Masquerade Ball and Some Geocaching

Ben's friends, Michael and Elaine were celebrating their 30th birthdays and saved up money to rent out a building in Bellingham to celebrate the occasion.  They invited us at Oktoberfest and through an event on Facebook.  They really hoped that we could come.  We blocked it off on the calendar and went through our nice clothes since it was a masquerade ball.  That meant I had to dress nice and find some masquerade masks. 

The next day we got up late...I around 11 and Ben not until after noon.  I had some cereal while I watched college football.  Afterwards,  I got a shower in and packed up my stuff for the rest of the weekend since we were going to spend the night at their house in Mount Vernon.  Ben thought the party started at 7 so he took his sweet time even though it started at 5.  I told him that we needed to go soon because it was going to take a while to get there.  He said that we would have plenty of time because it started at 7.  I told him no it doesn't, it starts at 5.  We are going to be really late.  We verified it by looking at the Facebook event.  Ben also texted Michael stating that we were going to be late because of Ben's misinterpretation.  He just said to get here when you can. Plus, we still had to go to the Halloween store in West Olympia to get masks.  Today is already a disaster.

Ben hurried, got all packed and we left our house around 3.  We drove over to Westside Olympia and to the Halloween store. 

We were lucky, they had black masks which will go with both of our outfits.  We got onto I-5 and headed to Bellingham, which was going to take us a while.  We left Olympia around 4.  The only traffic we had to stop for was between Nisqually and Lakewood.  From there, it was smooth sailing.  I had an estimate that we would be there by 7.

Once we were in Bellingham, we followed Nuvi's directions to Lairmont Manor.  It was going to take us through Fairhaven and up the hill.  We reached the destination and found a place to park.  The building was pretty cool.  We did some changing in the car since I wore jeans and a sweatshirt up.  I got into my nice sweater and slacks.  We grabbed our masks and our chips and dip and walked in.  The manor was insane.  This building was pretty cool.  I wonder how much they had to pay to rent it out?

The only people I knew were Michael and Elaine and a few other guys that I've seen a couple times.  We basically ate food and talked to a bunch of people for a while and then right around the end of the night we did some dancing and picture taking.  

We were so late getting there that's really all the time we had because the night ended at 11.  We helped pick up some stuff and packed up the items that belonged to Michael and Elaine.  We said our goodbyes and some of us headed to Mount Vernon, which was about a 30 mile drive.

I wanted to get a geocache before we left Bellingham so we stopped for Little Free Library in Fairhaven (GC83FZV).  We parked in a lot and walked up to it on the sidewalk.  It was outside of a business that was closed for the night and it was almost midnight as it was.  We found it quickly, signed the log, got a picture and I left a pathtag for the next cacher.  We continued to Michael and Elaine's house in Mount Vernon.  

When we got there, we parked in the cul-de-sac, grabbed our overnight bags and went inside.  I got changed (we stayed in Dom's room) and headed downstairs to play a few board games before bedtime.  Their kids were with the grandparents for the night so we didn't have to worry about being quiet while we played.  We ended up going to bed past 2 a.m.

The next day we got up around 9 a.m. and started getting ready to go.  I wasn't sure who was up yet since we went to bed so late.  I wanted to get a start on our day so we skipped breakfast and thanked them for having us over.  Elaine was still like, are you sure you don't want breakfast?  I can make you some pancakes.  Nah, I wasn't very hungry plus we had to go do some shopping before we drove back towards home.  We gave out hugs, threw our bags into the car and headed out.

I wanted to do some caching while we shopped and when we left their development I saw one at the nearby park.  MVGCC3-Fire Station Park (GC6DM91) which was down the hill.  It was a tiny park situated near the fire station.  We parked and followed the phone to the corner of the fence.  The cache was compromised.  The lock was missing from the birdhouse and the cache contents were thrown all over the ground.  We picked up what we could and put it back in the birdhouse.  We wrote a note to the cache owner telling them that their cache was compromised.  Later on in the day they thanked us for the heads up.

