Looking Up

Sunday morning started the way that every morning should. A cute cat coming into your bed and cuddling. Look at this little guy, his name is Eti.

I hauled myself out of bed around 9:50, showered and got all my stuff packed up.
I was heading to Pickerington to attend church with my friend Madeline.
Thanks to my lovely GPS, I ended up about 15 minutes from where I should have been and so arrived a few minutes late.
She attends Life Vineyard Church in Gahanna, Ohio(www.life-church-online.com). We walked in (I grabbed a cup of coffee) right as they started singing “Overcome”, one of my favorite current worship songs. The band was real solid and included a Rhodes, Telecaster, Gibson hollow body, Madeline’s brother on drums, Bass, and female vocalist.
The pastor is an Australian guy by the name of Simon Forsyth, and he delivered some wonderful teaching based around the idea of Version 2.0 for the church, taking it to the next level. Easy application for all believers even if not regular attendance at LVC. One of the passages was 2 Peter 1:1-15. One of my favorite things he said was in relation to community; “Community is not everybody trying to be each others best friends”.
After church I met a decent amount of her family and talked with Simon a bit (he was wearing a Spain national jersey btw). After about 15 minutes we headed out to the park right outside where the church meets and watched several people be baptized in the river. A very cool experience to watch these people go through the process, in a river no less.
We talked with her parents for a bit then walked over and had lunch at The Bag of Nails Pub.
After eating we went to her favorite coffee shop called Crazy Goat Coffee. The experience that followed was nothing short of spectacular. Before even walking in I saw that they served Intelligentsia coffee so I knew there would be a level of quality to start. Upon entering, my eyes were instantly drawn to the espresso machine, a dual group head LaMarzocca.
After talking to the barista for a bit we ordered. I decided on an Ethiopian from Klatch roaster (I forget the region) via pour over, while Madeline is in love with their (homemade) chai. The coffee was unbelievable and Madeline’s chai was probably the best chai latte I have ever tasted.
While we were sitting in the cafe talking Ben (the barista) came over and offered me the end of a bag of Klatch Roaster Costa Rica La Manita. This clearly only made me more excited about the overall trip to Crazy Goat. 

They closed at 4, so about then we headed out and drove back to her house as her parents were kind enough to invite me over for dinner with the family.
Her mom and dad were in the throes of preparing the meal, so we sat around and talked with her brother Dustin who is a really cool dude. They have a little Jack Russell terrier named Samson he all he wanted to do was play with his ball. This dog is insane. We talked in Dustin’s room for a bit after he showed me his recording set up before heading out to the main area where we watched youtube videos until dinner was ready. Madeline has two older sisters and one of them, Summer, came over right as the food was being put on the table.
Dinner was a family favorite called clam pasta. It was pasta with clams and mushrooms. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. Ice cream followed the main course, and then coffee after that. We had very enjoyable conversation through the night. Their other sister, Amy stopped over after dinner with her husband Eric, and we ended up playing some Scattergories until it was dark. I was going to leave around 9, but then Mr. Clark and I started talking music with Dustin and we talked till almost ten. The drive home went by quick. I was tired but the events of the day made it not even matter.