Some Pictures

Well, before I start work tomorrow and Jeff goes back to school I thought I would put up some pictures since I'm not sure when I'll be able to do this again.


This is our beautiful wedding party


Abby did a GREAT job with all of our pictures!!!


This is at one of the restaurants in the resort we stayed at


It was SO pretty, we had a great time!

I'll put up some pictures of the new apartment after all the boxes are gone =o)

marriage, moving, mmmmm...stuff

Lots going on these days. I will update more once we have moved and settled down a little bit. Here are the highlights
- we're married, it was awesome, had so much fun at the wedding
- honeymoon to the Rivera Maya, again - awesome, had a great time!
- stuff everywhere in our apartment, can't see each other across the room, making us claustraphobic, we are moving
- job offers, interviews, etc. I accepted a job today so we'll be moving to the Bedford-ish area.
- looking at apartments today and tomorrow and will hopefully have completed the move by the end of this weekend
- I start work and Jeff starts school on Monday..... whew

I miss you Waco... and those who live there. We're coming to visit the weekend after next. love!

erin priour

couples shower

Some friends and family had a couples shower for us last weekend and it was SO fun!!


Jeff playing with bubble wrap... you would think it gets old, but not for him


his and hers pipe wrenches - like I will ever successfully use one of these?


woo hoo! Thanks Stephen and Elyse!


Very cute honey

Merry Christmas from the future Priours

We went to Christmas on 5th street last night to hear Clay Walker and Chris Rice... it was pretty great!

weekender retreat

Last weekend Jeff & I went on a pre marital retreat with Legacy Family Ministries - it was GREAT! I really wasn't initially looking forward to it - I'm one of those people that always hated retreats, especially ones with a bunch of random people I've never met and will probably never see again. Fortunately, Anna Beth & Keith went with us and that was WONDERFUL! It was really good for us to get to spend time with them. I'm so proud of them for the ways they have chosen to respond to everything that has happened recently and not that my stamp means anything, but I TOTALLY approve them for marriage =o) So - back to why this weekend was great:
I've known (and probably the watching world has too) for a while that I have some pride, selfishness, and overall filth in my life that does not contribute to my future spouse's wholeness. I've finally repented over that. It is one thing to acknowledge, to confess even, but to really feel the weight of that and what it does to our relationship was good for me. I think that 80% of the conflict we have could be alleviated if not totally eliminated if I would choose humility and love instead of pride and selfishness. Byron gave a great talk about this - he had this great black and white picture of Carla in her wedding dress and talked about how as she walked down the isle he thought to himself 'this is going to be easy!'. He had no idea how their son would battle cancer as a toddler for 2 years and all of the hardship they would face together and as a family. As he shared about ideals and how we all go into marriage with this idea about who our spouse should be, what marriage should be like, the expectations we've been building for a lifetime.... it really is necessary to tear those things down in order to hold on to the person. As he shared this he ripped up the picture of Carla on their wedding day and talked about how he could choose to hold on to the ideal and be unhappy that they haven't reached it or he could rip it up and hold on to Carla the person. I mean after all isn't that what God did for us? He could have held us to the unreachable ideal and punished us all for not being who He created us to be, but instead he ripped up that ideal in Jesus Christ so that He could hold on to us as we are. And I have the same choice in front of me for the rest of my life. I can tear apart Jeff for his 'failures' to meet my expectations, or I can rip up the ideal to hold on to Jeff just as he is, even when it isn't what I expected. I'm so excited about that and so necessarily humbled. Jeff has graciously forgiven me and I think we love each other even more coming out of this weekend. I can't wait to get married!!! Only 6.5 more weeks! =o)

A History of Oppression, A Legacy of Hope

This is a painting I did for the Global Celebration at Woodway this week. It is about the Kurds of Northern Iraq. The theme is in the title of this post. The idea is this: the Kurds have endured a lot of pain, horror, war, and terror in their history. The left side of the painting shows the darkness, pain, blood, and struggle they endured. The pictures on the canvas were taken by Cody Fisher (Michelle's boyfriend...smile). Cody even went on assignment and took a picture of a statue in the city, that is the pic in the middle of the canvas. The pictures were all printed on fabric and then attached to the canvas so they didn't come out as clear as I had hoped but wanted to add a consistent texture to the work. The picture on the top left is of one of the weapons left at the 'Red Prison' in Northern Iraq - you can see the prison in the background. It is one of the largest prisons he built while he was in power and hundreds of thousands of Kurds were murdered there. The second picture is of Aras, one of the children in need of a heart surgery. While Aras is receiving funding that will hopefully lead to a successful surgery, there are still thousands of children who are dying because of a lack of medical care available in Iraq (re: www.buyshoessavelives.com). The tree in the painting is there because I wanted to link the two sides, oppression and hope are not independent - they usually work together. Part of the beauty of the Kurdish people, their brokenness and openness lies in their pain ... but there is so much hope on the horizon. The right side of the painting is slightly larger than the left, because there is always more hope than oppression - because of Jesus. The statue in the middle is of a woman who had shackles binding her arms but she has her arms over her head and it is as if she has just broken the chains of oppression! I love this statue, it is a constant reminder that even in dark places in the world Jesus still wants to bring freedom to the captive and has asked us to do the same. The pictures on the right side are more hopeful. The one on the top is of a bunch of children, I think they are refugees living in a camp that Cody visited. The bottom was not taken by Cody, but a friend of his and it is this older couple and on the wall behind them there is a heart that says 'luv' in it.
There are a lot of things I would love to tell people about the Kurds. They have a history certainly... but they also have a legacy, and it is my prayer that it will be full of hope, love, and Life in Jesus Christ!

welcome baby Micah!

Micah William Courtney born November 5, 2007 at 9:45 AM



We're ablas again! ... Or am I a Teyze? Or an Ablayze?