Old friends, new friends....and pesto bread

What a weekend! Our dear kitty, Darwin, had to have his massive canine tooth pulled on Friday. So we were in the house on Friday evening, kitty-sitting a toothless fluff. On Saturday we chilled with the fluff again in the morning and then headed to the Anacortes Oktoberfest to sample brews from many local and far away breweries (within WA and OR). My grand scheme for next year is to volunteer for the event and get in free! Hee heeee.

On another totally random note.....
Thanks to Jay's family reunion back over Labor Day and a cousin's informative partner, I have finally found a bread recipe that seems to work for me! Ahhhh.....the only bummer is that it doesn't use sourdough starter. But at this point, I don't care. We will use our sourdough starter for our yummy pizza crusts and the bread dough recipe for artisan breads. I used the dough the other day to make a pesto bread. We ate tomatoes from our tomato plant on the bread (yes, the tomatoes are just starting to ripen and die here all at the same time....too damn cold for tomatoes).

Cool eh?? I suck at making artisan bread, but I'm not feeling so crappy anymore.

Jay, Kat, Jenni, and Finn

On Sunday we drove to Seattle and scooped up Jenni and her tiny son Finn. Jenni was down from Alaska visiting family in the area and we were able to sneak in a visit too! At this point you could also start singing "it's a small world after all" because that kept happening to us today! A friend of mine from Antarctica, Jordan, had introduced me to his friend Kat who lives in Seattle. Jordan understood that I was searching for more friends in WA and thought Kat shared a lot of similar interests with us.  He was right! Kat and I emailed back and forth a few times, but had not actually managed to meet yet. Next thing I know, I find out that many years ago, Kat and Jenni did research together at Shannon Point Marine Center - where Jay now works. So we ended up all getting together for Thai food and a walk in Seattle. What fun! But it gets better! Just as we pulled into the small parking lot at the Thai place, I looked into the little outdoor seating area at the coffee joint next to the Thai place. I stared a bit at the dude in the hoody and realized that it was our friend Ralph and his girlfriend Jackie! So random! Jackie and Ralph had been in Vietnam over the entire summer (as part of Ralph's MS work). Long story short, after lunch and a walk with Jenni and Kat, we headed over to UW's campus and scooped up Ralph. A few beers were consumed as we caught up on life, Vietnam, and such.

Another lovely weekend. We have a good life.