Ben's Birthday Weekend

Friday, February 17th 

It was going to be another busy weekend and it was Ben's birthday weekend.  He had set up a poker night with his friends at Del's house for Saturday night.  He was excited. On Friday, he decided to take it off because he could since it was his birthday weekend.  He slept in while I was out in the living room working.  The reviews were about an hour and a half late, so it made the morning frustrating.  Ben eventually got up, ate a late breakfast and spent the rest of the day on his game.  After I logged off, I went to the store, took care of a few things and then came home to make chicken curry in the Instant Pot. 

We spent the rest of the night eating food, hanging out and of course going to bed too late.  This weekend is going to be busy!  I am so glad we have a three-day weekend ahead of us!

Saturday, February 18th

I got up, ate some food, started a load of laundry and got ready for Manley's celebration of life. See previous post about that experience.  Ben got ready for his evening at Del's.  Ben wanted to do something fun for his birthday with a bunch of his friends from here and up north.  He also wanted to finalize his groomsmen choices as well.  He put together a group on Facebook and organized it through that.  The breakdown was to hold a poker night at Del's house (he has a professional game table), eat steak and potatoes, beer, liquor, snacks and dude time. 

As I got ready to leave is when Michael and Sven came over to go with Ben to play some disc golf at Woodland Creek, before they went over to Del's house.  After Manley's celebration, I took Dad to TK to pick up Erika's car.  Earlier this week, some of her hoses split and got oil everywhere.  It also stranded her in Westside Olympia on her way to an appointment.  She was pretty mad.  Dad took the car back to his house and I went home. 

I spent the evening cleaning up the house and making cupcakes for Ben's birthday party the next day.

I watched the Kraken beat the Redwings.  Ben and his friends had a great time and Michael was the one who won and cleaned them out.  He and Michael came home around 1:30, we stayed up until 2:30 chatting before going to bed.

Sunday, February 19th

We got up around 9:30, fed Michael and I started the crock pot salsa chicken Ben asked me to make for his birthday "dinner" and put some stuff away.  We thanked Michael for coming and he headed back to Mount Vernon.  I frosted the cupcakes, cut limes, put things into bowls, went and got Erika around 12:15 because she didn't have her car.  Dad was going to drive it over to our house for the party so she could drive it home.  Zac went to Vancouver with his brother and Linda, so he wasn't going to be at the birthday party.  We got back and she helped me decorate the living room and we brought in chairs. 

The crock pot chicken salsa was pretty much done so after we decorated, I got the rest of the toppings taken care of and set everything out on the dining room table.  Everyone arrived around or near 1 p.m.  We dished up, ate, complained that I didn't cook the corn tortillas, so they crumbled when we ate them, ate, talked about funny things and of course, they all lead to poop or poop related things.

We cleaned up the table and I went and got the cupcakes, we sang happy birthday to Ben, ate cupcakes and Ben went over to the couch to open presents.  I got Ben two Dragon Ball Z energy sodas, mostly for the collection aspect of them and a new video game headset that he also could use to listen to music or videos on his phone.  Grandma Karen got him an electric potato peeler because he was so excited about using the one, she let us borrow and claims it is a game changer when peeling potatoes for Thanksgiving.  He was super amped helping me get ready for Thanksgiving with that thing.  His mom got him an air fryer and Mom got him a disc golf gift card.  He was pretty happy with his gifts and thanked everyone coming and for the gifts.

Because it was a Sunday, everyone went home shortly after so they could all get ready for the work week.  Lucky, for some of us, we work for the state and had the next day off because it was President's Day.  Ben and I put stuff away, cleaned up, dish the dishes and I worked on my blog for a bit while we watched the Sea Dragons lose.  Ben fell asleep on the couch for a little bit, and I got in a shower before bedtime.

Monday, February 20th

It was so nice to sleep in and have this extra day to do whatever we wanted to do.  Ben didn't have it off but took it off as a personal day so he could not work on his actual birthday.  When we finally decided to get up, I asked Ben what he wanted for his birthday breakfast.  He said, pancakes, sausage and scrambled eggs.  I fed the kitties and went in the kitchen to start breakfast. 

We ate, watched some TV and I convinced Ben, since it was a dry day, if we could go get a geocache not too far from our house.  He said sure.  I justified it with, "we need to walk off our pancakes anyway."  We hopped into the Escape and drove the mile and a half to Wanschers Park near Hicks Lake.  Ben said he had no idea there was a park here.  I told him, I've been here a couple times over the years to grab caches.  The latest being summer 2019.

We found a place to park, in the tiny parking lot, and walked the short distance to I'm Stumped Too (GCA3TWV), just off the paved trail.  We found the correct stump, signed our names and got a photo.  We put it back and I asked Ben if he wanted to get the other one in the park and he said sure.  Along the way, I told him we needed to bring our kayaks here to get the one, Hicks Lake History (GC4RDFD) in the lake.  I told him we would probably come out here again this summer when it got warmer.

We were close to Leprechaun Treasure (GC84XQ6) and I had him lead the rest of the way.  It was an easy grab, he put his name on it and put it back.  We walked back to the Escape and noticed there were more cars in the parking lot.  A lot of them you could tell were hot boxing their cars.  Lame.  We drove home. 

I spent a couple hours going through bins in the garage.  I was looking for the scarf Jean made me when I was in high school.  It was important that I find it so I could wear it at her celebration of life the next weekend. For some reason I couldn't find it.  I rearranged some of the stuff in the garage and vacuumed some of it because they were covered in hair, webs and dust.  Gross!

I watched the Penguins lose and made Instant Pot meal #12, which was Balsamic pork loin, veggies and used Ben's air fryer for the first time to make smashed potatoes.  

I got cleaned up, did the dishes, put stuff away, set my work computer back up (since we had to use both tables for the party) and checked on more place the scarf could have been.  I looked through the container in the closet and FOUND IT!  I was so relieved that I found it.  We prepared for the upcoming short work week. 

HAPPY 37th BIRTHDAY BEN! 

Next Adventure:  Celebration of Life:  Remembering Jean Fitzgerald