Bonney Lake for the Weekend

Friday, June 12 

We all decided to celebrate Amy and Jean's birthday at the same time this year so we set aside a weekend to hang out.  We kept asking Amy what she wanted for her birthday and she could never give us an answer.  Sometimes she is pretty lame.  We asked Trish how the weekend was going to be broken down and she said that we will hang out on Friday and Saturday and then Sunday we would meet up with Jean at the cemetery in Federal Way and then have a birthday party in the back yard.  I told her that sounded great and asked what we needed to bring with us.  She said some snacks, drinks and some beans and chips for when we have the BBQ.  I told her will do and we will see her over the weekend.

I asked Erika to make sure Calvin got fed.  She said she would do it for me and I thanked her.

At lunch time, I decided to take the recycle into Rainier since we weren't going to have time this weekend.  It didn't take very long.  I was home by 12:15ish.  I got the rest of my work done since there wasn't a whole lot to do today.  I did have to wait until Ben came home so we could head up to Bonney Lake and have dinner with Trish and Amy.  Ben rolled in around 5ish and we packed up our stuff into the Escape.  We got gas in Hawks Prairie before we left.  

We drove up and I wanted to find a couple of caches on the way there while we waited for Trish to get off of work.  We ended up only finding one because we ran out of time.  That one took us down one of the side roads off of 214th in Bonney Lake.  I had Ben navigate us to CD Stash (GC8NEXG) which was hidden on the backside of a tree next to the road.  He got out and found the bison tube hiding in the tree.  He brought it back to the Escape where we signed it and then he put it back.

We continued on down the road to his mom's house.  We pulled in and took our bags into the house.  Both Amy and Trish were there.  His mom had picked up a few pizza's from Papa Murphy's and they were cooking in the oven.  We got settled in and the pizza's were done by the time we had gotten comfortable.  We ate pizza and place some dice for a bit.  Once I lost, we cleaned up the dining room table and then got comfortable on the couch while we watched Iron Man 2.  Ben and I decided to watch all of the Marvel movies in order once we were done with the Star Wars movies in order.  It gave us something to do since we were on lock down for a while because of God Damn Covid.

Once the movie was over, we all got ready for bed, took a quick shower and passed out.  Today was a long day.

Saturday, June 13 

We all slept in until about 11:30, woah that's super late!  I blame it on how uncomfortable the downstairs bed is and the fact that it was super hot down there.  I walked up stairs and no one was up yet.  I spent sometime working on my blog and then a few minutes later I heard Trish get up.  She came out and said good morning and then proceeded to make herself some coffee.  I asked her if there was anything I could help her with and she said I could go down to the freezer and get the breakfast quiches.  

I went down and grabbed them.  She put them in the oven and then started the turkey sausages.  While our food was cooking we talked about various things as I continued getting caught up on my blog.  Ben and Amy finally emerged from their beds and joined the rest of the world.   The television played in the background as we ate our breakfast.  

Ed showed up around one to spend the day with us.  We ended up playing Phase 10 Twist, which was a spin off of the normal card game Phase 10.  I destroyed everyone and rubbed it in a bit.  Ed was pretty fired up.  He claims that I was "after" him when I played my skip card.  I only play my skip card randomly because I don't want to end up with it or I will play it on someone who is gloating or have already laid their cards down.  He gets super intense during games and I love to egg him on.  Especially, when he is losing or lost.  We played a round of Uno Attack right after.

Ben and I needed to go to the store to get a few things so we drove to the Fred Meyer to grab the stuff.  We called Trish to ask her what Amy wanted for her birthday because we don't like buying gift cards for people since it's impersonal.  She said something about black Adidas or Nike socks.  So we looked for those in her size and got her a card.  We bought Jean a sign to hang up in her house.  Ben also bought some chocolate liquor to try with his peanut butter whiskey he brought for the weekend.  

We headed home in the hopes that the weather would hold up so we could have BBQ burgers that we had planned for dinner.  I was actually really excited for the burgers but when we got home Trish had already started chili instead.  She said that she didn't think the weather would hold up so she went with plan b for dinner.  I was so disappointed because I was super stoked for burgers.  Oh well.  We will eat the beans and chips with lunch tomorrow.

We ate, cleaned up the table and then played another round of Phase 10 Twist, a round of contract rummy and dice.  We all won a lot and Ed didn't.  It was awesome.  He went home around 11 and then we got ready for bed.  Tomorrow was going to be a bit more busier than today.

