Doug's Cookie Monster Birthday Party

I try to have a theme and/or plan for people's birthday parties over the course of the year.  I came across a Dollar Tree Facebook group about a half a year ago and saw some great ideas for a Cookie Monster/Sesame Street themed party.  I started gathering things as I saw them while shopping.  I had a pretty good head start on it.  I also wanted to do a Cookie Monster/Sesame Street Jeopardy game as well, so I spent some time working on that and coming up with questions.  I learned a lot while researching the themes and questions. 

Instead of a cake, I was going to make Monster Cookies.  Mid-January, I asked Doug when it was okay to have his birthday party, since he just moved out and was living with his girlfriend, and he said the last Sunday in January.  He was busy on all the other weekends.  I asked him what kind of food he wanted to have, and he said breakfast.  I made him be more specific.  He elaborated, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, French toast with cinnamon and he insisted that everyone had at least one mimosa.  I told him that not everyone is going to have one because they are gross. I told him I would have stuff to make them for those who actually wanted one.  He said okay.  The last question I posed to him was what time?  He said 1 p.m.  I let everyone know so they could plan for it.

I spent Friday and some of Saturday cleaning the house and getting it ready for people to come over.  I finished up the Jeopardy game on several note cards and I had a spot on the wall where I was going to tape them to. I had several categories such as Jim Henson, Me Want Cookie, Om Nom Nom and Pop Culture. I was actually excited for people to answer the questions.  I picked up several decorations from The Dollar Tree like streamers, blue plastic cups and large googly eyes.   I bought Cookie Monster plates on Amazon and a stuffed plushie because I could not find one at the Goodwill. I bought the food I needed on the day before.

That morning, Ben and I got up around 10, we got the tables and chairs ready, I spent some time getting the table stuff decorated, I taped the Jeopardy notecards to the wall and at about noon, I started making the food.  I went out to the living room a few times to see how the AFC Championship was going.  Sadly, the Ravens didn't show up, so we had to watch the Chiefs again in the Super Bowl.   

I got out our food warmer because most of the food was going to be done at different times and I needed to keep it warm.  I started with the sausage, then did the bacon, the scrambled eggs and then the French toast on the griddle.  I've had lots of practice cooking breakfast, so I knew how long it approximately took for that many people.  

Everyone arrived close to 1:00 and I told everyone that the food was done and ready to be eaten.  Doug and Sonya were the only ones who partook in mimosas.  I am just not really a fan of them.  Champagne to me is gross.  We all sat at the table and ate our food while talking about random things.  Doug was pretty surprised about the Cookie Monster themed birthday party and Mom brought the red roses. 

Once we were done eating, I grabbed the Monster cookies, I made on Saturday, and handed them out to those who wanted them.  They turned out larger than I thought they would, and they were very blue!  This was my first time using gel food coloring in my cookies.  Everyone had a piece or part of a cookie.  I announced that we were going to play the Jeopardy game I had made.  Everyone was intrigued on what answers I was going to give them.

We went through Jeopardy and then double Jeopardy.  I didn't do the daily double in each round just to make it simple.  I also tried making the answers easy but some of them people either couldn't remember or just didn't know. I did have a final Jeopardy question, and no one got it right, but I didn't think they would.  It was more of a fun fact to know.  Everyone seemed to have fun.

We had Doug open his birthday presents.  I really had no idea what to get him, so he got junk food from The Dollar Tree, Coke, candy, sunflower seeds and Crunchy Cheetos.  I put them in blue bags with googly eyes on them.  They sorta looked like Cookie Monster, lol.  He opened the rest of his gifts and by that time I think everyone was "funned" out.  You could tell Erika and Zac wanted to go.

I thanked everyone for coming and Ben and I spent some time cleaning up the decorations, doing dishes, vacuuming and putting the table and chairs away.  We watched part of the AFC Championship game and sadly the 49ers won.  Now we had to watch a really awful Super Bowl with Taylor Swift being the center of attention.  We hoped neither of them won but we knew that wasn't realistic. 

We did some laundry, put some stuff away, ran the dishwasher and I worked on some wedding stuff for the rest of the evening.  We started getting some of the RSVP's back and I spent some time filling out my spreadsheet to make sure we got all the information we needed to work on the next set of wedding purchases. 

Next Adventure:   A Cache Maintenance Adventure with Bev

Fantasy Football Champion in Both Fantasy Leagues!

I am finally a Fantasy Football Champion in both my leagues for the 2023-2024 football seasons.  I have been playing for over 15 years and I have won only one other time. But this was a huge milestone, both leagues!  That is very hard to accomplish!

I was very lucky to get the players I got in the draft and traded around throughout the season. This year Ben and I were able to be the league's commissioner for our main league with Willmarth.  Our main goal was to take down Kevin, who somehow cheated the last two years and won, to prevent him from threepeating.  We made darn sure he wasn't going to do it.  I honestly couldn't care less who won as long as it wasn't Kevin. 

