New Year's Eve

I worked on New Year's Eve.  A lot of people used their leave and/or their personal holidays this week.  It was really quiet and very empty.  I worked on trying to find files that were missing and working on a couple of other things during the week.

I started running again on Tuesday so again I ran after work.  It was really cold but I had on some warm running gear.

I had planned on going home, getting a snack, showering and meeting Ben at the station to go see some of his friends for a while before we brought in the New Year at Celeste's house with my friends.  Ben was suppose to get off at 8:30 and then it changed to 9.  Celeste had asked me to get some grapes for our activities later so I said sure.  I stopped at Dave's Market Place in Tenino before meeting up with Ben.

I got to the station around 9:00 and waited for him to arrive shortly after.  He then messaged me on Facebook, my phone does not work in Rochester but works on the wifi at the station, and told me it was going to be a little bit longer.  How long?  He didn't know.  UGH!  I hate the casino!!  It's ruined many of our plans.  He finally got to leave the place after 9:30 and got to the station around 10.  I waited in the parking lot for an hour.  We both realized that we weren't going to make it to his friend's house.  He needed a shower and to pack his stuff for the weekend.  I left and headed to Celeste's house.

I had some snacks and my beer and played a few games while we waited for Ben to arrive.  We got our stuff together, black bean dip, 12 grapes, marzipan pigs etc.  I found out that the Crandall's had some fireworks we needed to set off.

Ben arrived, he ate food and we tried to play another game before midnight.  It was chaos trying to get everything on our plates and Nicole repeating out loud what order we needed to do everything in.  It was hilarious.

My selfie stick I got from my work white elephant party has come in handy over the holidays.  It does a great job and very easy to use.  As the clock struck midnight, we did everything we needed to do, I got my kiss at midnight and we lit off some fireworks. 

We stayed until almost 2.  I was tired and needed to go home.  Ben stayed the night and my parents drove to Lincoln City the next morning for their 34th wedding anniversary.  I stayed home, did chores, watched a lot of football and hung out with Ben.

Happy 2016 everyone!

Next Adventure:  Caches and Cache Maintenance

The Sun Bowl, Grandma's Bingo Merry Christmas and Star Wars

Ben and I woke up, got clean and basically loaded the car with everything and headed back towards Rainier for the Christmas gathering at my grandma's house.  We had to stop for gas and to drop some of his checks off at the bank.  Along the way I got a text from Angela asking us if we wanted to go see Star Wars.  I told her Ben and I saw it on Sunday.  I knew we should have waited until Saturday to do it.  But noooo.  Oh well I guess I will go see it again.  This is the first movie I've seen in theaters twice.  She bought the tickets online.

We arrived at grandma's house a little later than planned but thank goodness food wasn't quite done yet.  We noticed some presents were opened and grandma ended up with an IPAD.  I knew it would happen soon.  Food was done so we dug in.  We had the typical mashed potatoes, ham, veggies, rolls, etc.  We've been eating very well this past month.  Probably have gained ten pounds too. 

We got everything cleaned up and grandma got the stuff out for bingo.  Mom and I had bought some bingo prizes a few weeks ago so we had some new ones to pick from.  Angela also brought some prizes as well.  Grandma didn't know where her bingo cage was so we had to use the old school version...little squares of paper. 

The Miami-Washington State bowl game was playing on the TV in the background.  I could hear the last minutes of the fourth quarter ticking down.  The Sun Bowl wasn't that sunny this time.  Southern Texas just got slammed by a bunch of snow, rain and tornadoes.  El Paso, where we were, got some serious snow.  Ben had seriously considered buying us tickets to go to this game.  I told him it would have been awesome but the timing was off this time.  It would have been hard to travel because how close it was to Christmas.  We beat Miami giving us our first bowl win since 2003 when we defeated Texas in the Holiday Bowl.  I sure hope this was the turn around the Cougs needed.

When we play bingo we give everyone at least one chance to win with multiple winners for each game.  About halfway into it some people who already won kinda gave up and started to become uninterested.  Everyone gathered into the living room and just kinda chatted amongst everyone.  Mom wanted to take some pictures because Aunt Janet wanted to make a new Edminster family book and she needed our information updated.  We got some individual pictures as well as some group ones. 

Then we loitered around waiting to leave for the movie.  We ended up watching part of the movie, Lucy, while we waited for everyone to get their butt into gear.

