Ben's birthday was in the middle of the week this year so on his birthday Erika and I had a mini birthday party for him in the dining room. We had cupcakes, decorations and a present for him to open. Oh yeah, we can't forget the birthday hat!
We made plans with Ben's mom to come over for the weekend and spend time with her. She said she set aside this weekend to hang out with us and we talked further about what we were going to do when we were there. She said bowling might be fun so we planned to do that and we haven't been to the Japanese steak house for a few years so we thought that would be a good place to get reservations for again. Trish agreed and made the calls.
On Friday we both went to work and came home and got our things together for a night. We asked Erika to feed Calvin while we were gone and give him some pets. We took Ben's car and headed out. It was a Friday and everyone was getting off work so traffic sucked. We took the back way through Spanaway and Puyallup to get to Bonney Lake. I wanted to stop and get a cache so I looked on my phone as Ben drove. I saw one up ahead called Bygone Days - Camp Montgomery (GC7X97V) so we pulled over in the small pull out and I ran out and grabbed the cache next to the rock structure. I brought it in the car and we signed it, got a photo and then I ran out and put it back.
We drove on and made it to Trish's house just before 7 p.m. She had picked up some pizza from Papa Murphy's for dinner. A meat Chicago style and a thin crust chicken Mediterranean pizza. The Chicago style one went in the oven first. We were all set. Ed wasn't coming over that night because we would see him tomorrow at bowling. We sat at the table, ate pizza and visited for a while.
Trish got out the cheesecake, he opened his gifts which was a giant coffee cup and a gift card. Trish told him that she would pay for his meal the next night at the steakhouse. I gave Ben his gift the other night when we had a mini birthday party. I got him a Sounders zippy jacket and another Sounders scarf.
We played a few games including dice and some rounds of rummy before heading to bed for the evening.
We got up the next morning and had French toast for breakfast. Ed came over just as we finished breakfast. He got there just a little after nine. We all got ready to go and we all jumped into Trish's Tucson while Ed drove separately. We drove into Puyallup to play a couple frames at the Daffodil Bowling alley. We parked and went inside and discovered there were no open lanes because they were doing league. The wait time was going to be another hour or so. I asked Trish if she made reservations and she said that she thought she did. I told her, you had one job. They called Paradise Lanes in Lakewood to see if they had any room and they said they did.
We all hopped in the cars and drove into Lakewood, just down the street from PLU off of Pacific Highway. We parked and went inside. We got a lane, our rental shoes and I spent some time looking for a perfect ball. I had the first strike of the first game.
I think everyone had a strike except for Ed. Of course we made fun of him. We played for about two hours and got through three games.
We had an issue with buying beer because Ben's license was expired and they couldn't sell him any. Oh well. I told him he should have been more prepared and get it done before his birthday so we didn't run into issues like this.
We had some time to kill before our reservations at the Iron Chef Japanese Steakhouse so Ed suggested that we go to his apartment for some games. His apartment was messy so he went on ahead of us to go clean it up really fast while we grabbed a cache at the nearby Walmart called Wally World Has Won (GC7YQYM). We found the correct lamp skirt in the parking lot and saw there was a car sitting right in front of it with a girl passed out in the front seat. It made for an awkward retrieval and putting it back. I got out and grabbed it as quickly as I could. We signed our names inside of the car, got back out, put it back and decided where to go from there next.
I suggested that we go to Bradley Park since it was just up the street behind the Walmart. Everyone thought that was a good idea and so Trish took us there. We parked, got out and started walking to the path around the lake.
I saw there was a cache here but didn't read that it was possibly missing but we looked for it anyway and struck out. Instead, we took some pictures with the lake in the background.
We thought we should probably go to Ed's apartment at this point so we made the short drive down the hill, parked and Trish led the way to his apartment. His apartment is what I thought it would be. A slightly messy bachelor with random stuff everywhere. We spent probably about an hour here playing a couple games of dice.
We drove up to the steak house on south hill and had a heck of a time finding parking. It was chilly and glad that I had my vest and hat with me. We met up with Walt and Wendy and chatted with them while we waited to be seated. I hadn't seen them for a while so there was a lot to catch up on. When we were seated, we were seated with some strangers who kept to themselves mostly. They did say a few things to us but that was the extent of it. Our hostess took our drink orders and asked us which meals we wanted. I got the steak and chicken again with white rice. I wasn't a big fan of the fried rice.
Our chef came out and he did the standard tricks with the knives, the egg juggling and popping it into his hat, the onion volcano and this one kept asking if we wanted yum yum. I had no idea he was referring to the yum yum sauce. I ended up with white and fried rice by the time everything was said and done. I didn't mind. Of course we ate way too much but it was sooo good. They found out it was Ben's birthday so they brought him out his after dinner ice cream with a candle and an umbrella in it while they sang to him with a drum. It was fun.
We thanked Walt and Wendy for coming out to dinner with us and then we drove back to Trish's house to gather up our things and head home. Ben had a training the next day at the fire station at 9 a.m. We thanked Trish for hanging out with us, gave out hugs and headed back to Lacey. We picked up a cache on the way home off of Reservation Road (since it is easier at night, less traffic) called Nisqually Trains (GC8BMHB). It was a guardrail cache and there actually was a train that passed by while we were finding it.
We got home, got cleaned up, Ben got ready for bed and I stayed up a bit longer working on some stuff. It was a good weekend.
Happy Birthday Ben!!
Next Adventure: Leap Day 2020 at Woodland Creek Park and Some FTF's
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