A "Crabby Momma" Birthday Party

Mom's birthday was on a Monday this year, and we were busy the weekend before, so we planned on doing it next upcoming weekend.  I had the idea to make it a crab themed birthday party and started collecting things over the course of the month.  I found a really cool crab plushie at the Big Lots.  I sometimes stop by there to see if they have any good sales when I am in that part of town.  I ordered some crab decorations (balloons and table cutouts) and crab bibs from Amazon.  I already had red streamers to hang from the chandelier and I had plenty of red plates and napkins. 

I asked her what she wanted for her birthday dinner, and she said she had to think about it. I gave her a few days to think, and she decided upon the sheet pan meal we've made a few times for family gatherings.  It included red potatoes, green beans and chicken.  You add spices and Italian dressing over the top.  We enjoy making the meal every once and a while because it's quick and easy.  I asked her what kind of dessert she wanted, and she said a peach pie.  I had to ask her if she had a good recipe and she just said I could get it off the internet. 

I made a shopping list and drove around on Saturday to the stores I needed to visit.  I went to Winco first and grabbed my ingredients for dinner, then Hobby Lobby to try and find some beach themed cookie cutters but struck out, I went to Target and then finally to Michaels.  I didn't really find what I was looking for, but I did manage to find some beach themed small cookie cutters for the peach pie.

Around 4:15, I headed home with my groceries, unloaded the Escape and put away everything.  I got out my pie making stuff, turned on my podcast and opened up the recipe.  I did not make my crust, I just bought the premade stuff because I didn't have a ton of time and honestly, I didn't really feel like making a crust.  Maybe next time.  I got the filling mixture done, dumped it in the pie shell and then cut my other pie crust into strips so I could lattice it.  With the extra dough, I got my small beach themed cutters and cut out one shape of each and put it on top of my pie lattice.  It looked fabulous.  I stuck it in the oven and let it cook.  Sadly, I should have covered the edges before I put it in the oven.  Oh well, I will have to remember to do that for next time. 

I did a couple of things around the house, Ben helped with some of the cleaning and the rest of the night we just hung out and relaxed.  

The next day, we did a little bit more cleaning to get ready for the afternoon birthday party for Mom.  Doug and Ben brought in the chairs, while I set up the tables and the decorations.  

About an hour before everyone was supposed to be there, I got the food ready on the sheet pans.  I had Ben cut up the potatoes.  We assembled both sheet pans, sprinkled them with the spices and squirted Italian dressing on top.  We stuck them in the oven for about an hour.  Meanwhile, we finished up the little things and waited for everyone to arrive. 

We had the Seahawk and Cardinal game on.  The Seahawks won 20-10.

Once everyone arrived, they immediately asked why there were crab bibs on the table.  I told them, it's because it is a "crabby momma" birthday party, you gotta have bibs!  Everyone thought it was weird, but they were a good sport; they all wore their bibs.  The food was done on time, so everyone went and got their plates of food, sat down and ate.  We talked about a bunch of stuff, including, Mom's upcoming dental trip to Ecuador.  It's been almost four years since the last one we went to because of Covid.  I wasn't going this time because I needed to save money and vacation time for the upcoming wedding in July. She was going to have a couple of the newer girls from work go with her this time around.

We finished up dinner, so I went and got the crabby peach pie from the kitchen.  We stuck some of our numbered candles in it, lit them and sang Happy Birthday to Mom.  She blew them out, I got out some plates and scooped some vanilla ice cream and added a slice of pie to those who wanted it.  We ate pie and ice cream while Mom opened presents. 

Before everyone left to go home, we got a family picture on the couch.  We wore our crab bibs, held balloons and the crab decorations.  It was a good time.  

Mom thanked everyone for the presents and the party, we gave out some hugs and everyone went home.  Ben, Doug and I spent some time cleaning up the living room after everyone left.  We did the dishes, put away the tables and chairs and ran the vacuum over the floor.  We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening finishing up laundry, getting ready for the work week and watching football.  