We drove back towards the freeway and I saw the Value Village.  I had to go in because this is an area I have not looked at their junk yet.  I left with a Cougar pint glass and a book.  We moved onto the Burlington Coat Factory in Burlington!!  Haha!  Ben promised me a winter coat last year for my birthday/Christmas and got me one online but it was the wrong size.  I wanted a black puffy coat without any large logos on it.  We were in there for about an hour before I found the right one.  It was originally $260 and it was now discounted to $60.  It was a black puffy jacket with a very small spider on it.  I looked it up and it was called Spyder and it was an active sportswear company out of Boulder, Colorado.  I tried it on a couple times to make sure I could wear it with a sweatshirt underneath it.  It was perfect and I told Ben this was the one.  He said okay, we looked around a bit more and then we went to pay.  I also bought a Seahawks sweatshirt since mine were getting all worn out.

We decided we were hungry and looked at the places that were nearby.  I asked Ben, what about Five Guys?  We haven't been there in a while plus I have a gift card for $10.  He said sure!  We both had burgers, shared the fries, I had my drink and Ben had a peanut butter chocolate shake.  We put the Seahawk game on his phone while we ate.  We were playing the Falcons in Atlanta so the game started at 10 a.m.  It was almost halftime and we were up by almost 24 points.  We finished up our food and decided to find a few more caches in town before we headed south.

Da Boat Da Boat (GCZH7R) was hidden near a church that looked like Noah's Arc.  It was pretty cool.  We literally drove right up to the cache.  We had forgotten it was Sunday but no one seemed to be paying attention to us.  It was a quick find.

We started heading south.  I saw a few along a side road so we got off of I-5.  Brian's Cache (GC23QXQ) was a quick park and grab guard rail cache.  I was happy it was there.  I hate showing up to guard rail caches and they are missing...especially ones that are not near home.

About a mile or so down the road we searched for Stumpy (GC4A0ZH).  This one took us a while to zero in on and once we did we had trudged through the brush and saw the cache at a really obscure angle next to a power pole.  You really couldn't see it from the road side.  We got our names on it, took a picture and headed to the next one.

We continued heading south on the side road.  I saw another one coming up, Professional's Only (GC2TCHG) and as we got closer to the cache site, we knew it was going to be in or around this very large stump/nurse log on the side of the road.  It also was an easy park and grab.

I was pretty excited for the next one, A TB Hotel For the Birds (GC7H8D9) and there were actually TB's inside the cache.  I was shocked.  Usually when we stop for TB Hotel's there are no trackables inside and it's upsetting.  This is why my TB Hotel at home always has trackables it will not disappoint cachers when they come find it.  We took the two TB's and I left a pathtag for the next set of cachers.  We moved onto the next one.

Born Free (GCWHM1) was on our way back to the freeway.  There was this cool historical place across from where we found the cache near the cemetery.  It's too bad it wasn't open when we came by.  Cache was a film cannister hidden in the fence across the street.  It was a quick find.  

We got back on I-5 and headed south towards Marysville.  A few weeks back I had noticed a new virtual cache in that area and we were going to stop and grab, Ye Old Opera (GC890BJ).  As we got closer we followed Nuvi to the parking coords of an old opera house.  I read the cache page to see what we had to do.  The cache owner wanted us to check on a few words on the corner of the building and sent it to them and to take a picture.  Pretty easy.

Since we were near a Dairy Queen I asked Ben if he wanted a blizzard so we drove a couple blocks.  We went inside and there are some real winners working there.  I made sure I watched them make my blizzard just in case they decided to spit in it.  Both workers looked like they had just gotten out of prison and were addicted to meth.  Yikes!  We took it to go and got back onto I-5.

We called Trish to see how her weekend was and she asked us where we where since she knew we were in the Mount Vernon area visiting Michael and Elaine.  We told her that we just left Marysville.  We asked if we could stop by and she said sure.  She was going to get some pizza's for dinner.  We didn't hit any traffic from Marysville all the way to Bonney Lake.  We got to her house around 5ish.  We ate pizza, hung out and told her about the weekend.  I showed her some of the pictures and she said sounds like we had a fun weekend.  We stayed until about 7 and then had to head home to get ready for the new work week.  We thanked her for the pizza and told her we would come visit again soon.

I had Erika start a load of laundry so it would be done and ready for the dryer by the time we got home.  We got home around 8, unpacked the car, showered, folded laundry and relaxed a bit before bed.  I was happy to finally have a warm jacket.  I knew it would come in handy over the next couple months.

