hannah joy: July 2010

courtney. an amazingly godly girl who always put others first and loved to serve those around her. she used to come over and babysit the maka children. she was their very favorite. they loved her. for more than six years you could find her in any room of the maka house dressed in some fun costume being chased and screamed at by her four admirers.

courtney is joyful, has a totally fun sense of humor, and an audacious love for adventure. somebody gets hurt whenever courtney enters the house... either getting gashed fingers from cleaning up glass shards from a lamp we broke... or from getting so excited that when courtney walked in the door, abigail ran around in circles and hit her head on... something... or of course every time there were bruises. :)))

one day, during the epic blizzard of 2010, courtney had come over to play in the snow for a couple hours (during which time we stuffed mailboxes with snow, almost froze to death and laughed way to loudly). when we got home we gathered around the fireplace with mom and dad (who were too chicken to hike around outside with us. sigh.), drank hot chocolate and ate s'mores.

at some point during these cozy activities, aboo succeeded in kidnapping courtney's phone. she looked through her texts and - still not being able to read - announced, "they all from same person.... N. nnnn. O... Aaaaa. H. What that spell?" Caleb looked over her shoulder. "They're all from Noah. Who's that?"

"Oh, I thought I told you. Noah's my boyfriend."

jaw-dropper.

"YOUR WHAT?!?!?!"

from that day on, i kept noticing how whenever we would go anywhere or do anything she would be thinking about noah. we would be talking about something, and she would tell us, "oh! one time noah and i...." "noah did this..." "he's so funny..." rebekah and i would look at each other and smile, but we never teased her about it.

now let's jump ahead to a month or two later. february. we saw courtney at church, leaning on noah's arm.

and she had a ring on her finger. and we screamed. and we almost cried. and we were so happy for her... and her noah. well maybe we were a little jealous of him. he was going to take her away. but mostly we were happy for them.

:))))))

and then they came over one day, and courtney asked all four of us to be in her wedding.

AHHHHHHH!

we were so honored. we were so excited. caleb exclaimed after they left that night: "when she asked us i was like "whoa." and my heart was like "ba-bum!""

then, before we knew it. the day had. come.

we arrived at the wedding venue - freaking out in the car the whole way - and got ready for the big day.

courtney was still running around in shorts and a t-shirt when we got there. she was excited, but when is courtney NOT excited?!

as on any other day, courtney greeted us and asked us how we were doing. she couldn't seem to understand that this was HER special day, and she had every right to be too pre-occupied to talk to us or hang with us or fly through the air on a tree-swing or show us around the beautiful venue. but that's courtney. always thinking about other people and trying to be helpful and not thinking about herself.

then when we were all dressed and made-up and we had prayed for everyone, it was time for them to get marrieeeeeeed.

noah was waiting for her. and he was VERY nervous, poor guy.

then when she started to walk down the aisle on her father's arm, he almost started crying. :)))) so sweet!!!

and then came the super cute flower girls! kiera and abigail did a great job covering the ground with red, white and black flower petals. :)

then courtney walked down toward all her friends and family... and her almost-husband. she looked so pretty and she just radiated joy. she was wearing chucks too... with skull and cross-bones on them. niiice. :)))