I stopped waiting around for everyone, because we knew it was going to get really busy, so Ben and I grabbed our stuff and headed to Lacey.  Parking was insane but we managed to find a great parking space after several loops around the lot.  Then we met up with Angela and Kayleena in front to get our tickets.  I was just worried about seats and when people were going to get there.  We went inside and grabbed seats as fast as we could.  We had to sit in the lower section but not in the front row than god.  I saved a few rows of seats while Ben went and got us some popcorn and a drink to share.  Within ten minutes the placed filled up fast and I was glad to see everyone showed up so I didn't have to save seats anymore.  We ate our popcorn, drank our drink and watched the movie.

**SPOILER ALERT!!**  It ended the same way as it did last Sunday.

We thanked Angela, used the restroom and looked forward to the next movie we hoped to see in the theater, Deadpool.

We stopped by the store to pick up some lunchmeat because Doug and Jen ate all of mine a few days ago and I might want a sandwich tomorrow.  We went home and Ben and I watched some How I Met Your Mother and then he had to go home and get ready for work the next day.

Next:  New Year's Eve

Elf On the Shelf Recap

I've always wanted an Elf on the Shelf but always forgot about it during the holiday season.  Then mom finally got one but I didn't know she had it until after the fact.  Then she gave it to Erika and it was on a cargo ship somewhere in the Atlantic.  Last weekend Ben and I were doing some shopping and we happen to see some of the elves.  OMG!  They had Seahawks and Cougar elves!  Must get one of each.  They were both on sale too, which was awesome.

I knew it was already into day five of December when I got him but I still had a good time making him do weird stuff.

Day 1:  He helped us put up Trish's tree.

Day 2:  He roasted marshmallows while we watched the Seahawks beat the Vikings.

Day 3:  He got into our camera bag and took a couple of selfies.

Day 4:  He found mom's button container and played with them.

Day 5:  He followed me to the state records center and played on the boxes. 

Day 6:  I found him inside the dryer.  He must have wanted somewhere soft and warm to hang out.  Now we know where the socks disappear to.  The missing sock mystery solved!

Day 7:  He saw me all the time checking my Facebook so he created his own.  He friended people pretty fast too.

Day 8:  Mom and I went to town to run some errands and wanted some popcorn.  Elf helped himself.

Day 9:  Elf saw how much fun we were having at work with our holiday frame he made his own. 

Day 10:  Elf twister is one of his past times.

Day 11:  He followed me to work and spent the day getting to know his new friend. 

Day 12:  In lieu of the Cougars playing in the upcoming Sun Bowl against the Miami Hurricanes, Elf wanted to show his support by waving the flag. #wavetheflag, #gocougs 

Day 13: Ben came over to watch movies with me and Elf wanted to be the center of attention. 

Day 14:  Darth Vader, Chewie, R2D2 and Elf celebrated opening day of the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. 

Day 15:  Elf accompanied us to our Christmas game night and had a great time playing Cards of Humanity Christmas style and indulging on wine. 

Day 16:  Elf, Ben and I became "one of those people" by seeing Star Wars on opening weekend.

Day 17:  Elf got into my pens and markers.  He must be looking forward to the game on Saturday! 

Day 18:  Elf was nice and helped us decorate our tree.

Day 19:  Ben and I went shopping for some last minute gifts and Elf didn't want to stay home by himself. 

Day 20:  On Christmas Eve, along with everyone else, we did some grocery shopping and some last minute gift shopping.  Elf wanted to come with us so he could pick out the good stuff. 

 
Day 21:  On Christmas Elf found himself a girlfriend.  He didn't want Ben to feel left out being the only ginger and all.

Until next December!   Thank you to all who followed this year!  Happy Holidays!

Next Adventure:  The Sun Bowl, Grandma's Bingo Merry Christmas and Star Wars

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Christmas Eve

I took my person holiday today because I knew I would need the extra time to get everything ready for Christmas, since we were hosting Christmas and no one was going to be at work anyway.  I went to bed too late last night trying to finish a few things. 

The next morning mom woke me up early so we could go into town and finish present and grocery shopping.  We had to go to the post office.  I had a card that had to go to Canada but needed special postage.  I get off of work too late to get to the post office during the week.  We decided to spend the day in Lacey and got to Shopko, Winco, Walmart, Costco, Best Buy and Sports Authority.  We got it all done before 4 p.m.  Sadly, I always know what my Christmas presents are going to be.

Now to head home, wrap the rest of the gifts, clean the important rooms, shower and pass out. 