Happy Birthday Momma! 

Next Adventure:  Pumpkin Carving Night with the Family, a Halloween Game Night with Friends and a Geocaching Event

Early Birthday/Anniversary Weekend: Walla Walla to Lacey

We decided to sleep in a little bit before getting ready, eating breakfast and packing up our stuff. The alarm went off at 9:00 and we slowly got out of bed.  I got my bathroom stuff done and then got dressed for the day as I packed up my duffle with clothes I didn't wear and stuffed my dirty clothes bag with the clothes I did wear. I made sure everything had a place before setting it aside.

I ate our breakfast items while I waited for Ben to finish getting ready and packing up his stuff, then he ate his breakfast food.  We took one more sweep of the room and Ben went downstairs to check out and grab one of the carts for our stuff.  He came back up, we piled all of our stuff on top and headed to the elevator.  We got to the first floor, went outside and packed up the Edge with all of our stuff.  Yay knowing how to Tetris stuff! 

I set our first stop to the Walla Walla Library.  We were not able to grab The Great Northwest (GC322Z5) on Saturday, it was closed on Sunday, so we decided to get it on our way out of town.  We found a place to park (it wasn't super busy) and went inside. I read the hint, and it took us to the stacks with the travel books in it.  You definitely had to know how to use the Dewey Decimal System to figure it out.  I bet there are kids these days that have no idea how to find the books they need.  We had to learn how to use the card catalogue when we were kids if we needed a book.  There was no internet! 

We searched each book to find the number we needed.  There it was!  Ben logged our names into it, and we put it back.  We both enjoy doing caches like these. I was glad the library wasn't super busy, or we would have had to have been sneakier.  I've done about a dozen library caches and Ben has done a couple of them.  I love that this one was straight forward.  We went back out to the Edge and decided to leave Walla Walla.

We got onto Hwy 12 and drove west.  I wanted to grab a cache in Touchet.  At one point, Hwy 12 went through Touchet, they built a bypass around it, and it confused my GPS.  We did figure it out and the coordinates took us to the small post office in town.  Of course, there was one person in the parking lot in the way.  We had to be patient before we could grab Little White Box (GC45D8W).  It was a quick park and grab under a lamp skirt, but the cache container was broken.  We let the cache owner know in our log.

We got back onto Hwy 12 and made our way to the Wallula Gap.  I saw there were a couple caches at the junction we could get before it started raining.  The road that we pulled off at used to be a rest area.  Now people just use it to hang out and fish.  We parked near the closest one, Wallula Jct. (GC936KH).  The coordinates jumped all over the place, but I managed to start looking around where I thought it was hidden.  It took us a while to find the right place but eventually found it because the cache was on the ground.  We put it back where we thought it went based on the hint.

We jumped into the Edge and drove the short distance to Missing Arch (GC95VB1).  This was hidden exactly like the other one, so we made quick work of it.  We got our names on it, got a photo and put it back.  We got back onto Hwy 12 and headed into Pasco.  We both were kinda sad when we got to Pasco because the TriCities Geocoin Challenge is no more, and we were going to miss all the fun times we had during the end of our Junes.  

Ben needed to get some gas and didn't think we would make it to the Prosser Love's, so we stopped at the Pasco Love's which was relatively new.  He pumped gas while I went inside to use the restroom, get some more ice, he wanted some peach rings, so I got those and I grabbed a couple bottles of water, just to have.  We traded places, I went back to the Edge, and he went to use the restroom.  After the nice weekend we had, rain was unfortunately in the forecast for that day.  It started raining in Pasco, just before noon, after we got gas and didn't stop until just outside of Yakima near Zillah.

I asked Ben if he wanted to stop at the fruit stand in Union Gap and he said sure.  We found a place to park, it was busy, and went inside.  I asked him what he wanted, and he said some potatoes and apples.  I grabbed some of those and some Walla Walla onions. We paid, had a good conversation with the owner and headed out. The next stop was Miner's! 

