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Thursday, June 23, 2011

To: Courtney // From: Jana



So it turns out that I have a blog. Who knew? Apparently not me since I've been pretty scarce around these parts lately. Luckily for all of you, an exciting event has interrupted my laziness and inspired a post. . .

it's Courtney's birthday!!

And considering I have yet to blog about the end of school for the little boys, Memorial Day, our seventh wedding anniversary, my kid brother's wedding to the beautiful Eden, Chuck's mom and grandma visiting, etc, it should be pretty apparent how special Courtney is to have prodded me out of my apparent blogging hiatus :).
(And no worries, all of those things will be properly documented for posterity's sake. Possibly soon, be excited).

So, back to my dear BFSC Courtney and why I love and adore this birthday girl so much. I don't even know where to start.

Just kidding, yes I do. We'll get the shallow stuff out of the way first: the fact that she's flippin' gorgeous and stylish.

Seriously, look at that hair.


Also, another semi-shallow reason I love Courtney is because of our shared, deep love for the TV show Castle. It's one of the best shows ever and Courtney understands that and appreciates the witty dialogue and awesome characters as much as I do. I love recapping each episode with her and discussing our slight obsession with Esposito and Ryan's bromance. Seriously, everyone watch Castle!!

Of course, under that amazing hair, she's incredibly intelligent. I was so glad that I could be at her graduation last August from the nursing program at BYU. I've already started taking advantage of her RN credentials by seeking her medical expertise and insights. She also has a very admirable work ethic (something she learned from both of her parents). Her last semester of school she was doing 12 hour clinicals and working 12 hour shifts at a nursing home, all the while in her second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Amazing.

Another one of Courtney's traits that I love is her thoughtfulness and genuine concern for people around here. She is very loyal and very loving and wants the best for everyone. Right now she and her husband and sweet baby boy are living in the Caribbean, which has eliminated our phone contact. Now we email very frequently instead, and her emails never cease to entertain me and brighten my day. No matter what Court has going on in her life, she always remembers exactly what's going on in mine. She also gives the sweetest, kindest compliments. She's an amazing friend.


Courtney is also hilarious, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally :). One of my favorite Courtney stories is from an April Conference a few years back - maybe 2002-ish? 2003? All of a sudden Court brought up the fact that she didn't get a birthday cake for her last birthday (I can't remember why; details are fuzzy). So she obviously needed a birthday cake. That day. And of course she got one. We all dutifully sang 'happy birthday' to her and then shared the delicious chocolate cake. That's sooo Courtney and it makes me laugh every time I think about it!!

Courtney is a great deal like her wonderful mom Gloria; especially in her amazing skills as in the kitchen and as a hostess. One General Conference weekend fell at the beginning of Spring Break and most of the family was headed out on a trip. My family showed up anyways and Courtney and Ben entertained us and took care of us the rest of the weekend - complete with delicious meals!


Court is also very good with babies and kids, most importantly mine - here she is meeting Clyde for the first time (he was a month old) and Will (he was three months old, and this was on the eve of her wedding to Ben!).

Now she has her own darling baby boy, who brings such joy to everyone who knows him, and she is an incredible mom. She also brought Ben into the family, and he's a really great guy. Here is their cute little family on Father's Day, and yes, I stole this picture from their blog :). She's done a great job sharing all of their adventures via blog; I love seeing all of the pictures and hearing about island life.


So happy, happy birthday Courtney! I am sooo thankful for you and our awesome BFSC relationship - it means so much to me that you and Heidi let me worm my way in to share a bit in your sisterhood. I hope you have a fabulous birthday, I LOVE YOU buckets and buckets!!!

6 comments:

Ben and Courtney Hugo said...

Ah thanks Jana! You are so sweet! And because I know you are probably worried about it- I'm handling my own birthday cake this year- since Ben is uber busy with school and bought me a rockin awesome birthday present I'm letting him off the hook :) You're the best- an awesome email is coming your way!

Kiley said...

Sweet post! This brought back my own awesome memories of Court!
p.s.
castle is my favorite show! glad you like it too :)

Shawn AND Chelsey said...

oh man! someday i hope we can be good enough friends that I can get one of your super cool, special birthday tributes!!! how sweet!

Pamela Hunter-Braden said...

Happy happy happy birthday Courtney!! I know this doesn't count since it's going on Jana's blog comments so I'll try to remember how to log on facebook and say HB properly, but I just wanted to thank you for telling me about Castle--which is now my favorite (except for a few BBC shows!) and which my darling daughter JANA had not strongly encouraged me to watch like you did. (probably because I had dismissed a few other of her favorites!) I love you! (both of you!)

Ginger said...

Yeah, I love Castle too. After the season finale I kind of wondered how I was going to survive until this fall. It is fun to see pictures of Courtney. My best memory of her is when they lived in Burton's Woods I was babysitting and instead of taking a nap she hid from me and I couldn't find her until her mom came home. I was freaking out.

Unknown said...

welcome back to blogger-hood. And I must say, I will be checking out castle asap. How unfortunate for me to have overlooked this hidden gem!