I had to get the presents wrapped before Doug and Jen showed up.  They were almost to Federal Way when I was half way done with the presents.  Jonas helped me wrap presents.

I vacuumed the floors while clothes were washing and drying.  Mom made cookies and got dinner prepared.  I got dad motivated to put all of his train and gun stuff away into his bins he purchased the other day...mostly to keep the rats out of it.  I got everything cleaned up in the dining room, the cat box, swept the floor, mom did some mopping while I cleaned the bathroom.  As I cleaned the bathroom Doug and Jen arrived.  They dropped their stuff off in the room and we all had some food.  I did a few other things before we convinced dad to open gifts.  For some reason EVERY year around the same time we have the same argument.  We always open presents from our immediate family on Christmas Eve...why would it be any different?  Everyone met in the "Christmas" room and we opened our presents.

I got a green Seahawks sweatshirt, a black vest and a canvas Ninja Turtle picture to hang on the wall.  The last time I was surprised with my gifts was when mom got us all Kindles a couple years ago, before that...probably middle school.

Doug and Jen headed over to the Fain's house, I did some more cleaning and mom made frosting for the cookies.  About 15 min later Doug and Jen come walking back in.  Apparently the Fain's weren't home sothey helped mom frost cookies. 

Mom cleaned the kitchen one last time before we all crashed and went to bed.  I took a shower, talked to Ben and hit the bed hard.  I was so tired.

Christmas Day

Mom and dad got up earlier than the rest of us.  I think I actually crawled out of bed around 8:15...about the same as Jen.  We had to pry Doug out of bed just before everyone got there.  Jen helped mom in the kitchen and I moved all the cars to the bottom of the hill.  I thought I did a pretty good job. 

Everyone got there around 9 and the food was done and ready to be eaten.  Ben was one of the first people to arrive.  We all sat down at the table and had some of the tator tot casserole and fruit.  We ate and visited for about an hour.

Then it was time for presents!!  We gathered into the "Christmas room" and sat down.  Dad passed out presents this time.  I took some pictures.  We continued to pick names and only buy for one person with a limit of $50.  This year I had Erika but it was changed to Jen because Jen was added to the list when we met her in March.  Jen was really easy to buy stuff for and I had no problems. 

Grandpa had me and I got a Seahawk shirt, a plastic bin, a spatula, chap stick and some money to cover the rest.  Ben and I got each other Seahawk jerseys a few weeks ago and decided to wear them instead of opening them on Christmas.  He also gave me a Seahawks blanket.  I made him a painted Sounders wall hanger, a toy fire truck and some Seattle Skyline socks.

Then we had an all out paper throwing brawl. I got one full force in the eye but I got Doug back with one to the throat, muhahaha! 

We cleaned up and helped people take their stuff to their cars.  Grammie and Grandpa's truck didn't want to start so I offered the Escape to them for the afternoon since I was going with Ben to Seattle for Christmas dinner at his aunt's house.  This was the first time I've actually left the area that far for Christmas.  We got into Ben's car with all of the stuff we would need for the evening.

We headed up and made a quick pit stop at his aunt's house in South Hill to see his grandma.  We never get to see her anymore with Ben's busy schedule.  We snacked, received a bunch of cards, gift cards and engaged in some visiting.  Ben's uncle Dave gave me a hard time about my Christmas letter and asked if I always tell people my life story.  I just recap of what happened that year.  We were there about and hour and then had to say our goodbyes.  We had to start heading our way up to Seattle.

We got on the road and texted Trish on what exit we should look for.  She gave us the wrong exit number and we had to turn around and head back the other way.  She lived north of where Doug used to.  We parked the car on the street, grabbed everything and headed into the house.  Her house reminded me of the house I lived in off of D Street in Pullman.  It was a turn of the century house and still had it's original door knobs and windows.  It was really cool. 

I had met Jean two other times before.  It was nice to meet her in her own environment.  I still think she's hilarious.  She made ham, sweet potatoes, veggies, bread, cookies, etc.  We had beer, they had wine and sparkling cider.  It was different than I was used to but it was fun.  It was nice to visit with Ben's extended family we don't get to see very often.  We ate food, chatted about random things and opened gifts.  Aunt Jean gave me some peppermint bark and an angle ornament which later after we looked at it was a ginger!  Lol!  Ben got a snow globe made out of a Mason jar.  It was really creative. We took some pictures together next to her tree.