We have Miner's maybe once a year when we come over this way.  Sadly, this was going to change because we will not be coming over here for the TriCities Geocoin Challenge anymore.  However, this year, we got to have it twice!  We found a place to park and noticed that it wasn't super busy like it is during the summer.  It was so nice!  We were in a short line, ordered our food and found a table to sit at.  We ended up sharing a burger and fries.  I had a strawberry shake, and he had a chocolate coffee mocha shake.  Our food arrived after a really short wait.  We ate and I texted Willmarth to see if he was available since we were in town again.  We waited to hear back.

Meanwhile, I wanted to purchase some Tieton Honey Lavender Cider, it's made in Yakima but the cidery was closed when we drove through, so instead, we found a liquor store in Yakima that sold it. It was in a sketchy place in town, so I had Ben go in with me just in case something weird happened.  We were in and out of there in like 5 minutes or less.

Willmarth got back to us and asked if we could wait like a half hour because he was dealing with Kevin's high school attendance due to having his wisdom teeth removed.  I guess there were a couple of discrepancies he was trying to figure out.  I told him we would, and we found a couple caches to find in Selah while we waited.

We drove over to the ball fields, drove around to the back and parked.  The phone was showing it was in the grouping of the trees behind centerfield. We went back there, being careful of snakes and other dangerous bugs, looked around for a bit and made the grab.  Take a Penny, Leave a Penny (GC76J4X) was a little beat up, but we were able to sign the log and put it back.  We didn't take or leave a penny.

We drove up the road for Idyllic Rural View (GC2E7QP) to grab another quick one.  When we got there and parked, we thought we would find it right away, but we didn't.  We had to actually look hard for this one.  I didn't think it was going to be on the person's fence, but it was.  We made the grab, signed our names and put it back before someone came down the driveway and we were in the way.

We figured we killed enough time, so we made our way over to Willmarth's house.  We told him we were on our way and when we got there, we sat in the Edge until he came outside.  He told us he was sorry for all the crazy stuff that has been happening over the past two years.  He said it was odd that it seems to be every time we are coming over or are in town to visit.  I found it odd as well.  He invited us into the house, and we got to meet their new black lab, Ripley.  Shannon was at work and coaching an away middle school volleyball game, so we were not going to be able to see her this time around.  We talked about an array of random stuff as it came up in conversation.  We asked how Fletcher was doing and Willmarth said that he was slowing down.  He hinted that Fletcher might not have very much time left.  He and Zoey were good dogs.

We thanked him for the visit and told him to let us know if he needed anything from us as the officiant of our wedding in July.  He said he would keep in touch.

We drove out of Selah and onto Hwy 12 to Naches.  We got to the Hwy 12 and Hwy 410 junction hoping we didn't have to follow any slow vehicles through the pass. It started raining when we got to the Oak Creek Wildlife Area.  We listened to music and about halfway up to the pass Ben wanted his peach rings.  I dug those out and I had part of a raisin bagel. We snacked on those as we drove.  I was super thankful there wasn't a lot of slow traffic we had to follow. 

As we made our way down from the top of White Pass, you could see that Ben was getting sleepy.  I had to check to make sure he was still coherent.  We got to Packwood and into Glenoma.  I continued checking in on him because this drive almost puts you in a trance because it is a long, boring ride at times.  It almost hypnotizes you.  We got finally got into Morton and Ben pulled over.  He felt more comfortable if I drove the rest of the way home.  We switched places and we got home around 9:15 that evening.  We brought in our stuff, showered, figured out rent and bills, ate popcorn and got ready for the work week and bed. 

Notes on the Day:

We found 6 traditional caches.

Went to a new Love's.

Stopped by to see Willmarth and meet their new dog.

A five-day total of 375 caches.

