He is Risen!

I shared in my last post that Easter time is an extra busy time for people who work in ministry - after a full weekend of church services, running, a lot of delicious food and time spent with friends - by the time Sunday afternoon hit Adam and I were EXHAUSTED. We fell asleep on the couch Sunday afternoon and both woke up disoriented we had slept so soundly. It was awesome :) 

For our first Easter as Mr. and Mrs. we enjoyed:

• Shopping for new outfits for Easter
• Having a Easter breakfast for dinner Saturday night (We got up around 4:15am on Sunday, which seemed a little early for trying to squeeze in a sit-down meal)
• Surprising Adam with a scavenger hunt to get his Easter basket
• Easter treats in the mail from our parents
• Spending Sunday afternoon with a family from church
• Skyping/facetiming both of our families
• Having sunny weather over the weekend {not warm yet, but sunny is a step in the right direction}

I should also add that I love seeing Adam at work. He does such a good job with helping to lead worship as part of job, and I know he put extra time and preparation into everything for Easter, so I am a proud wife to see his hard work and service in action :) 

Adam and I are running the Wisconsin Half Marathon in 2 weeks - so these last few months have involved lots of running for us, mostly in bad weather. Having sun out for runs over this weekend was really a treat. We are learning the area more and have a much better grasp of good roads and routes to run than we did when we first starting running around here last summer. I will add that we have yet to find routes that are flat. Whatever your perception of Wisconsin might be, do not picture it as a flat state. It just is not. Our other added learning is that wind is almost unavoidable. Most of the roads have big farm fields on either side and not much else, so even the slightest of breezes can become quite the resistance workout since there are not enough buildings around to shield the lone runner from any wind. 

Fun fact, after getting back from our run on Saturday, my Nike running account {we both use Nike products/apps to track our runs} told me that in my history of Nike running I have run the length of the country of Sweden. :)

Monday, was the warmest day we have had in a long time (60!) so we took full advantage of it. We went on a 10 mile bike ride and Adam got the grill out to cook dinner. Our bike ride got a little interesting when we experienced a downpour of rain in the middle of it, but I guess that is better than snow! 

An Edible Easter Basket (thanks Mom & Dad!), my cute husband grilling, and the top right picture is after our 9 mile run on Saturday.

Starting the week on a Tuesday/after a big weekend always is a little odd. We had a fun time yesterday leading an event for the middle school youth at Zion (where Adam works). It's hard to believe today is already the midway point of the week.

Hope all of you are having a good post-Easter week! Below are some free downloads of my favorite printables I found and used for Easter decorations in our home this year. Enjoy!

{Free Downloads}

He Is Risen {Easter Egg}  via Clumsy Crafter

He Is Risen {Chalkboard} via Printable Decor

He Is Risen {Sunshine} via Heidi Stock

Happy Easter via Visual Eye Candy

Ministry, recipes, and waiting for spring.

One of the busiest times of year for those in ministry is the period of weeks leading up to Easter. In the days that lead up to Easter Sunday there are many church services, including an added event of Adam's sixth graders taking their first communion last night. Last weekend was also Confirmation Sunday for Adam's current eighth graders, so again, lots going on in ministry.

Ministry has been a little extra busy for me too in the last few weeks, not so much because of Easter since {unlike Adam} my role at my church doesn't currently involve a worship role - BUT I was given the opportunity to try and offer a summer mission trip for my youth. Now generally speaking you plan out mission trips a little earlier than April but since I only started in January and there was nothing previously planned, it meant kicking trip planning into gear at a rapid pace these last couple of weeks.

Due to time being of the essence for registering for our trip, last week was the meeting for parents + youth to find out trip details and then this week was the deadline for turning in commitment forms. I was really unsure of how the meeting went over last week and was so anxious waiting for Wednesday of this week to arrive. I was praying that at least two youth would want to go and serve this summer, but God is good and has plans bigger than my plans and He gave me fifteen students AND two parents who wanted to go on this trip!! So cool. Therefore this summer I am happy to report that I will be leading a trip to the Indianapolis Week of Hope < click this link to check it out!!!

Week of Hope is part of Group Mission Trips, an organization I worked for during the summers in college. Day after day, week after week, summer after summer - I got to see God transform the lives of the youth groups that came on these week long mission trips and it was just awesome. So as you can imagine I am STOKED to get to lead my youth to the Indianapolis site for our mission trip AND actually Adam is taking a group of his youth to the Grand Rapids, MI Week of Hope this summer and I get to help lead that too earlier in the summer. Extra cool. Thankful to know so many students who are willing to spend time serving others this summer and looking forward to both trips so much.

Because things have been busy for both of us these past few weeks, we did not do a great job of making time to go grocery shopping, that did change on Monday of this week for the record, but know that it was a big event for us to make an appearance at a grocery store, oh well. Just being honest :) Since we actually have a nice variety of food in the house, here are two meals we are eating this week to share with you:

Chicken Peanut Stir Fry with Rice + Asian Slaw

Chicken Enchilada Soup + Corn Muffins {Crock Pot}

Yes it is still cold here, it snowed on Monday of this week so at this point I am pretty much realizing we will be skipping the traditional 'spring' time of year and jumping straight to summer by the time the cold weather leaves town. However, due to Confirmation at Adam's work and a series of funerals at mine, we currently have our own taste of spring inside our apartment in the form of fresh flowers - which is honestly really nice.

Now, we are gearing up for Easter celebrations this weekend. We had a fun time shopping for Easter outfits for both of us earlier in the week and are looking forward to our first {married} Easter together! It's the little things right? :)

Check back tomorrow for downloads of some of my favorite Easter printables!

Have a lovely day.

Short and sweet today, plus a free printable download. Bonus!

Download + Print!

Here are some things going on for us right now :)

• We finally went and saw Divergent for date night last week. Over Thanksgiving we discovered that a movie theater by us has an Ultra Screen, which is almost as big as an IMAX screen, so now we are really picky about only wanting to see movies Ultra size :) 
• This past weekend, Adam + I were blessed by a visit from one of our friends from college. She drove up to spend the weekend with us. We love having guests + seeing familiar faces, so it was really great to hang out with her this weekend! 
• On Sunday the pastor of the church Adam works for, announced that he will be taking a call to another church in the area. He + his family will be leaving in about a month. This means a lot of upcoming change for Adam at work. 
• Adam + I both had great really great runs yesterday. For all our days of running through tough weather conditions, it's exciting to have a good running day.
• We met with our tax guy yesterday and are a few things being mailed away from officially filing taxes together as married people for this first time. Definitely one of the less exciting "first" milestones we have had, ha!
• It is STILL cold here. Not freezing anymore, but cold. 
• We are in week 4 of 6 of a small group series with our church, last night our group had the added bonus of spontaneously watching the series finale of How I Met Your Mother together. #twentysomethings