Next Adventure:  Seattle Seahawks vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 

An Afternoon Exploring Snoqualmie and a Flu Shot

Mom has been looking at random Facebook posts and really wanted to go to this farm near North Bend/Snoqualmie called Rockwood Farm.  We decided we would go.  I took a day off from work to go and to get a flu shot as well.  I looked up the address and told mom I would meet her in Rainier.  I got all my stuff ready the night before so I could sleep in as late as possible.

The next day I got up around 8:15, got ready and met mom at her house.  The weather was horrible and I was upset because yesterday was so nice.  We were going to get soaked today.  Yay!  My favorite!  Not!  We took the Expedition and headed out via Spanaway, Puyallup, Auburn and got onto Hwy 18.  It still wasn't raining yet.  We might get lucky today.  Fingers crossed.

We got onto I-90 and then immediately got off at the next exit.  We followed mom's directions to our location.  Throughout the drive through these rural backroads, the autumn leaves overtook the landscape as we followed the river to our next turn.  It was so pretty back here.  I told mom on the way back we needed to stop in a few places just to take pictures of the "fallness".

We continued following the directions and drove past a small county park.  We made one more turn and slowed down so we didn't miss our address.  We saw it as we drove past it.  We noticed there was no place to park so we turned around and headed back to the park where we would park and walk to it.  It still was dry and we could see bits of Mount Si.  The clouds were rolling in.  We might get wet.  We pulled into the park and there were a bunch of people standing in the way like they didn't know to get out of the way of a moving vehicle.  We grabbed our stuff, used the restroom and walked the quarter of a mile to the entrance to the farm.

It didn't take us long to get there.  When we arrived we were appalled on how visitors had no regard for the property and have torn it up with their vehicles.  The farm may decide to not allow people here after that.  We found out we came a little bit too late in October because we have had some windy weather and most of the leaves were off the trees by this point.  Mom was happy to come here anyway.  

We would have to come a little earlier next fall.  We got our photos and on the way back to the park it started to rain.  Ugh.

I asked mom if she wanted to go anywhere else and she said she didn't know.  How about Snoqualmie Falls?  We haven't been there in a while.  She said sure.  On the way back to Snoqualmie we stopped in that one spot I wanted to see before we left the area.  We had to make sure there was a pull off and there was plenty of room.  No cars were coming so we took a few of them trying to avoid the rain as much as we could.  No one likes soaked camera lenses.

We followed the road into the small town of Snoqualmie and followed the signs to parking for the falls.  I was trying to remember the last time I was here.  It had to have been back in 2012 from the Ape event with mom.  That was a very long time ago.  Holy cow.  It started to rain harder when we pulled into the parking lot.  We grabbed our jackets, umbrellas and walked across the pedestrian bridge.  We walked to several of the viewpoints and there was so much spray and fog everywhere that it made it hard to take pictures without getting super soaked.  I did managed to get a few pictures of the falls with my phone and mom's camera.

We tried looking for the cache, Puget Sound Energy: Snoqualmie Falls Upper Park (GC6NGB4) that was nearby but couldn't find it.  We gave it a good look but it was so rainy we gave up.  We were already soaked.  We walked back to the lot and I wanted to find at least one for today so we found the one in the parking lot near a picnic area.  Puget Sound Energy:  Time for a Picnic (GC6NGBT) was hidden on the picnic table.  It made for a quick find since it was raining pretty hard.

We drove back through Snoqualmie and under I-90 out to Hwy 18.  I hate this area because people always try to cut you off and then they go slow through Tiger Mountain.  It's annoying.  There was lots of rain.  When we got to 167 there was a little bit of traffic at the interchange and a tiny bit on the merge onto 512.  I called Trish to see if she wanted to meet us somewhere for lunch but she didn't answer her phone.  I had remembered that she had her chili cook off at work that day.  We got off at South Hill and drove up Meridian.  We decided to have Ivar's for lunch since we were here and we never have it all that often.

We both got a 3 piece fish and chips and my favorite tartar sauce.  I paid since mom technically "drove".  It hit the spot and it was tasty.  