Next Adventure:  A "Crabby Momma" Birthday Party

Early Birthday/Anniversary Weekend: More Power Trails, Milton-Freewater and Hop Thief

It was out last full day in Walla Walla.  We got up at 8, got ready, ate our bagels, fruit and yogurt in our room, made sure we had all of our stuff with us and left the room.  We drove to downtown, found a place to park and went into the Starbucks, which was the event site of Goodbye Wala Walla (GCAER76).  Ben got in line for a coffee, and I decided that I didn't need anything.  We sat at the table, signed the logbook, talked to Brad and the other geo peeps about random things.  It was a fun visit. 

We told everyone safe travels home and we went out to hit the power trails again.  I knew we weren't going to get them all during this visit, but we were going to try to put a pretty good dent in it.  We drove out to Lower Waitsburg Road to where it met up with Hart Road and started where we left off.  First one was Scraggly Snag (GC3M87Y), and it was a quick park and grab.  It was my turn to jump out while Ben drove.

Heart Near the Cross (GC5GDPK) was another quick park and grab after starting the Hart series (GC6REB2).  Because we started from Walla Wall and worked our way north towards Prescott, we did the Hart series backwards, starting from 53 and ending at 01.  There were some that had been archived, 52, 42 and 37.  Halfway through the Hart series, we stopped to get one called A Heart Stash for U! (GC5EH9K) and guess what?  It was a cache hidden in a pile of rocks just like the others!  Woah!

We moved onto our next section, the rest of the Lower Waitsburg series (GC6CDWP) and this time Ben jumped out.  There were 33 of these.  We had done bits of this power trail throughout the last few days.  Again, like all the others, we had to replace a lot of them.  Some of them were washed away due to the rain and others didn't survive harvest.  The rolling log and having practice over the past few days made us super-efficient.  A little more than halfway thorough, we found another random cache 7th on 7th (GC3M8FM).  It was a quick park and grab.  Along this stretch of road, we actually saw a couple vehicles drive by. 

We finished up the Lower Waitsburg series, drove south and got onto Martin Road.  The Martin Road series (GC52AXY) started at 2 and ended at 21, for a total of 20 caches.  I jumped and made sure I had a cache ready to go each time I got out of the Edge.  At the end of that road, we took a short lunch and bathroom break on the side of the road. I made a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and we had Doritos to go with it.  When you're out in the middle of nowhere doing power trails, you eat PBJ sandwiches, and you can't be shy about peeing on the side of the road.

I was running out of containers, and we brought a lot of them.  I was getting worried that we would not have enough to finish the rest of the power trails we planned on doing.  My fingers were crossed.  The rest of the MWR series (GC5PVA6) was spread out a lot over the Middle Waitsburg Road.  Several of them were archived so we grabbed the ones that we could and replaced the ones that were missing. We were able to get MWR 22, 18, 17, 16 and 15.  I got out and jumped to get these.

We started on the Smith Road series (GC5F6NX) and Ben got out and found as many as he could that were still available to us. There were 7 that we were able to get that weren't archived.  We had to replace a bunch of these containers along the way.  Ben finished out our last power trail, Sapoli (GC24M90) and the Sapoli East series (GC4QV81) 1-7.  There were several more power trails but those would have to be another trip over.  There is just not enough time unless you are one of those crazy people who geocache in the dark and literally all day long.  I can do it most of the day, but I do get tired, need food and some chill time.

We had spoken to his mom earlier that day of what we could bring back for her.  We knew this was wine country, but she was trying to cut back on her alcohol consumption, instead she wanted us to bring back some honey.  I looked on the internet to see if there was a place that sold that kind of stuff that wasn't in downtown.  We came upon a place called Klickers.  It was a produce and knick knack store.  There were a lot of people there choosing their pumpkin for Halloween.

We found a place to park and went inside.  There were lots of local goods, ice cream, drinks, produce and antique-y things. Ben and I wandered around for a bit and called Trish to ask what kind of honey she wanted since there were many different flavors and kinds to choose from. We ended up purchasing a bottle of honey, BBQ sauce and a bag of huckleberry scones.  We paid, put the stuff in the Edge and went back outside to look at the pumpkins and wander around.  It was such a nice day! 