Sunday, June 14

I woke up around 9:30 because I couldn't lay in the bed anymore and took a quick shower.  Ben was still asleep but had an alarm set for 9:45ish.  I got dressed and went upstairs.  I offered to make breakfast so I started looking for the makings for pancakes in the pantry.  I mixed up everything, grabbed the pans and started cooking the pancakes and bacon.  I had bought grapes from Costco not too long ago so I brought those with us as well.  Meanwhile, Trish got up about halfway through my pancake adventure and started in with the cupcakes for the party later today.  I told her to relax and drink her coffee while she was waiting for the cupcakes to get done. 

Breakfast was done, Ben was up and moving around and we had to yell at Amy to get out of her room to come to eat breakfast.  Everyone dug in and it was delicious.  

After breakfast, we all got ready to go and meet Jean and Ed at the cemetery in Federal Way.  We piled into the Tuscan after I called shotgun.  We stopped by the Safeway to grab some flowers and then headed to Gethsemane Cemetery just south of Federal Way off of Pacific Highway.  I checked to see if there was a cache nearby and there was but it was missing according to the logs.  Dang it.

We pulled in and followed the road to where Jean and Ed were parked (yeah, they beat us there) near Ben's grandparents head stone.  Trish explained that she and Amy try to come at least once a year to visit them and to leave flowers at their site and the guy next to them.  They felt bad that no one comes to visit the guy next to their grave so each time they leave a flower or two for him.

Jean kept her distance because she had been sick and still recovering from her surgery last winter (since God Damn Covid was still on the rampage) she didn't want to take any chances.  We didn't blame her.  We stood there for a few minutes and then I decided, since I visit my grandmother every week or so, to have Ben, Amy, Jean and Trish to share a story or a memory of their mother, father or grandparents to everyone.  Both Ed and I have never met them but have seen pictures and have heard stories about them every now and them.

For the next 45 minutes to an hour we spent listening to stories and favorite memories they shared of their loved ones.  They were nice to hear and it sucks that we lose people way before their time.  I thanked them for sharing their stories.  I just didn't want us to stand there and not have their life shared with us.

We all planned on driving back to Bonney Lake so we all piled in the cars and drove back to the house.  We played a round of dice and taught Jean how to play because she had never played this particular dice game before. We started getting the food together for the chicken BBQ.  Trish had made potato salad the night before. Ben set up the pop up tent with the screen sides so we could sit out there and eat our food. I cooked the beans and Ben got the BBQ going so he could cook the chicken.  He wore Trish's new Seahawk apron and hat that Amy bought her for Mother's Day.  He looked so fancy as he cooked the chicken.

As we reached the final cook on the chicken, Trish and I brought out the plates, silverware, napkins and the potato salad, beans and chips.  We placed our gifts on the small table along with the fancy cupcakes.  Ben said the food was done so we dished up and ate.  We visited some more as we ate.

We had a mini birthday party after we were done eating.  We sang happy birthday to Amy and Jean and then they opened their gifts.  Jean really liked her sign.  She said she knew exactly where to hang it in her house.  We ate the cupcakes Trish made and they were pretty tasty.  We cleaned up, put everything away and I suggested that we take a group photo.  Everyone agreed and we found a place over by the lilac tree in the back yard.  We take a few.

We went inside and played some Uno Attack and then it was almost time to head home.  Jean thought the same thing.  She had to drive back to Seattle.  We gathered up all of our stuff, thanked everyone for coming, gave out hugs and got in the Escape and headed out.  

I asked Ben if we could find two caches up on Myer Road.  He said sure.  I had him navigate me to the first one, Church of Nazarene Historic Marker (GC833DW).  We parked near where the coords took us and we got out.  No one was in the parking lot, which was nice, so we had free range without anyone questioning us why we were there.  I read the hint and I was not finding anything that matched that description.  We tried the other tree in the parking lot.  Nothing.  We read some of the logs and the cacher before us said it wasn't at the hint location and gave us and said that the cache owner should change the hit or update the location.  We walked over to the church historic marker and immediately found it behind the marker.  Hmm.  We both made sure to make a note of that in our log.  We signed our names and put it back exactly where we found it.  We knew other cachers were going to have trouble looking for it.

Our second one Myer Road #2 (GC69FFB) was a little further up the road.  When we got the spot I pulled over and saw the cache before we even walked across the road to grab it.  It was a reflector on the guardrail.  Basically, a park and grab.  

We drove back down Myer Road and back onto Hwy 410 where we got onto 167, then 512 and then finally onto I-5.  There wasn't any traffic or road construction so going home was a breeze.  We got home around nine, got cleaned up and started getting ready for our work week.  Calvin was pretty happy to see us and I was happy to see him.  We snuggled most of the night.

Next Adventure:  A Short Trip to Bonney Lake