Labor Day Weekend: Bass Lake Extravaganza

Finally! Here it is!

David will post a full album of pictures in our My Photos section, but, for now, here is a recap of Isaiah's first labor day weekend: *warning: a long post. lots of pictures. probably only interesting to family*

We went up to Bass Lake with my brother & his family, my parents, my sister Shannon & her kiddos & some family friends, the Theules & the Damatos. At one point, we had 30 people staying in the house! Heather & Donald couldn't make it, so we let her boys tag along with us. They were great babysitters on the long drive up.

My sister in law, Lindsey, grew up in this house. It is incredible- 3 stories, right on the water. What a gift it is when we get to go relax and play in the water.

Gracie steering Mr. Crab:

Isaiah is quite the fish- he loves swimming!

Grandma & Lily floating away to the Island:

Captain Isaiah: *my favorite pic of the whole trip:

Boat time! Lots of boat cuddles:

Lily was so excited, she fell asleep:

Isaiah loved the boat. He was not so sure about the life jacket at first, he really wanted to get out of it. But once the boat got going, he couldn't contain himself. He was jumping up and down, shouting and smiling as the wind hit his face. It was so adorable!

Grandpa taught him how to drive the boat:

Water fun:

I wish this picture was clearer, because it is hilarious. Every time Tyler signaled faster, Gracie immediately signaled lower.

Then they got brave:

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of us wakeboarding. David did a great job on the first day- I'll have to find those pics and post them. I however, did not do so well and actually hurt my back that first day on the lake. Not fun. Especially since I had to walk up and down stairs the rest of the weekend. So, my water fun was limited to swimming and tubing super slowly with my niece, Lily. The back is all better now thought :)

Here is a hunky pic of my hubby, with my nephew Andrew wakeboarding in the background:

Aside from the water, we had fun lounging around, helping Lindsey make some of her cute products, eating and playing games.

Me & my big sister, Shan:

This little island is out in the middle of their cove. On sunday & monday, it was like Havasu! Party central.

David's favorite picture of the Theule's little guy, Brady:

Isaiah got a lot of lovin from his cousins:

I can't believe that I did not get any pics of Isaiah & Silas. They loved playing together. Silas would run over and give Isaiah big bear hugs. It was so sweet! Linds or Shan- did you get any of the two of them?

Silly Isaiah, you are supposed to swat flys, not Aunts! (*my niece Amber has decided that she is Isaiah's auntie amber, not a cousin!)

Yummy shakes:

Isaiah & uncle sean:

What's wrong Amber? Too early? :)

Me & my gracie-o:

Some sweet family time:

We are missing a bunch of pictures, specifically from our hike up to bass lake falls. To see some of those, you can check out Lindsey or Shannon's blogs on the trip. I might post more once I get them from everyone.

We had such a great time- I wish I could go back right now! Lindsey & Jones': thank you for giving us the opportunity to get away and make so many great memories!

Happy birthday David!

Today is David's birthday! Yes, it is quite the week for us: back to back celebrations.

I am so excited to celebrate the love of my life. He is such an incredible man (see yesterday's post for some more info on that!). As one of his gifts, I am going to be giving him a note every day for the next year, listing a reason why I love him. I'll post them every once in a while.

Reason #1: I love the joy & excitement he gets over the smallest things. It is contagious. Anyone who knows this and has ever heard him talk about, well, anything that he is excited about knows what I mean (chipotle, a new album, a good cup of coffee, etc).

my fork is dirty. happy birthday babe!

3 years

**Note: this was written yesterday (9.9) but wasn't posted until today due to internet issues.**

Three years ago today, we celebrated our love & commitment with our closest family and friends- 400 of them!

