So, how was everyone's weekend!? Mine was jam packed. It was all fun though, and definitely one of the best weekends I have spent in awhile. Since it was so busy, I decided to keep your attention with the many photos and a bit less rambling. Let's see how that works out for me. 😉 And for other interesting things over the long weekend, read these:

• Flashback Friday: My Thoughts on Competition Prep
• A Giveaway!
• My Tackling Yoga for the First Time

After my Saturday morning update, it was time to shower and head to an engagement party. I loved being able to visit one of my oldest friends. We met in 5th grade and grew closer and closer over the years.

long time buddy!

Even M was loving on my old time best friend.

And I also was very happy to see his fiance too. She is an amazing woman. I hate that I only get to see them a couple times a year!

The Happy Couple

After the party, we went to babysit our friends' daughter. Their anniversary was a couple weeks ago and since they don't have family in town, we offered to watch her so they could have a night on the town. It was lots of fun for Makenzie and baby R to play together. 🙂

dinner time

Play Time

Haha! Crazy. I just realized how small M looks compared to her friend...even though she is 6 months older than her!

We were also treated to something yummy. I don't eat this often, but boy oh boy do I like it when I do! 😀

chicken salad on wheat + baked lays + iced tea

Sunday morning we woke up to head to church. Praise, worship, awesome service, tears of joy for what God has done for me and Jesus rising again, etc ensued. Easter is such a moving service and such an important holiday. All the fluff of candy and bunnies isn't needed! Although it is definitely fun...and we do participate. 🙂 And I almost forgot! Found out the amazing news that our friends got to bring their baby girl HOME!!! Yay!

After worship, it was brunch with my parents. Nothing special and not that great. But still lovely to spend time with them.

My Family

And Nana and Papa Bunny brought Makenzie a special treat!

Goody Bag

Or LOTS of special treats. There is obviously no harm being done with us not believing or participating in the Easter Bunny thing at our house.

Bottomless Bag of Fun

Including these cute gummy things! I don't even think we will eat them because none of us are gummy fans, but they sure are adorable.

After meal one, we headed off for time with Peter's family. Italian feasting ensued. Although, I must admit that Italian is not my favorite, so I mainly enjoyed the salad. And a little bit of ravioli. Luckily I was still more full from lunch #1.

The afternoon was filled with various activities. Such as playing with bubbles, balloons, and blocks....

...jumping on the trampoline...

...practicing my backhandspring that I hadn't done in years on the trampoline...

getting ready to flip

...and egg hunting!

So there was my weekend in an Easter Egg shell! It was a great one and I am pooped out today. I hope your weekends were filled with amazing blessings as well!

Hello friends! First, I want to say thank you all for the supportive comments about my competition prep post. And I am LOVING all of the fun facts you are posting in response to the giveaway. If you want to learn some crazy things about your fellow bloggers check out the comments section. Who is a twin? Who has tattoos, including tattooed eyeliner!? Who has met the Dalai Lama??!!! It's great!

Does everyone have fun plans for this weekend? I am keeping with the theme of this week and being insanely busy. I went to the gym this morning for some Power + Kick. My friend Paula, who I rarely get to workout with due to our schedules, convinced me to stay for both. Man, what a workout! It was intense, but a ton of fun.  Definitely more of a hardcore workout than yesterday, when I decided to take a chance to mellow out in the workout arena.

Nicole from Prevention RD is doing a challenge this month. The challenge is to DO what you DON'T. In other words,pick any activity that you don't typically do and get started actually doing it during the month of April. This is in hopes that it will become more of a habit and motivate you to try something out of your comfort zone. It can apply to any sort of goal. What was my goal? To actually give yoga a try. I have never been a yoga gal. I will try to make time to stretch well after every workout and foam roll at least 1-2x/week, but yoga has always frightened me.

taking time to foam roll after today's grueling workout

Even with my stretching efforts, I don't stick with it enough to fully stretch myself out from my regular workouts and I know flexibility is not a strong point of mine. I have heard of the benefits of yoga often, and have always thought it would be cool if I could do it. But I was scared. I'm not too flexible and I can be pretty clumsy, so I was nervous to go in a room full of people and not be able to handle it. I'm also not used to doing something fitness related subpar. Well, besides running long distances. But I have accepted that truth for awhile now.

Yoga, though, I had never even given a full fledged effort. And I knew when Nicole posted her challenge I had to go for it. Also, when this prize pack from Em's giveaway arrived in the mail the day before the class I was thinking of attending...

Aurorae Yoga Mat Pack

...I finally knew I could no longer keep up with the excuses. And when I thought about it, I was going to be going to a basic yoga class at my gym. Not an advanced Bikram class in a top of the line yoga studio. I figured these people wouldn't be super professionals and it would be more in my comfort zone. Plus, my friend Paula ended up taking the class with me since she had Good Friday off from work.

How did it go? I really, really liked it. And I did much better than I thought I would. Or at least I didn't feel like a total spaz. Plus, I liked the peacefulness of it, but also the power you feel from it. Because holding some of those positions was downright tough. And I could already tell how well it helped stretch me out. I think it was the perfect fit for me right now, since it wasn't a very serious yoga class, aka not as "proper" as something I would find in a studio. Although I do admit, it had me getting online to check out local studios for beginners classes and then getting bummed out that yoga sessions are a bit too $$$ for us right now. I will definitely be adding this into my regularly scheduled workouts. Thanks Nicole and Em for lighting the fire to get me to finally do this!