked out our carpet really well! And now, we're beginning to get ready to host Susan's family for Christmas. The tree is up and we have snow on the ground so we are definitely well into the holiday season. We are hoping that your holiday plans are going as well as ours are!

Texas Tech:34 - OU:27

Just in case you hadn't already heard/seen, the Red Raiders upset No. 3 ranked OU tonight! We just finished watching the game a little while ago and it is times like these that we miss Lubbock. In case you missed the game: http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/gameTrax?gameId=200711170086