We decided to leave and return to Evil as ABCD (GC5566K), a cache that stumped us the day before.  We had chatted with some people the night before at dinner for a hint.  We showed up with a hint in our back pockets.  We found a place to park and after checking a few spots we finally found the darn thing.  It was one of those old CD's that you would get in the mail for a free trial of something and they turned it into a geocache.  For some reason I thought we may be looking for something similar to this.  I just didn't know what when we were looking.  We were happy to finally cross this one off of our list.  

I asked Ben if he wanted to stop at a quick Adventure Lab and he said yes.  We started driving towards Fort Walla Walla and College Place.  We stopped at the Mullan Road Adventure Lab.  It was a quick little historical area where we answered questions on the information boards.  We were probably there for less than 10 minutes.  I wanted to go to Milton-Freewater while we were down here and had added it to our itinerary for the day.  

As we drove, I told Ben about the last time I was down in Milton-Freewater, it was June 2012.  I was with Willmarth and Shannon we drove down to his brother's place in Elgin/La Grande and passed through the TriCities, Walla Walla and Milton-Freewater.  We were there to pick up the dogs, Zoey and Fletcher.  Once we got to town, he showed us where his grandmother lived and where he spent some of his time while he was a kid visiting during the summer.  Ben thought that was cool. 

We got down towards the state line and crossed into Oregon.  Gas was exceptionally cheaper here, by at least 50 cents!  Wow!  We traveled down the Oregon-Washington Highway (Hwy 11) and into town.  I had the Adventure Lab open, Milton-Freewater Adventure, where it took us around town to the various hotspots.  One took us clear out to the cemetery and we had to follow a slow bozo for a couple miles.  We were glad to get rid of them.  Once we were done with that, I wanted to find a traditional cache, so we went to the one nearby, Orchard Park Cache (GC138C3).  It hadn't been found in over a year, so we attempted it anyway.

We were there for a while and after reading through a bunch of logs and changing the perspective, I saw it, but I couldn't reach it with my fingers.  I sent Ben to the Edge to grab the tweezers out of my caching box. I reached in with the tweezers and made the grab.  This one is hidden very well.  We signed our names and I put it back exactly how I found it.  We will see how other cachers do in the future.

We got back on Hwy 11 and drove back into Washington.  It was about dinner time and our neighbor, Rhonda, suggested places to eat.  She had been there a few months prior and really liked some of the restaurants she went to.  She recommended a Hop Thief in College Place, so that is where we went.  It is a pub restaurant that you pour yourself the alcohol.  What you pay is how much it weighs.  It was an interesting concept. 

We went inside and were directed to a table.  Our waitress explained how the beer worked.  We got a card that was attached to our debit card (for collateral) it didn't matter if you were paying with it or not since we were paying in cash. Each time you got up to fill a pint, you stick the card in the slot, and it knows how much you got and at what price.  You paid for what you poured when you left.  We both ordered food, the Walla Walla burger and joes sounded good to me while the white pizza sounded good to Ben.  We got up and poured ourselves a beer.

We took it back to our table and enjoyed it with our food.  He ended up with two different beers, the red ale and the coconut and peanut butter chocolate stout.  I had the Amber ale and a small cider that tasted just like an apple pie.  We drank and ate our food while we watched Sunday Night Football between the Bills and Giants.  The Bills played terrible but ended up winning.  We paid, Ben got his card back, I got some stickers, and we headed back to the hotel.

I chatted with Mom for a little bit, we logged caches, got organized, showered and enjoyed the rest of the evening. 

Notes on the Day:

We found 127 traditional caches.

We did two Adventure Labs with ten waypoints.

We went to an event.

For a total of 138 caches on the day.

A four-day total of 369 caches.

Next Adventure:  Early Birthday/Anniversary Weekend:  Walla Walla to Lacey