I love my hubby and am so blessed to be able to be his wife! He is incredibly compassionate, funny, humble, authentic, intelligent, loving, goofy, passionate and entertaining. It feels like we have been married for way more than three years and I cannot wait to see what God has planned for our family in the future. I always tell my newly engaged friends that "marriage is the best thing ever". It honestly is- we have loved every minute of it. It has been fun, challenging, encouraging, growing & so reflective of the relationship we are designed to have with the Lord. What an incredible gift God has given us! And now that our family has grown to 3, we have even more to celebrate &  be thankful for. Seeing each other learn how to be a parent has been so amazing!

Here are a few photos from our wedding day, by Docuvitae:

Happy anniversary babe! I love you!

Cha-Ching!

    Okay, so still no labor day weekend pics... I'll get around to it soon. Well, maybe not so soon. Wedding tomorrow. Worship team retreat sunday. Working monday. Leaving tuesday for anniversary/birthday getaway with David. Meetings & Sara B/Maroon5/Counting Crows concert thursday. Meetings and photo shoot with J* friday. Meetings in the morning saturday and then... what? Some free time- amazing!

and I had been telling people that things would slow down after this weekend.

Anyway, the point of this picture-less post is to share my joy with finding some great deals today. I ran errands for about two hours and in that time the following happened:

*Isaiah and I were on a date at the mall. I went to get some dinner in the food court. Ordered my pizza, salad & diet coke, only to find out that I only had $5 cash on me and my total was $7 (Oh ya, my wallet got thrown away last week. That is another story for another day). I ask the cashier if I could pay with a check, explained what happened. After telling me that they do not take checks, he presses buttons on the cash register for a good 30 seconds then smiles and says "That will be $3.65". How awesome is that? It made my sub-par pizza and flat diet coke taste incredible because of his unnecessary generosity.

*Found a black dress I loved at Macys. Yes, black. As if I need another black article of clothing. But it was on sale and I decided I really would wear it a lot. So, I take it up to purchase it- even cheaper than it was marked. A super cute black Hurley dress for $14. I'll take it!

*My purpose in going to Macys was to find David a pair of jeans. *note- this is extremely necessary. He has 1 pair and it has a large hole in the knee. He thinks it's cool. I think he is retreating back to the 90's. I did not have much luck, then decided to go into American Eagle for one last chance (NOTE: I have not been in American Eagle since my freshman year of college. What lured me in? The big sign that said "free movie tickets if you buy any pair of jeans. I figured it was worth a shot). Found a pair in his size that are somewhat stylish for $14.95. Plus a free movie ticket. That makes them about $5 :)

*I then later realize that I have to run to Target because we are out of diapers. I also find out that I have to pick something up for my wedding tomorrow. As I was rushing through the baby section grabbing diapers (rushing because our wonderful friend Jon graciously offered to stay at my house with sleeping isaiah so that I could get these things done while David had a concert), I saw a cute pair of jammies, which Isaiah really needs. $6, not too bad. When the cashier rings them up, it is not reading it. So, she does what all lovely Target employees do in this situation, manually enters in that the cost of the pjs is $2.99. Score!

While this was a nutty evening, I thoroughly enjoyed these little treasures. May you run across little bargain gifts in your shopping this week :)

high school english teachers of mine: please ignore the fact that I changed tenses frequently throughout my rambling. It's late and I'm the mom of a 10 month old during a wedding weekend. Grammar is forgivable at this point, I believe!

Big money, big money!

My friend Jenetta has two fun blogs called Frugal, Sweeps & Deals & Frugal, Freebies & Deals. She lists sweepstakes, coupons, freebies and deals multiple times per week. If you are in to this, definitely check them out.


This logo button makes me laugh because we just spent the weekend up in Bass Lake with my family and some friends. My brother's business partner, Chad, frequently said that he was going to "get his ____ on" *enter anything in the blank. Common ones were "snack", "lake", etc.

Small history fact about me: In college, I often procrastinated by entering sweeps online. David would always make fun of me. I never won anything...
There have been a couple of nights in the past couple of months when I've been sucked back into my old habits *maybe I'll win one now!* Don't tell David though :)

Lots of pictures and updates coming this week, once I download pictures from our camera.

Is it really September already?

~Courtney