House Guests and the People Who Love Them

So it turns out I really love having house guests.

Of course, it could just be the people.  Our friends Lara and Chris came up from California and we got to spend four glorious days together.  Well, mostly together- I actually had to work for several of those days, but they are those excellent sort of people who are very adventurous and like to explore wherever they happen to be, which means I didn't have to feel guilty because while I was making money they were out hiking from Wahkeena to Multnomah, etc.  So  mostly I was just feeling jealous...

Anyway, one of the things that we all have in common is that we love food, and we love to cook, and so quite a bit of our socializing time was spent in the selection and preparation of delicious food (Farmer's Market for the ultimate win!)  The cooking part of the endeavor was made more challenging by the fact that Nathan and I still don't have a functioning oven and b) Lara and Chris follow a mostly-paleo diet.  (In fact, Lara's just started up a blog about her culinary experiments)  Although as it turns out paleo lends itself pretty well to the grill-not particularly shocking when you consider the fact that our ancestors didn't have ovens, I suppose.  But the results were fabulous (for example, my brainstorm of lamb-burgers served with red peppers and feta, wrapped in butter lettuce), so you may be hearing more about that sort of thing in the future.

It was just so good to have them around- I loved getting up in the morning and having someone already hanging out on the couch, willing to chat with me while I made breakfast.  I loved being able to show them (or send them off to) the beautiful and interesting parts of our region (although we all reached the very sad conclusion that probably we would have done much better to split one single doughnut four ways instead of each having our own).  I loved having people to play games with after dinner (although since I was the perpetual winner it's quite possible that I was the only one loving that aspect).  I just love their company in general, and our shared values and history and interests.  It makes me wish they lived closer... ah well, perhaps someday.

In other news, we have a HalloWarming party coming up (that's right- combo Halloween and Housewarming) which means that I am shifting to full-on-event-planning-mode.  And trying to remind myself not to go overboard.  Which is difficult.  But do-able.

Probably.