Living Simply: Free Spending your time and Money on What Matters Most!

Howdy to my friends here surviving this cold winter weather! I hope you are all staying warm and toasty-- and avoiding as much of the cold and sick weather as possible! :)

This past weekend, I had the immense pleasure of joining my InterVarsity group and other surrounding chapters to attend a weekend conference on "Free: Spending your Time and Money on what Matters Most!"

The conference had a lot of eye openers to me. Some of the few points I took away from the conference are the following.. 

• Stewarding in your Neighborhood

-- This section reminded me of how we all can steward for God's Kingdom right where we live, right in the situations we are involved in, right in the midst of our family's, friend's, coworkers, neighbors, strangers and etc! 

• Jesus was Counter-Cultural

-- We went over a few chapters in Mark where Jesus said "Let the Little Children Come to Me" -- Telling the Pharisee's that Moses wrote the bill of divorcement because of their hardness of hearts--- and the story of the rich man who went away grieving because he didn't want to give up all his stuff.

• Living Simply

-- This was a huge point in the conference. Our speaker actually was a great example of living simply. The clothes he was wearing, he actually found on the street in his home town [[and they actually looked good]]!! There's a lot that I learned but honestly I don't have the time to write a huge blog post on it! But I'd be happy to share personally more with you if I have an opportunity to speak with you! 

Please take a moment and check out our speakers website!! He probably has some great information on there regarding the topics we went over!!

http://markscandrette.com/ 

Since pictures tell a thousands words, and I don't have time to write 1,000... Here are some pictures from the conference:: 

Beth, Sophie, Courtney, Aaron, Robbie, Tyler

Sophie does handstands wherever she goes and takes pictures of herself doing them! 

The middle picture is us with our speaker (and his clothes that he found on the street in San Francisco).

This is just another disorganized group photo shot! ;D hehe! 

Overall, it was a fun weekend. I learned a whole lot and had a good time fellow shipping... and I am looking forward to an upcoming skiing and Salsa times! ;D 

Kopp's Custard

Last Monday night after my speedskating class, my dad and my mom decided we would go to Kopp's Frozen Custard to get some dinner! 

Kopp's is located in several areas in Milwaukee and has delicious food! 

Here is a picture of the inside of the place...

Now obviously, the best part of all- was pulling up and seeing this line of dairy cows!! WOW!!! :) So, I was super excited when I saw this and I had to take a picture to share with my farm fairing friend (Mary El)!!

I thought that [[Mary El]] would especially enjoy seeing this. 

I will take you here someday if you want!!

And of course, you can't leave this place without getting some fresh squeezed milk! Yum Yum ;D

!! 

PS! Here is a picture from my Speed Skating Class::

This is me and a very nice {much more talented} speed skater from home state of New York!

Respect for the Aged Day Japan

It's always neat to learn about Holidays celebrated in different countries. In this video, you will learn about the Japanese Holiday "Respect for the Aged Day" celebrated on the 3rd Monday in September.



Enjoy! Please tell me what you think of the video- feedback is appreciated for future postings !! :)

Rope Jumping!

Camerens Birthday!

This weekend, we got the exciting opportunity to host a birthday party for a little girl at our church - who just turned seven years old. It actually worked out perfectly since her dad happened to be in the hospital this day. :) The house was full of excitement with tons of screams from lots of little cheery girls! I'll never forget the excitement that came from Cameren's mouth as her friend arrived in our driveway! She was absolutely shrieking with excitement as she was calling out her friends name. How precious, what a gift to be able to experience. 

We came up with a lot of different little games to keep the girls busy at the party- and help channel their energy (although probably not channeled quite as much as it could have been!). This is my first "masterpiece" that I drew for the party! Haha! My mom came up with the game "Pin the Ponytail on the Girl" so I voluntarily decided to draw this "magnificent" picture for the event. Cameren mentioned, "I think this girl is me because the balloon says Happy Birthday". 

This is her little sister Lexi- she is wearing the beautiful yellow "ponytail" that we used for the game. The ponytails came in all different colors, so each girl got to pick the color they wanted. We had green, purple, pink, yellow, blue. They actually are pretty "stylish'. :) 

This is one of the girls playing the game; she was pretty close- however I actually played and got the closest, but we gave the "prize" of a jumprope to the birthday girl. We also played jump rope in the house which was fun. Surprisingly, only Cameren knew how to jump rope! 

This is a picture of the party spread. I got the little plates and napkins from the Christian bookstore by our house. It's actually closing, so I got them for a really great deal. The little pink and purple bags I found at the dollar store. It was only 2 dollars for all six of them. :) 

Of course children who play hard are hungry, so we decided it would be a good idea to fuel up the kids on some McDonalds before hand. All of them ordered chicken nugget meals! 

Lexi is holding up a little white swan. It's a little hard to make out what is is in this picture. She really loved that swan; she kept holding it up whenever we were doing things. Also, the little umbrella in her other hand was a tiny "party" favor we threw in the girls bags. They really liked that; and most planned to use them for their dolls. 

I am surprised we were able to get a group photo of the girls. They were scrambling around so much! Here's a pretty nice one. The picture is supposed to be them with mustache's :) ! 

 Above: Lexi, Kierra, Cameren, Giovanna, Lexi

 My 2nd cousin Lexi wanted to take pictures a lot, so she took this one of me and little Lexi. 

