Blogging & Birthdays!

What a fun day!  I was able to get a lot of work done this morning and then snuck out of town to meet Kate & Benjamin for Owen's 1st Birthday Party!

Kate and I met through our blogs when I was still living in Atlanta.  I never would have thought one day I would live within an hour of them - how fun!  I love getting to meet bloggers.

Owen's birthday was actually at the end of July, but because so many people were out of town Benjamin and Kate celebrated in July and then had a party this weekend.  I see nothing wrong with celebrating twice, agreed?

I saw something on twitter last night about a six layer cake, but I didn't really put two and two together until Kate started cutting the cake today ... 

Isn't that amazing?

I loved the rainbow theme!

Kate & Benjamin are just as sweet in person as they are on their blog - it was so great to finally meet them in person! 

And Owen?

Oh my goodness adorable.

And so grown up!  I remember when he was born!

Tomorrow is Rally Sunday at the church!  It is going to be a busy, busy Sunday so I am going to rest up and get myself centered.  Deeeeep breaths.

Goodnight!

A Cold & Windy Blogger Meet Up

I <3 Bloggers!

Caitlin is in New Haven giving an Operation Beautiful presentation and a couple of us got together for breakfast this morning!

From left to right - Me, Caitlin, Allison, Jennifer and Jennifer.

We ate at Claire's, which is a fun organic cafe near/on the Yale campus.  If you get a chance, check out their missions and values - they are committed to being as green as possible, preparing their food with organic ingredients and offering fair wages and quality health insurance to their employees.  Amazing!

I wasn't super hungry, so I was instantly drawn to the pastries.  I got an apple cinnamon bran muffin.

And a black coffee - really smooth!

I was grabbing my sunglasses off of my desk this morning when I looked at one of my bookshelves and saw Caitlin's book.  I love having authors that I know or have met sign their books, so I grabbed it and put it in my purse.

Jennifer had the same thought!

Caitlin just finished up her second Operation Beautiful book - it's geared towards tweens and coming out in the summer of 2012.

Clergy friends - this is a great read when thinking about instilling confidence in your youth and children programs at church!

After breakfast, I wandered a little bit ...

New Haven is pretty!

There is a Ten Thousand Villages store!  It wasn't open when I walked by, though.  Probably good for my checking account.

Eventually I wandered over to ...

Yale New Haven Hospital.  My friend Max ...

(Do you remember Max?  He married us.)

... is a chaplain there.  Intense!  We had a nice chat over coffee.  I'm not sure I've seen him since the wedding?

I came home huuuuuungry.  There was some leftover pork tenderloin from last night, so I diced it up and fried it in a little bit of oil ... 

They were already cooked, so they only needed to be heated up.

I wanted to toss it in barbecue sauce, but we didn't have any, so Bruce made some from scratch!  He didn't even use a recipe - how in the world does he do that?

I threw in some rice and then tossed everything in the BBQ sauce.

Delicious!

What a fun morning and afternoon.  Thanks for the great conversation girls!  Caitlin - travel safe tonight!