He is Risen

Growing up, we never celebrated the Lenten season. This year, I tried to be more intentional and be more aware of the Easter season. I really enjoyed it more not letting the Easter season surprise me and am just so thankful for all that God has done for us.

Thankful for a family that is close and that we can spend time with them 

 Sarah's boyfriend, Bryant, and cousins, Nate and Matt, and Matt's girlfriend, Valerie joined us

A funny, supportive husband

 Laughing and playing lots of croquet in the beautiful weather.

a game of Heads Up (you guess or act out the words on the person's forward based on the category)

I don't even know what we are acting out here

This one was scuba diving.

I'm thankful for his grace. We are so unworthy yet he chose to rescue us to have a relationship with him. It's truly amazing.

#tbt to that time I had movie picking privileges

Last Friday, we went on our Valentine's date to a movie and dinner. (Not getting creative over here with the amount we are trying to do in 3 weeks). I started watching Downton Abbey last year and so of course, like Sybil's character. When I saw this movie coming out with the same actress in it, I was curious to see it. I didn't really know much about it other than a few trailers but convinced Adam to take me anyways. As soon as it started, I knew I had picked a dud. Both of us thought about sneaking into a different movie but thought it would get better…. It did not my friends and that is why Adam has banned me from picking movies for a while haha and I really don't blame him.

It gives us a good story though. We laughed about it all through dinner at P.F. Changs.  Adam got extra sauce and meat with his meal so he asked for some extra rice to go with it. This is what the waitress brought us. haha

Hope you guys had a great Valentine's last week.

Oh December

Since I didn't blog in December… like at all… I thought I would give you a recap.

I got a new niece, Piper Rose ;)

Adam and I celebrated our 1st Wedding Anniversary

There was a snow storm on our anniversary. Just imagine if this had been last year when we were getting married. We would have had a lot less witnesses at our ceremony.

Adam graduated from grad school. Yay!

(the hat was too little for his head haha)

I know it's a bad picture but it was hard to get any good ones when he was so far away!

I painted an accent wall in my Pastor's office to help him out.

* Disclaimer: I did not pick that color. It's what they had at the church. We're going to add some pictures on the wall this month to spruce it up….

 I saw Hello Dolly with Adam's family. It was a really fun play.

We gave some really good gifts: some funny and some serious 

These are all gobstoppers for Sarah. It was really fun to have her open them up in stages.

 Spent a lot of time with family.

Played a lot of games including bowling.

and just had a good time of reflection. I like this part of the year because it's all about starting anew. God sent his Son so that we could have a fresh start: a real relationship with him and freedom from sin. And with the new year, comes new goals to grow closer to Him and try to live a life reflecting that.

Happy Tuesday!

Hello 2014

Whew. The holiday season has been a fun but very busy time for us. Lots of family time, games, and traveling. I'll have to blog about it in the days to come but thought I would at least mention what we did today.

Our friend, Joe got a job in a Chicago suburb back in October and has been living with his Aunt and Uncle during the week down in Illinois and coming back to his apartment in Milwaukee on the weekends. So he asked us last week if we could help him move on New Years Day since it was the only day it worked out to move him until February. (We agreed in exchange for his help moving us when we decide to move). Well, who knew we were going to get a huge snow storm come through the area New Year's Eve, New Years, and even into today.

 Lucky for us, this bachelor didn't have a ton of stuff so we decided to be troopers and pack him up and move him down to Evanston, Illinois.

Two guys drove the U-Haul that took a detour to pick up a Craig's list couch while the Adam drove us two girls down in a car to meet the guys there. Since we knew we would beat them there, we decided to stop at the outlets and get some sweet running shoes on sale/clearance. I was excited for my purchase but by the time we had started to make our 1st trip up to his apartment, I was wishing I had bought some winter boots to keep my feet warm. (Each winter, I feel like I figure out what I need to keep me warm. I've gotten the gloves, scarfs, sweaters, really warm coats, fashion boots that keep my pants from getting wet, but I don't have any winter boots that keep my feet from getting wet and cold… That will be next on the list with a winter like this.)

The kicker with Joe's new apartment was that not only was it a 3rd floor apartment but there is a rule that you have to use the outer staircase that is super narrow and made out of wood that was really slick with all the snow or pay a $400 fine.

Hence why the boys had to finagle this couch up the flights of slippery stairs. I wish I would have taken the picture sooner so you could grasp how hard this task was. It probably took us a good 15-20 minutes to get it up the staircase because they had to angle it up and around each flight of stairs and it kept getting stuck.

 Us girls just stood behind holding the cushions and worrying that they would fall down the stairs but they made it up and we finished unloading all his stuff.