We continued down Meridian and cut over at Frederickson towards Hwy 7.  We took the interchange onto Hwy 507 and into Yelm.  We stopped at the Walmart to get our flu shots.  This was the first year I've ever had one.  I decided to get one since we would be doing a bunch of traveling this next year.  Plus, our trip to Pittsburgh is in a couple weeks.  I was super stoked.

It took a while so we did our blood pressure and peed while we waited.  About 40 minutes later we were done and we got to wear weird Band-Aids.  

We were required to walk around the store for 10 minutes before we left due to how we would be affected by the shot.  We grabbed a few things before we told the pharmacist we were good, paid for our stuff (I bought Halloween candy) and we left.  Mom needed to go to Safeway for fruits and veggies so we stopped there for a few minutes.  We drove back to her house, I got into my Escape and headed home to relax.  The shot actually gave me a wicked headache.  I took some Advil, watched football, worked on my blog and went to bed around 11:15.

Next Adventure:  Masquerade Ball and Some Geocaching

Columbine

As the 18th anniversary of 9/11 approached, I found myself watching YouTube videos and documentaries about the event, as I do every year, since it happened.  They are always educational, interesting and sad.  I still remember how strange that day began and how horrible it ended.  I was less than a month into my senior year of high school while we were in the mist of this historic yet tragic event.  Our world changed that day.

Anyway, as I was sifting through the videos I came across some of the Columbine videos and I instantly became hooked.  I NEEDED to know more about it.  I became obsessed.  I am kinda embarrassed on how obsessed I became with it.  It was nothing different from my past obsessions of learning about the Titanic, 9/11, JFK, Mt. St. Helens, true crime documentaries (ones mostly written by Anne Rule), biographies and other tragedies and biopics such as Into the Wild (the Chris McCandless story) and Wild (Cheryl Strayed).  I enjoyed those books so much every time I went to a Goodwill or a second hand store and found a copy I bought it and gave them out as gifts.

I spent weeks watching Columbine documentaries on my computer, reading articles (past and present) and even found my library card to check out books.  I haven't checked out books from the library since January 2017 when I obsessed over learning as much as I could about the Titanic.  I got onto the library's online catalog and started looking up books to check out.  I came across one called Columbine by Dave Cullen and I couldn't put the book down.  I read it at break, I read it at lunch and I even read it when I got home from work.  

The day of April 20, 1999, I was a freshman in high school going about our day as usual (I can't believe it's been 20 years).  I had an ortho appointment at 8 so I missed most of first hour where we were playing basketball.  During second hour we worked on the fur trade in Washington State while we filled out a matrix.  Third hour I lifted free weights and then went to a class meeting.  At this point we should have heard about the school shooting in Columbine but we didn't. After the meeting, I went to lunch with my friends in the commons at our table we always sit at and then went to my fourth hour class where we spent time working on our short stories.  Fifth hour was spent working on chapter 9, sixth hour was spent naming yearbook photos on the computer and putting them into appropriate folders and finished up the day working on a lab in physical science.  I went to track practice after school.  We worked on our events that we were going to participate in which for me were the 100m, 200m and long jump.  I was not a big fan of the 200m run.

Not once during the day did we know about the Columbine shootings.  I don't even remember if the teachers said anything or that they knew but was keeping it to themselves.  I think the first time I knew about it was when I got home and the news was on.  You have to remember, we didn't have access to breaking news like we do now with smart phones and all.  I actually didn't really know what was going on most of the time unless someone was talking about it or we saw it on Channel One the next school day.

When I did hear what happened, me and probably a bunch of other kids, thought nothing of it because it was happening in Colorado and not here in Rainier.  I know, kid logic.  I never felt unsafe at school even after Columbine.  I was aware that several places were experiencing school shootings but I never thought Rainier would ever have one and we still never have.  I heard that two high school students, who were troubled kids, bullied and assumed outcasts, got sick of everything, brought guns and bombs to the school and unloaded on the people inside.  I heard that about 20 people were killed and many others were injured.  That was pretty much the extent of it.  

Throughout the years, I've heard bits about Columbine here and there but never really fully dove into it until now.  What I got out of it was these two kids who killed people were mentally ill (among other things) and it manifested since they were little kids.  They really hated how they were treated by the teachers and the administrators in school and by peers so they acted out.  One was passive depressive and the other one was an aggressive narcissus and they both complimented each other perfectly.  They started with petty crimes that soon fed to more complex crimes that involved guns, bombs and planning to kill everyone in their high school.  They made video tapes, wrote in diaries, online blogs and even threatened people.