We got our stuff together and said our goodbyes.  It was fun spending Christmas with Jean at her house.  We all headed back to Trish's house, unloaded the cars, watched some TV and headed to bed.  I was tired.  It was a long eventful day.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Next Adventure: Elf on the Shelf Recap

Browns at Seahawks, Korum Christmas Party and Star Wars

The next morning we slept in and I was so stiff when I woke up.  Ben's bed at his mom's house sucks a lot.  We got cleaned up, put our new Seahawks jerseys on and waited for the game to come on.  I decided not to eat anything because I knew Trish was going to make nachos at half time, so I waited.  Ben had some cereal.

When the game finally came on,  the Browns actually put together a really nice scoring drive on their first possession.  We all kinda got a little worried...then we remembered it was Manziel and it wasn't going to last.  We were right.  The Seahawks dominated the rest of the game and the nachos were delicious.

With a little over an hour to get ready and luckily we took showers that morning to avoid trying to hurry to get there.  I went downstairs, did my hair and make up and put on my dress.  Ben got his suit on and did his hair.  He really needed a haircut.  Trish, Amy and Brad left and we followed behind them.  We needed to get there soon or we weren't going to get a decent table.

Last year Ben and I weren't able to go due to our jobs.  It was great to be able to go with his mom to see her get a 15-year service award.  Again, it was in one of the buildings on the Puyallup Fairgrounds.  We found a parking spot, grabbed the umbrella (just in case) and joined Amy, Trish and Brad at one of the festive tables inside.  This time they decorated it with small boxes of holiday goodies, chocolates, cookies etc., and glitter!!  OMG!  Glitter sucks!  It gets everywhere and even in places you didn't know you had!  It's another one of those "gifts that keep on giving." 

We got drinks, had some small chit chat with one another and some of Trish's co-workers and waited for dinner to be served.  Meanwhile, if you were a kid under 12, you got to see Santa and get a free gift...I wanna be under 12.  Dinner was served about a half hour later.  We had prime rib, fish, pasta, potatoes, veggies, bread and salad.  There was pizza, spaghetti and chicken fingers for the kids.  When we were done eating dessert was served, that included cookies and brownies.  I was so full I didn't need any.

Ben wanted to do something afterwards and since Star Wars just came out two days ago, that's what he wanted to do.  A part of me wanted to see it that night but another part of me was like, it's Sunday and I gotta get up at 6:30 the next morning, why can't we see it on Saturday?  I gave in, we bought the tickets for a 9:40 showing up the hill.  Ugh, tomorrow was going to be a long day.

Korum did their awards and Trish was called up to receive her certificate and to be talked about since she's been at the company for 15 years.  Everything they said was positive.  She really needed an assistant or a part-time associate because she works too much and can never seem to get ahead when she takes vacation time. 

After the awards ceremony and gathering up all of our stuff we took some pictures.  Another one of the decorations they had was a 9 or 10 foot tall nutcracker made out of balloons, a perfect background for a couple of pictures.

We said our goodbyes and I could not wait to get out of my dress.  I was so cold.  We changed as fast as we could outside and inside of the car.  Ben laughed at me the entire time.  I wanted out of my strapless bra and into my comfy one but just then the people next to us in the truck showed up and I was mostly shirtless.  Ben laughed harder.  I had to wait about five minutes before the couple finally left to finish getting dressed.  It was nice to finally have a shirt, a vest and a coat on along with socks and my sneakers.  We drove up the hill and found a parking spot at the cinemas.

We weren't sure how busy it was going to be so we showed up an hour before the movie began.  We had our QR code scanned and we were given our tickets.  We bought a thing of popcorn and a drink and gave our tickets to the guy and he directed us to the correct theater.  He said there is a line starting at the bench because the theater wasn't done being cleaned yet.  We walked down the hall and was surprised the line was two people.  "Wow, what a huge line!  I don't think we will get very good seats!"  Ben and the other two people laughed.  We were seated right away and we plopped ourselves in the center of the theater.  We ate our popcorn and watched the movie, which actually began at 10, after all the previews.

I thought the movie was pretty good.  It followed the storyline, at least as far as what I knew about the franchise, but there was one part I did not like.  I will not write about it just because some people haven't seen the movie yet as this is published.  It was nice to see characters from the original trilogy (episodes 4, 5 and 6) and how they've aged.  Ben has seen all of them prior to this movie being filmed and I have not.  I've seen the original trilogy when I was a kid but avoided the prequel trilogy (episodes 1, 2 and 3) just because I wasn't really interested in watching them and I heard they were terrible.  When I did watch them I was right...they were terrible.  The only thing worth watching them for was the story.  I didn't know how everything fit in and now I did. 

