#WeekendCoffeeShare: Catching Up!

Weekend Coffee Share is a time for us to take a break out of our lives and enjoy some time catching up with friends (old and new)!

Grab a cup of coffee and share with us!  What’s been going on in your life? What are your weekend plans?  Is there a topic you’ve just been ruminating on that you want to talk about?

All are welcome! Just add your link to the Linky-List, and be sure to visit others and join in their conversations!    The link will be open from Friday September 6th at 7 am (Pacific Time) until Monday September 9th at 7 pm (Pacific Time) to give us a good range of “weekend”!

Welcome friends!
I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve had a good coffee chat with you all — the end of the summer just kind of rolled away from me, I feel like it’s time to start catching up before I plunge into the academic year.

I work at a public university, and because of our academic calendar I get to enjoy most of September as a sort of “inbetween time.” Summer is over, most people are back to their daily lives, but we are in a slump between summer term and fall term. It gives time to prepare for the year (and this year there is a fair amount of preparing that has to be done), and gives me some time to try and sort myself out outside of work time.

I promised to tell you all about the wedding and the lake – so here I go!

The wedding was in New Mexico – just outside of Albuquerque, where my friend and her now-husband live (for the time being… very shortly they’ll be embarking on a new adventure in New Zealand!). I’d never been to that area, so was pleasantly surprised that the location of the wedding (and the house that they rented for us out-of-town guests) was located in this beautiful green area!

My friend has four cats – two who are a bit adventurous and wanted to be part of all the action!

Because my friend was (so awesomely!) helping make it possible for me to be there by putting me up and making sure I had food, I let her know that I wanted to help them in whatever way I could. So this picture was taken while I was on cat-duty. We were loading up the cars with everything we needed for the wedding (the ceremony and reception were being held at a campsite), and these cats very much wanted to be part of what was happening. Someone had to keep them from bolting out the door!

The rental house that they found for us all was beautiful, and had this spectacular balcony looking out over one of the local parks. It was very isolated, and I enjoyed every moment I got to spend sitting out on the deck and watching the trees (and the hummingbird)! The bride, groom, myself and the officiant (another dear friend of mine) ended up staying at the house, and it was a lovely time. The bride, officiant, and I have been good friends since high school, and it was spectacular to have this time to catch up and to get to know her future husband better.

The morning of the wedding we put together a delicious breakfast to make sure everyone was well fed, and then everyone went their different ways to start getting ready for the big day!

No pictures of the bride and groom… it was their special day and those are for them to share. But I did want to share a picture of the table that was used during the ceremony. They MADE their rings together (metalworking! So cool!) earlier, so had decided they wanted some way to symbolize the sense of union that exchanging rings usually does. Since water is LIFE (particularly in the desert) they decided to do a little ceremony with water – first pouring little bits of blessed water together into a bowl, and then inviting all of us who had come together to celebrate their day to join them in pouring some water and giving some well-wishes.

When I got in I had given them the present I made for them – I had some sparkly blue and black yarn, that was totally machine washable, and given the theme of the wedding (space and science), I had woven them a dishtowel. They decided to incorporate it into the ceremonial table — which made me feel super honored!

The reception was a Taco Bar! Catered by the Street Food Institute. If you’re in the Albuquerque area you NEED to check them out – SO GOOD! It was a really fun wedding, and we partied and danced into the night. The next day a crew of us made our way back to the campsite – some had even camped there – for breakfast burritos, a water-gun fight, and setting off the coke-bottle-rockets that there hadn’t been time for the day before!

By the time (early) Monday morning rolled around and I was on my flight home, I was exhausted, but it had been such fun to get to spend that special time with my friends!

Tuesday morning I got myself up (as early as I could manage… which was not terribly early), got myself loaded into the car, and then made my way down to Waldo Lake. A crew of my friends were already down there, all set up at a site on Sunday morning. I got there early afternoon on Tuesday, and it was great to get to swim out to the island and hang out with them. Things did not go as we had planned this year (really, do they ever go truly as planned?) and two of my friends ended up bailing on us Wednesday morning – spending the rest of the week in Bend, returning Friday to pick up their camping stuff. It started to rain on Wednesday pretty early, and rained until Thursday morning…. for a while we had fun digging trenches around the site (using sticks) to divert the water away from our tents… but the novelty of that wore off, and of course we hadn’t put up a tarp (what WERE we thinking? We’re all experienced North-West-dwelling campers… you ALWAYS put up a tarp…), so we all got SOAKED. My tent got wet, and my body was in PAIN… the cold and wet did not agree with my inflammation issues.

Even with the misty, cold, rainy skies it was still beautiful to look at.

Thursday morning things had not cleared up so we drove into town (about an hour away) to see what the forecast was in order to make a more informed decision about what we would do next. After a nice warm breakfast and the promise of warmer weather we headed back to the campground, where we were greeted by the sun!

I had made a promise, last year, to one of the girls that I would take a particular hike with them, so we set out on that hike pretty quickly. It was a little rough for me (given I was still in pain, and my energy was seriously flagging), but I made it, and we had a great time for the rest of our day there. Friday we hung out a little bit, played in the water some, and then took everything down and made our way home.

Now I’m trying to get back into the groove of being home, back to work, and back to the day-to-day life. I started volunteering with the local library, which is filling up some of my small-amounts of free time – so far I’ve really enjoyed the work.

What are you up to? Is your summer coming to an end? What are you looking forward to in the coming season?