As the date got closer, they secured guns from older kids (they weren't old enough to purchase guns), made a bunch of bombs, kept secrets from their parents, friends and co-workers and tried to blend in without giving any information of "what was to come" away.  One of them even went to Prom the weekend before.  The boys had originally planned to do it on Monday but settled for Tuesday because they couldn't secure all their weapons in time.  They made a few more videos in their basement and letters to their families telling them sorry.

On Tuesday, April 20th it was go time.  They both got up really early, ate breakfast at a fast food place, secured all their gear and headed to the school.  A few people noticed they weren't in their classes including Brooks Brown (a friend, then not a friend, then a friend), who thought it was odd that one of them was missing an exam during one of their morning classes.  He decided to miss the next class and he ran into one of them in the parking lot.  He wondered what he was up to and he simply stated, I like you now, go home.  Brown thought it was weird but he started walking home.  About halfway home, he heard shooting but thought nothing of it.  Then he heard sirens and then it got serious.  When he did get to a house, he called the authorities and told the police who he thought was doing the shootings.  The boys had placed some propane bombs in bags inside the cafeteria which was located on the ground level just before everyone gathered there for lunch.  It wasn't on the surveillance tapes when they checked later on.  They stood outside in the parking lot and waited until they went off.  Buuutt, there was a problem with the propane bombs...they didn't go off. If it would have went as planned, many of the kids and faculty would have died in the explosions or smothered to death by the second story of the school collapsing.  They were angry and frustrated.

They took matters into their own hands and started walking towards the school with one thing in mind, shoot up people and cause as much damage as they could.  Essentially to make people pay.  A lot of the students that day thought it was a senior prank and thought nothing of it until people were bleeding or were dead.  It was a game to the shooters.  All hell broke loose inside the school once people realized what was going on.  A lot of the kids in the cafeteria got out safely but it didn't work out for some of the people in the hallways and in the library.  They shot up everywhere.  Every wall, locker, glass cases had bullet holes riddled in them.  It was a war scene.  They started in the hallways and worked their way into the cafeteria to shoot the bombs and see if they would go off like they had hoped.  It just started fires and burnt things.  They got bored of that so they went up on the second level towards the library to wreak some more havoc.

There, they found a few dozen kids and some faculty members.  Several of those kids were up there either studying, finishing homework or hanging out with their friends.  They didn't know what was going on until it arrived.  The teacher demanded that they get under their desks so all the kids got under their desks or at least they tried to find cover.  The two boys came in and shot some of them, injured a bunch of them, taunted them and made fun of them.  They let one of the kids go.  They left the library to go downstairs to shoot up the propane bombs again.  From the look of the surveillance tape, it seemed as if they got bored so they went back upstairs to the library.  They terrorized the kids some more, had a shootout with the police from the windows.  They knew they wouldn't make it out alive and they didn't want to go to jail so they committed suicide in one of the corners of the library.  It was over.  However, no one knew exactly how many shooters there were so they took a long time to set the perimeter and get inside to rescue the rest of the kids and faculty that were inside.  In the meantime, a teacher bled to death in the science room and a kid who was badly injured climbed out the second story library window.  This will be one of the most famous scenes of the Columbine Massacre.

All the surviving people eventually vacated the school while the dead stayed there overnight.  The parents and community were angry, heartbroken and confused on how this would happen.  The next day the investigation started and it went for years.  The police were questioned on the way they handled the situation, parent's wanted closure and monetary compensation for the death of their children and everyone wanted answers.  The parents of the two boys were harassed and didn't want to talk to anyone.  One set of the boy's family members eventually started to do talks and TED talks on the subject of being a parent of a kid who killed students during a school shooting.  

Everyone tried to make sense of what happened and we probably really never will because we are not the two boys who did the shooting.  However, they did leave enough evidence behind to come to some sort of conclusion of what was going on.  All of the chaos happened within an hour.  It took an hour take the lives of innocent kids who didn't deserve it and it will take a lifetime for those who survived the terrible tragedy to learn how to live with it.

