Weekend Update| August 29, 2011

Me and Boomer Conrad

Good morning, folks! Guess what, I got a kitty!

Ah, not really, but we did get to go play with my good friend Caitlin’s kitty cat on Friday night and John really enjoyed it.  He actually considered getting one in the very near future…then someone mentioned that they are allergic and wouldn’t be able to come over and he changed his mind.  Either way I want a cat…I honestly don’t know if I would allow myself to commune with those who dislike them anyway…  ;-)

The real point of this story, though, is the fact that we finally got to go over to our friends Caitlin and Ben's house for dinner Friday night.. Caitlin was the first friend I ever made when I moved to Orlando for school five (!) years ago. She got married to Ben back in March and we finally made it to their place to see their sweet little love nest.

They cooked us a delicious vegan meal, complete with brownies, and we so enjoyed the natural flow of conversation with them. They are consumer anarchists, too, and much of our conversation was trading ways to save and recent developments in homemade cleaning products. 

Pumpkin Pie Banana Chunk Cookies.... from, guess who....

The fun with friends didn't end on Friday, though. Saturday morning we got up early to help some new friends move into town. Not only did I enjoy moving heavy boxes with my friend Laura and her mom, but it also served as my workout for the day (bonus!)

I can't tell you how excited I am about the new friends God has brought into my life and the ways my relationships with "old" friends has become more and more rich. I really felt so blessed this weekend to be surrounded by great people with similar interests and passion for God. We hung out with friends Friday night, Saturday morning, and had our friends Jen and Nate over for dinner Saturday night.  I didn't realize how much I was in need of community until I started finding it. I hope I never have to go through another season of "alone."

Sunday we went to church and then ran some errands before parking our butts on the coach for some downtime and a movie. We watched one of my favorites...Bottle Shock. It's set in the Napa Valley, and we watched it because we are considering planning a trip there for our second or third wedding anniversary. The more we watched it the more we got excited about the potential for the trip! If you haven't seen this movie, you must. Here's some of my favorite lines:

"You have to have it in your blood, you have to grow up with the soil underneath your nails, the smell of the grapes in the air that you breathe. The cultivation of the vine was an art form. The refinement of the vine is a religion that requires pain and desire and sacrifice."

""Wine is sunlight, held together by water." The poetic wisdom of the Italian physicist, philosopher, and stargazer, Galileo Galilei. It all begins with the soil, the vine, the grape. The smell of the vineyard - like inhaling birth. It awakens some ancestral, some primordial... anyway, some deeply imprinted, and probably subconscious place in my soul."

Question of the Day:

Have you ever visited the Napa Valley?

Any recommendations?