I’ve heard people say Seattle is cold and wet and rainy…we packed sweaters. And yet our trip was full of sunshine and warmth, without a cloud in the sky.

We started off Saturday with coffee and conversation, soaking in the warm hospitality from Alex and Jordan in their beautiful home.

Jen’s brother lives about a half hour south with his sweetie, so we made plans to link up with them for the afternoon.

Alex let us borrow his car and we took the 5 south to meet them at their local hangout. We did have a slight sidetrack after a wrong turn onto an army base, where Jen had to hand over her license and we were promptly escorted to the u-turn for the unwelcome.

We ordered some local beer and amazing wings and enjoyed sampling and sharing a Saturday in the life of Jeff and Jenny.

Something I’ve learned about Jen’s family is that they all share unshakable components of loyalty, responsibility, and commitment to inviting those around them to join the family.

They instinctively know how to make people feel loved and supported and held.

They share their hearts and genuine hospitality with humility and generosity.

Just being in their company, you feel seen and heard and cared for.

They stand in the world as pillars, holding the roof up so others get to experience what shelter feels like.

There’s a beautiful granite in their DNA. In their respective circles, her mom is a pillar, Jen is a pillar, the kiddo is in the early stages of pillarhood as his own village is forming around him, and I learned yesterday that her brother has the same role in his own village.

There’s a magnetism about them, people are drawn to the warmth they naturally radiate into the world. And Jeff has this good guy Godfather energy, like, every single person in the place came over to say hello as they arrived or wish him well as they were leaving.

I know how much Jen loves and respects her brother. She’s always looked up to him. So it was really beautiful to experience the mutual respect and love between them as he proudly introduced her to all of his friends as they came over. They were all really happy to meet her and gave the most wonderful compliments about how much everyone just adores her brother.

Jeff and Jenny took us over to Lake St. Clair, a place with special meaning to both of them. It was Jeff’s home and sanctuary for three years when he was healing from a rough chapter of his life. This magical place is owned and occupied by their incredibly talented and interesting artist friend.

We got the grand tour and found the whole property to be full of art and beauty and funky fun and love…including Jeff’s dragon sculpture right in the front.

And then we applied some sunscreen and headed down to the “party barge”. We got a tour of the lake and it was a perfect day on the water.

Now, if you’ve read any of my travel writing before, you may not be surprised to hear we happened to stumble into a slight snafu. And so it was on our return, about 7 mins before we woulda reached the dock, that our boat ran out of gas.

Adventure! So we had to laugh, Jeff got on the horn to call for backup, a boat full of wonderful neighbors brought us some gas, but alas, by that time, the battery was apparently too exhausted to start up again.

But the village came through with a boat and a rope and they towed us back to our dock, no worse for wear. We sat in the yard and visited, grateful, just breathing in every perfect moment enjoying this beautiful lake.

As the sun started going down, we gave our love to Jeff and Jenny for a wonderful afternoon and headed back up to join our friends for dinner.

They took us to one of their favorite local spots, Tim’s Kitchen, which had an old skool salad bar, fried green tomatoes, and a wide variety of hot dog options. Our waitress, Noelani, was an absolute hoot, one of those “breath of fresh air” people you feel lucky to meet on your path. She had us slapping the table and bent over with laughter all through dinner.

We had plans on Sunday to do some sightseeing in the city, but the four of us started the coffee pot early and fell into a deep and winding couch conversation that carried us through most of the day.

We talked education and law enforcement, politics and healing, gun laws and spirituality, we traded personal histories, asked questions, told stories, switched from coffee to sampling canned cocktails to uncorking the wine and ordered Pizza Hut delivery… because Sunday is God’s day and God wants us to be happy.

It was a totally nostalgic marathon high school friend chill sesh, with anything and everything up for questioning and discussion and everyone enthusiastically putting in their two cents.

None of us could remember the last time we spent literally a whole day just “hanging out” like we used to when we were teenagers and life wasn’t so full of responsibilities and reasons to cut out earlier than you want.

There was talk of going to see a movie, but we went for a walk to get steps instead…and more freakin wild blackberries to snack upon along the way!

I love Washington. We were sad to leave this morning, feeling a little bit changed after making such meaningful connections with really really important people…people who, without even trying, remind Jen of her beautiful core, people who invited me into their homes and lives as a kinda-still-stranger, but somehow had me saying my huggy goodbyes with a genuine “We’ll be back”.

There is a very unique brand of warmth you feel standing amongst pillars…a regard for their strength and their purpose, a respect and admiration for their ability to make you feel like the most important person in the world, even when you realize they make everyone else feel just as special and supported and safe as you feel. And I am just so grateful to know so many, to learn from them and remind them just how much I appreciate the world so much more because they are in it…a world that sometimes might feel like it rests on their shoulders…and, thank god, sometimes it absolutely does.