 Evanston got about 10 inches of snow today…  This picture doesn't quite indicate that.

Evanston got enough snow that this guy thought it was a good idea to cross country ski down the city streets. We thought it was hilarious!

The day was an adventure. It took way longer than we thought because of the snow but we had fun together and now have a good story to remember. (also now I know why no one moves during the winter. My feet and hands were frozen because I didn't have good gloves or shoes ;/

Veteran's Day

There is one benefit of your husband working at a bank.. Well actually a couple. 1). I have been to a bank less than five times in the last year because the husband just walks upstairs from his office to deposit our checks or get withdraws. Um, awesome. I love when errands are so easy. 2) Since BMO has such a presence in Milwaukee, we sometimes get company tickets to events.  3) He gets off government holidays that not everyone gets off like Presidents Day, Columbus Day, and Veteran's Day, which is convenient when you are full-time wifey and part-time freelancer. Yesterday was one such day.

We had to be normal adults and get some stuff done like grad school stuff for him and freelance stuff for me but we did get to have lunch and dinner together, which was really fun.

The restaurant was really cute so I'm not quite sure why this was what I decided my only picture of the place would be...


We have been wanting to go to this restaurant called The Soup House for almost 2 years. Adam saw it randomly before I even moved up here. It's only open from 9am-2pm on weekdays so it was hard to get there when I was living in another state and then now when neither of us work downtown. We have tried to go several times on days like yesterday but it never quite worked out. So we decided that yesterday was the day. It was a perfect day to go because it was really chilly and snowing. It was  awesome because they had lots of gluten free soups and even had gluten free cornbread. The funny part was that their menu board said that there would be a $1.00 charge for any Seinfeld references haha The only tricky part was that they only took cash or a check and I had used up all of mine at the Big Buck Tourney and we were $2 shy of our total bill. Adam ran to the car and grabbed all my change and had 32 cents and a Canadian nickel extra. He wanted an extra piece of bread so he asked if they would take his 32 cents and Canadian nickel instead of the normal 50 cent charge. haha They said he could have it for free but he insisted on paying them. It was funny.

In other news, my grandma (dad's mom) is having troubling symptoms of the early stages of dementia. She will be put in a nursing home or assisted living really soon because she can't live by herself anymore. Please be praying for her if you think of it. Are there any prayer requests from anyone else? I have a decent commute on Tuesdays and Wednesdays that I like to especially use for praying for others.

Christmas

Wow, so much has happen since the last time I blogged. More on that in later posts. For now, I wanted to blog about Christmas. I am so glad that at least Adam's family live close so that we have family to spend the holidays with.  

Before heading down for the weekend, we hit up Candy Cane Lane. It's a neighborhood in Milwaukee that goes all out for Christmas decorations and thus dubbed Candy Cane Lane. It was really fun to see all the different houses.

Then we headed down on Saturday to see A Christmas Carol with Adam's family. It was a really good show and a fun time.

We had really good seats ;)

Adam's family celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve because Adam's Mom usually works on Christmas day. So we went to the Christmas Eve service and then came home to open gifts. Sarah didn't go to the service because she didn't want to (no judgment here, but this detail will be important later).

 When we went out to eat after A Christmas Carol, some how wills came up and Adam was joking about how to get into his grandma's will. She said if he got her a stocking, he could be in her will.
Let the fun begin.

Adam reminding his grandma of "their" deal. He got them a stocking full of gifts from the dollar store including sardines, snow in a can, and a glow in the dark hatchet, fourteen in total.

Then Sarah presents her stocking to her grandparents with a heartfelt poem about her love and appreciation of her grandparents (that she wrote while we we're at church) and you should have seen Adam's face.

 These were everyone else's faces.

 His mom and dad were crying they were laughing so hard.

 The Ward Family ;)

NYE

New Years Eve was spent:

having a Frittata cookoff, Adam vs his Grandma for the family brunch. (Frittada is an Italian egg pie consisting of sausage on the bottom then ricotta cheese and top with egg and cooked in a skillet. Adam decided to add bacon, green peppers, and onion to his. It was really good!

Playing games with the family. Adam's grandma is fiesty. She tries to block Adam so that he can't win. Of course, he still won.

Playing harmonica with Grandpa Wally.

Parking near Millennium Park so that we could go ice skating. We got there right as they closed early for the Holiday. Now we had to walk farther to Navy Pier without the benefit of skating first.

Finding a surprise ice skating rink on the way to Navy Pier.

Getting a little misguided. We ended up in a dead end street.

The Ferris Wheel is where we were trying to be.

Waiting for the bathroom.

Finding our destination.

Riding the Famous Ferris Wheel.

Getting the best seat for the fireworks.

Having fun as the New Year began :)