Friends, Wine, and Food

 We were delighted to spend the day Sunday with Warren and Brenna in Pennsylvania. Brenna and I have been friends since before we were born; our parents were friends in highschool. I had only met her husband, Warren, twice: once at his wedding, and then again at ours. And Joshua had only met them when they came to our wedding. So it was wonderful to all spend time together and get to know each other. Of course, now the problem is that we wish they lived closer, because we enjoyed spending time with them so much!

We met up at their church, then afterwards had delicious clam chowder for lunch (Brenna made it with her grandmother's recipe). Then we went to a local winery for wine tasting. They let each of us choose seven wines to sample for free, plus they threw in a couple extras they thought we would like. It was great and all the wines were good. We have noticed that a big thing on the east coast is wines made with fruit other than grapes. I'm partial to sweeter wine, so I like sampling the various fruit wines, which tend to be sweet wines.

We stopped on the way back to their apartment at the Penn State Creamery to get ice cream. It is well-known for producing good ice cream; Ben & Jerry went there to learn how to make ice cream. When we returned, Brenna and I had a great time chatting in the kitchen while we made dinner and Warren and Joshua played Race for the Galaxy.  

 Brenna knows me well and shares my love of baking, so she had some baking projects planned. We made raspberry crumb cake and pumpkin friendship muffins. It was wonderful to bake, something I have been missing while we are on the road.

After we finished baking, we sat down again to enjoy the raspberry crumb cake and tea. I got to use the Paris mug, which Brenna got in Paris when we visited in 2008. We stayed up talking well past my bedtime, then got up the next morning to have breakfast together before Warren and Brenna had to go to work.