We got out at midnight and it takes an hour to get home from Puyallup.  I was exhausted and went to be as soon as I could.  6:30 comes awfully fast.

Next Adventure:  Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Christmas Tree and Game Night

I had planned out our Saturday to the minute because it was going to be very very busy.  I waited to get our Christmas tree this weekend because Ben could come with us.  We've been dating for three Christmases now and he hadn't gotten to come with us on any trips.  This year he was able to however, due to being on shift the night before and a fire at 4 a.m., he was very tired and couldn't managed to get motivated to get ready and head out to my house before noon.  There was part of the day which I had no idea what he was doing or if he was on his way yet or not...turns out he had fallen asleep twice throughout the day of waiting for him.

I finally got a hold of him and grandma and I just went and got the tree without him, he wasn't even close of being ready to go for the weekend.  Maybe next year it will work out.  I got my tree-getting outfit on and went and got grandma.  We weren't sure if we would find out Douglas Firs at the Gerrits house because last year there was slim pickins and it takes a few years for the trees to mature.  We were one of the four sets of cars that showed up to get trees.  Lynn and Greg recognized it was us and started chatting with us for a while about the usual stuff.

Then we went and searched for two Douglas Firs and they were hard to find but we did find them.  I cut down both trees while grandma made sure they didn't fall on top of me.  We grabbed them both and took them towards the Escape.  We chatted a little bit more with Lynn and Greg, grabbed some hot chocolate and candy canes and paid for the trees.  They then helped us tie them down on top of my car.  We thanked them and headed home as soon as we could.  I had a lot of stuff to do still.

I dropped of grandma and her tree and headed home expecting to see Ben's car in my driveway.  I did not and I was kinda upset he wasn't there yet.  Where was he?  I tried calling him again and finally got a hold of him the second time.  He said he fell asleep again.  Ugh, we were going to be late.  I got the tree off my car and then unloaded my car full of the stuff I've had in the back of it for months.  Then I grabbed everything we would need for our Christmas party at Nicole's, his mom's house and the Korum party on Sunday.  I had mom help me cut up the potatoes for the scalloped potatoes I was suppose to bring.  I didn't have time for a shower and smelled like campfire smoke.

Ben finally got to my house, we loaded his stuff up in the Escape and headed towards Nicole's house, we were about 20 minutes late.  We unloaded everything and brought it into the house.  We got all settled in and put our stuff in the oven while Nicole had us play a quick game.  Basically a minute to win it type game.  We had these boxes that were tied around our waist and we had to shake the candy coal out.  First one to shake them out or the most after a minute wins.  I will post the video soon.

We laughed our heads off as we battled against each other.  The final round contained me and Nicole and she edged me out by milliseconds.  The prize was candy.  I was okay with not winning, lol.  From there, we ate dinner.  Nicole made a roast and a ham, I brought scalloped potatoes, there was a dip, veggies, meatballs and cookies.  We brought our own drinks.  Food was delicious.

After dinner and a small clean up, we embarked on our gingerbread house journey.  I haven't made one of these since I lived with Jessie back in 2007.  Almost a week ago I was with mom shopping in town and decided to go to Winco to get graham crackers, frosting and bulk candy.  I intended on sharing with everyone.  We all couldn't sit at the table so we all sat at two tables.  My table used frosting while the other table used the gingerbread house glue that Megan made.  I went all out.  I slathered the fudge frosting on my graham crackers and built a two story house.  Then I added all of my candy.  I made my roof to heavy and it collapsed before I could take a picture of it.  Oh well, the point was to have fun and be creative.  I deemed it the earthquake house.

We cleaned up and played Christmas Jeopardy and I swear Celeste was cheating.  She knew all of the answers basically.  I guess I need to watch more Christmas movies.  We did our White Elephant gift exchange and got a bunch of wine stuff...it was probably the gift that Nicole should have opened.  Oh well.  I will find a way to re-gift it at some point.

Megan, Matt and Miles had to go home but we stayed a little later and played some Christmas Cards of Humanity and got to know this Brian guy a little more.  Just before 11 we gathered our stuff and headed towards Ben's mom's house.  We got there just before midnight and everyone was still up.  We sat around and chatted for a while and I had to go pass out.  I was exhausted.

Next Adventure:  Browns at Seahawks, Korum Christmas Party and Star Wars