Etcetera

Jeff and I chose to celebrate our 18th anniversary with a getaway to Downtown Paducah, Kentucky. It wasn't hard to find a local coffee spot among the shops, restaurants and entertainment venues in this busy area.
Etcetera Coffeehouse warmed us with hot lattes and an artsy atmosphere on a chilly weekend.

It was a cold but sunny day to take a walk along the riverfront.

Intricate murals painted on the flood wall stretched for an entire block. Each picture depicted part of the town's history. 

The old buildings have beautiful details and some are quite vibrant. A lot of restoration has this river town bustling after so many years.

We picked Max's for an exquisite dinner of steak and salmon. It was VERY GOOD!

And then we couldn't resist topping off at the upscale Ristorante di Fratelli. It was the most delicious dessert I have ever had! Plus we enjoyed some wonderful entertainment while we savored every bite.

Listen to a sample of the live Jazz! 

Happily married and still singing our wedding song "It Had to Be You". 
Next visit we plan to make our date a progressive dinner so we can try appetizers at another one of the awesome eateries.

My husband spotted this glorious site on the drive home. Fort Jefferson Memorial Cross at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Definitely a worthy pit stop photo op. 

Just Love Coffee

So much to know about coffee! I was amazed to learn all I did when we toured Just Love Coffee Roasters in Murfreesboro, TN. First stop was the warehouse where beans are stored in the burlap bags and barrels that they were shipped in from overseas.

I definitely was not aware that a coffee bean is actually a green seed which comes from the inside of a berry that is grown on a tree! We were told a wealth of information about how factors such as region, fertilization, processing and roasting affect the flavor, aroma, body and acidity of coffee. Wow- that was a mouthful!

Here is where the magic happens! This bad boy machine heats the beans to super hot temps rather quickly causing caramelization to occur. There is a whole scientific procedure to the roasting- each small variation creating a different outcome. As it went through the steps, we were surprised at how it smelled like hay, then burnt and finally more like coffee.

Just look at all those beans!! YUMMY

And this is where it got a little weird...

After the beans were brewed we experienced a tasting procedure called 'cupping' which consists of deeply sniffing the coffee, then loudly slurping it so it spreads over your tongue, and spitting it out after evaluation. The odd part is that each person in the group samples out of the same cups! You do at least get your own spoon and rinse them (in shared cups of hot water) as you go around the table. Since I am a bit of a germ freak, I wasn't crazy about this system at all. Also because I had a cold I went last as to not make anyone else sick. Yay me.

Our weekend in Nashville was to celebrate Jeff's birthday:) We enjoyed our first concert at the beautiful Ryman Auditorium with NEEDTOBREATHE.

He requested local BBQ for lunch and Jack's Bar-B-Que was very tasty!

We stood in line outside for about an hour to get some of these famous pancakes! You should definitely make a trip to the Pancake Pantry. SO GOOD and worth the wait. You will want to go back for more!

Land of a Thousand Hills

Who would have ever thought it was possible to do good while drinking coffee?? It is! And that's just what we did on this trip to Atlanta. Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee Company buy their coffee beans from Rwandan coffee farmers, paying them more than Fair Trade prices. They also take their profits and reinvest them back into those Rwandan coffee growing communities in the forms of microfinance loans for widows, a sustenance farm for orphans, medical care, soccer fields, specially designed "coffee bikes" and more.

Coffee was not the only thing that we enjoyed on this trip though. The David Crowder* Band was making a 7Tour stop at The Tabernacle and we just happened to have tickets:) We enjoyed a standing room only night of praise and worship with DC*B, John Mark McMillan, and Chris August. If you are looking for ways to get involved with the less fortunate in your community and world, ONE and Project 7 are organizations that sponsored the tour and both are definitely worth looking into. 

If you have heard the name Louie Giglio then you are probably familiar with Passion Conferences. But did you know that Louie and his wife Shelley, along with Chris Tomlin, Kristian Stanfill, Christy and Nathan Nockles are leading a church in Atlanta named Passion City Church? Well we did, and we made a point to worship there on Sunday. The experience was amazing and surpassed all of our expectations.

Stone Mountain is a beautiful park to visit if you are ever in the area. I would like to go back with the kids someday since it wasn't their Lasershow season and I couldn't get Dena on the Skyride!