The media wasn't helpful while this was going on.  No one seemed to know what was going on so they asked the kids fleeing the school and they really didn't know so bad information was bring spread.  I heard all kinds of stuff throughout the week.  Eventually, we heard what the order of events were that took place.  It was harrowing.

As a result, 13 people died (students and faculty) and another 24 were injured.  The library was remodeled, a memorial was built and "Columbine" became a byword for future mass shootings.  I can't imagine being one of those students living with that fear everyday because it can happen anywhere and to anyone.  Unfortunately, there have been more school shootings since then and no real answers on how to prevent them from happening.

I hope the next time I am in the Denver, Colorado area I am able to come visit the memorial.

Next Adventure:  An Afternoon of Exploring Snoqualmie and a Flu Shot

Hosting Oktoberfest

Last year we went to the Oktoberfest at the Puyallup Fairgrounds with Josh, Chris and Rosa.  We had a lot of fun, drank lots of beer, took pictures and even won money playing some of the games.  Ben didn't want to pay an outrageous amount for admission, food and beer so he and Josh decided to host their own.  This plan went into discussion around July and August.  Ben created a Facebook, invited several people that he thought would be interested in it and then polled everyone who was interested in coming to see what date we should set it for.  We had about 25 or so people that were interested and some wanted October 5th and some wanted October 12th.  October 5th won.

Ben, Josh and I made a video and posted it to our event page.  PROST!

Here is the written entry from the Facebook post:

"It's that time of year again, the leaves are falling, summer is leaving us and all the white girls are craving their pumpkin spice lattes...But there is one thing that the changing season brings that we all look forward to and that is Oktoberfest and BEER!

Are you tired of paying big money for beer tickets and surfing the large crowds of dumb idiots at the other Oktoberfest evens around town?

Do you still want to play the same beer games, enjoy the same food and atmosphere as the big events?

Well, look no further.  We are hosting Oktoberfest at our place this year where you can enjoy all the festivities of the big events around town at a much cheaper price.  There will be beer, food, games, music and friends to enjoy the night with.  No lines.  No fuss!

If you are interest in coming to our little gathering of German debauchery, please RSVP sooner than later so we can build a guest list as we are planning on having at most 25 people on October 5th from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m.

We are asking that our guests pay a $7 cover charge to help fund the keg price that will be present and full of delicious German Oktoberfest beer, if you do not plan on drinking and just want to come and hang out and visit, you don't have to pay a cover charge to get in.  If you can't drink beer due to whatever reason and still want a beverage alcoholic or not, please bring your own drink of choice.  Some games we will be playing (hammerschlagen) will require dollar bills to be wagered prior to play.  I will list all the games that we will be present in the comments with video links so people will have an idea on how to play them."

Because we live in the Pacific Northwest and it is autumn the weather might not cooperate as we would like it to.  We had to think of ways to keep people dry but also be able to utilize the backyard for our games.  I checked the weather constantly hoping for a cold dry night.  I did manage to find some pop ups just in case we needed to use them.  Ben bought two large tarps as well.  We told our guests that they should be prepared for any type of weather and that we will have a fire pit going sometime during the evening.

Ben ordered a keg from Dick's Brewery in Centralia and he and Josh picked it up the day of.  Ben bought a bunch of brats to BBQ, I bought the rolls from Costco, Josh made a turkey, Heather made German potato salad, we had several drinks, munchies, dips and veggies.  We definitely had plenty of food to go around.  We had napkins, plates, Solo cups and silverware.  The stage was set as far as food and drink were concerned.  I even bought some pumpkins and some autumn-ish decorations from the dollar store because no one seemed to sell Oktoberfest stuff.

It was tricky obtaining all the games.  I managed to secure a corn hole set from mom's dentist office, Ben also got a set from the fire station so we had four boards, we had everything for beer pong and we needed log rounds for hammerschlagen.  My parents had just cut a bunch of trees down on their property and had some log rounds.  We would just have to ask Dad if we could have two of them for our game.  Ben bought the special hammer from Lowe's.