 And.. here is the last picture of the beautiful birthday girl! I printed this one out for her dad and put a cute little border around it. I think he will really like seeing it; and the girls both had so much fun, so I'm glad that we were blessed enough to be able to celebrate such a special event in Cameren's life. :)

God bless and have a wonderful week! :)
Courtney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WdNjx3YLR48#t=0

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

This is a video I had to watch for class, but I'm really glad I watched it! It is very interesting.



If you have time take a look at this video!

REMINISCENCE...

I was just thinking about the old conference days... and I remember singing this joyous song! It's the first time I ever heard it.. and I loved it.

Funny Pets.

This is a video of my dog Ruby.. she's eating out of an ice cream container... with a little technical difficulties. haha! 

Semester Started

Well, it's the first week of classes (for me, of course everyone else started last week), and I'm super glad to be back in school. It's nice to be able to connect with people around my same age group that like to go out and do things. I connected with the Intervarsity (Christian group) on campus. We have it every Monday; and we sing songs- and read scripture and study God's word together. It's pretty awesome- and great testimony to the college. It's amazing to be able to know that as we sing "The Lord our God is never failing" and it is being proclaimed through the outside walls of our room into the main hall where students walking by can hear us singing about our great God! It's really amazing! Also- they have this big rolling sign they take around for witnessing- it contains things that says "what would you like to be more of" And it would say things like more friendly, less afraid, more confident etc; and then students pick which one and put there name on the sign- and then they share a verse in the Bible that relates to what they picked. I thought that was so cool!

Also-- I was able to get together with some newly found friends (and one old) and play basketball together with them. I haven't picked up a basketball in nearly two years- so it was definitely fun to get back out on the court, and yet it was very tiring and sore! In fact, I jumped up to smack the ball out of someones hands and I ended up running right into the bleachers- and my whole right shoulder and upper arm is so sore and now starting to bruise up a bit. I had to shower with one hand this morning! The guy who was defending me in basketball must not have been too familiar with the game- because he gaurded me on offense and defense! My dad asked me why I didn't shove him out of the way, and I explained to him that he was a body builder and he could lift 450 pounds. WOW.... he's just about my height too! I can't believe someone can lift that- but anyways!

SO! It's been interesting meeting new faces and interacting. I'm praying so hard I don't get sick though-- because I feel some of this upper-respiratory stuff going on :( and I really don't want to deal with it. I hope it goes away.

I'm keeping baby Leela in my prayers. I pray for her daily. :)

Lots of Love,

Courtney

2014 Sochi Olympics!

WELL! It's the 2014 OLYMPIC TIMES in SOCHI RUSSIA!!!
What an exciting time!!
This year was the first year EVER that I actually watched the opening ceremony! - and BOY, was it quite the surprise! It was so exciting to see all of the different countries represented, their country flags and their people! I was a little disappointed by the uniforms that the USA chose.. I found them quite generic and nothing too special for such a great event- however- it was still enjoyable!
Russia did an amazing spectacular performance of putting together an AMAZING light show production including so many different elements of their Russian history- including world war 2 and their independence as well as tying in cultural elements such as ballet productions - music from swan lake- and so much more!
Although, I wasn't personally at the game, I was able to take pictures of the Olympics on my phone while watching the TV! :) and I believe they turned out just beautiful! Please enjoy...

AND MAY THE BEST WIN (because of course, they will!) !!! :)

HAPPY WINTER OLYMPICS 2014!!!!

TURKEY_ in memory of my Turkish friend Tugce :)

FINLAND !! ! SUOMI!! My heritage :)

Japan! :) 

Of course the hometeam of Russia!!

What a great privilege for Russia!

This was right before the world war 2 scene

This is portraying the death of many Russians

The new era 50's!

I actually sadly don't remember what this even was lol

The Olympic torch lighting!

IT IS LIT!

The torch lights all the way up this ski type ramp!

FIREWORKS!

HOORAY FOR THE OLYMPICS!

SOCHI 2014 RUSSIAN OLYMPICS HAVE BEGUN!!!! 

PUFF PASTRY!

So tonight, my dad and I decided to make homemade puff pastry. It was the first time we ever have made this all from scratch and it turned out to be most rewarding and certainly quite delicious- I decided to take pictures of our experience.

Beginning.. I had to knead this for seven minutes lol

part 2 ... shredded butter

had to add this to the shredded butter

mix mix mix

mixing with flour

ta-da!! a brick of buttered flour

buttered "brick" and flour brick together chilling.. 

this is the buttered brick inside the floured brick

dad the faithful roller..

we had to take out and refrigerate and bang out the dough four or five times!

beautious!!

the final dough 

all ready to put away to chill

we decided to make Zaban puff pastry with them

the square is our spare dough :) it's in the fridge now!

Zaban puff pastry drizzled with honey and sugar ready to bake!

Just going into the oven..!

The finished product; drizzled with delicious honey!!!

:) LOVE COURTNEY

If you want the recipe:: I can find it for you xoxoxo! 

shivering cold good times!

I got a kick out of this one! :)

Well! I am back once again in my estate! :) However, I enjoyed an awful good weekend up north! :) I'm so thankful to Mary El and their family for having me up! What great times of conversations and going-ons and lots of breakfast. :) haha! 

- I definitely can't wait to go back, that's for sure!! :) 

I was so excited to see all the new little babies too-- gee! They sure are cute!! 

I could write lots more- but :) time to go!