As the day got closer, we started to figure out where we wanted all of it.  We looked at the kitchen and yard schematics and came up with a pretty good plan.  The dining room table will be pushed up against the wall to allow more room to go in and out of the house from the backyard, the games will be set up outside so corn hole could be played easily with hammerschlagen and beer pong without people getting in people's way when playing.  We had a pretty good flow.  We figured out how to project the music to outside and we had to borrow the chicken lights and extension cords for better lighting.  The back house light alone just didn't light up the yard all that great.

The only bummer we had was that it rained the night before and I didn't think it would dry out as fast as I wanted it to but the silver lining was that it didn't rain the day of or while people were here.  Unfortunately, because the ground was still wet, when people came in and out of the house it tracked in a lot of dirt, mud, fir needles and leaves.  I was constantly sweeping the floor just so it didn't get out of control.  Erika made a sign for the bathroom because we didn't want people puking in the bathrooms.  The sign was hilarious and by the end of the night the bathroom was puke free.

We spend the day of cleaning, gathering food, all of our stuff we needed and I cleaned up the cat room so Michael and Elaine could use the futon. I moved all the cars towards the fence and parked them as close to each other as I could.  We wanted to make sure we had plenty of room for everyone in our yard and out in the street.  If people could carpool that would be less cars to deal with.  As soon as I got the last car in place, Michael and Elaine pulled up.  Since they were spending the night I put them near our cars since they weren't leaving until the next day.  Josh and Heather came early because they had most of the food and needed to carve the turkey.  Our driveway literally looked like a miniature parking lot by the time everyone was here.

Everyone started showing up around 6.  It was a good thing we had most of the stuff done because most of the guests arrived an hour early!  They were apparently ready for beer and food!  I grabbed the brats and we boiled them since we had to make so many of them all at once.  Most everyone was here by the time the brats were done.  We spent about an half hour or so eating before we started the games.  One of Ben's friends from Lowe's, Tony went to buy some more drinks and a push broom for our back stoop.  We needed at least some of the leaves and fir needles to be brushed off from yesterday's rain that never dried.  We appreciated the gesture.

I spent some of my time making the rounds talking to the array of people that showed up.  Some of my friends came, my family, Ben's mom and Ed, some of Ben's friends from Lowe's, etc.  I can't believe almost 25 people showed up.  It was a full house and I made the rounds talking to various groups of people and thanking them for coming.  While I was busy being the host, I made sure there was still plenty of food, drinks and I occasionally swept the floor to keep it from getting really bad.

At one point I went around and took some photos and even played some hammerschlagen and corn hole.  I didn't win at hammerschlagen but I did win a round of corn hole.  As it got later, several people thanked us and went home and others stayed behind for a little while longer.  Ben's friends from Lowe's were rambunctious and I don't ever remember meeting them.  I spent some time inside talking to a group of people before I went back outside to start the fire pit.  It didn't take me long to get it going because I am pretty good at starting fires.

We sat around the fire talking about various things and I also brought out the makings for s'mores.  Everyone seemed to love that idea and in a matter of minutes most of the s'mores stuff was eaten.  Around 2 a.m. is when most of the people decided to go home and they thanked us for a great time. I took Doug and Jenn home because they were not fit to drive.  By the time I got home, Ben and I did a little bit of cleaning just so we had some room to make breakfast in a few hours.  We got ready for bed, made sure Michael and Elaine were comfortable and went to bed.  Today was really long.

The next morning we got up around 9ish and I made some food for everyone.  We had an assortment of muffins, I made bacon, pancakes, eggs and had chocolate milk and orange juice.  When I bought the stuff I wasn't sure how many people would be spending the night.  We will have a lot of leftover muffins and chocolate milk.  Michael and Elaine thanked us for having them over and we told them they would have to come down again.  They left to go get their kids from the grandparents house and then take them to the pumpkin patch.  I don't know where they find the energy after last night.  I would be dying if I had to take kids anywhere after staying up too late and drinking.

Ben and I spend the rest of the day cleaning the house.  A lot of sweeping, vacuuming and mopping.  We watched various football games as we cleaned.  The Seahawks didn't play today because they played Thursday Night Football and beat the Rams at home.  It was quite the game and Tyler Lockett caught an insane pass from Russell Wilson.  It was pretty much the catch of the season and number one on SportsCenter's top 10.  Halfway through the day I think I sat on the couch and fell asleep accidentally.  Tomorrow was going to be a rough day at work.

Next Adventure:  Columbine