I started off slow earlier in the season but after some trading, watching Sportscenter, fantasy stuff on the internet and doing some research, I was able to make good choices.  It was frustrating when I did lose because it was by less than 3-5 points each time.  

The other league, Heather's family's league, was crazy each week.  Ben and I were definitely the dominant teams.  For some reason every time I played against Josh, his running back from the Bears would do very well, rack up points and I would lose to him.  

In Family Fantasy Football, as I Want to Play a Game, I went 10-4-0. In Blood Sweat and Beers, as Bitey McFinFace, I went 7-5-2, yes, I had two ties during the regular season.  Those made me very upset.

When it came down to the playoffs, I was put up against Willmarth in our league and Ben in Heather's family league.  I was able to outplay both of them.  My fantasy players showed up in the last two weeks of the season.  I beat Willmarth 152-111 and beat Ben 256.14 to 243.22.  Of course, I rubbed it in.

Earlier during the season, Ben thought we needed a trophy to pass around to the winner.  The trophy literally came two weeks before the playoffs ended.  We unboxed it to see what it looked like, and it was awesome.  I had gone to the Goodwill earlier that season as well to find a trophy for Heather's League.  We let her know that her league now had a trophy to pass around.  

With the conclusion of the last regular season NFL game, I was crowned Fantasy Football Champion and yes, I did a photo shoot with my trophies. It was amazing!

I am hoping to do just as well next season.  Bring it on!

Next Adventure:  Doug's Cookie Monster Birthday Party

Twin Cities Cache Machine

Friday, January 5th

I was really excited that January's cache machine, on the 6th, was going to be near home.  We were really hoping that the weather would hold up for us.  January could be cold, dry and clear or it could be rainy, windy and disgusting.  We would have to wait and see.

The beginning of January was not too kind to both Bob and Bev, who we would have done the cache machine with if they weren't admitted to the hospital the week before. Bob went in because he was sick and dehydrated and then Bev fainted three times in her kitchen near the wood burning stove, fell and hit her head on the floor.  She was transported to Capital Medical Center inside of an ambulance. She was kept in a room overnight and diagnosed with RSV which was a respiratory virus.  Her back hurt because she fell but the x-rays and scans showed no breaks, fractures or injuries. She was also dehydrated.  They keep their place like the inside of a volcano during the winter.  They both learned that they need to drink more water during the day.

Sadly, they both had to stay home during the cache machine that weekend to get better and rest.

The Friday before, I made sure I had some extra containers in the Escape.  I actually had a cache on the cache machine this time, The 507 Series:  Centralia, Wash. (GC8M6XJ). I logged off of work, changed my clothes, fed the cats and headed down to Centralia the back way through Bucoda.  I made a quick stop in Tenino to fix, The 507 Series:  Tenino, Wash. (GC3AMVY), because that one was missing as well.  I told Ben I was on my way and to meet me at the Burgerville around 6 for the event meet up.  He came down after work from JBLM.

I stopped by the Goodwill in Centralia to waste some time since I was early arriving in town.  I always find some interesting things each time I go.  I do enjoy a good bargain and it saves me money on party decorations, presents and other weird stuff I find amusing.  I was in there for about a half hour checking out all the stuff I normally check out. I did find a few things.

As it got closer to event time, I headed on over to the Burgerville. I found a parking spot and headed in.  Ben let me know he was almost there.  I found a table and chatted with Brian, Gabe and some of the other geocachers that I knew.  Once Ben arrived, we got in line, ordered some food and went back to our table.  Our food was brought out to us shortly after.   Jim, the guy who was in charge of the event, got us all together to talk about the cache machine.  We went over any changes, road closures, missing caches, etc.  I spoke up and told them that I did maintenance on my cache in town, so it was good to go. 

We finished our food, did some more chatting and decided it was time to hop on I-5 and drive home. I told Ben that I had to stop at The Dollar Tree to grab some new lock n lock containers for another cache I had to replace the next day on our way back down to Centralia/Chehalis. It was a quick stop and I got what I needed and then went home.  I got home around 8.

I spent the rest of the night jotting down notes of the caches we still needed from that area.  We didn't have very many to get because we live close enough to already have most of them. 

Saturday, January 6th

I had set our alarm to go off at 8.  We really didn't need to go any earlier than that because this wasn't a true cache machine for us.  I basically had most of them and our goal for the day was to get the rest of them and some of the outliers all the way down to Vader.  Ben got ready to go, grabbed a quick breakfast and I got ready quickly, grabbed what we needed to bring with us for the day and jumped into the Escape.  We were out the door by 9.  I was so happy to see it was a nice day.  I hope it stayed that way.  

I got onto the freeway and got off at Maytown so we could replace the container that was missing at Millersylvania State Park.  I realized when I got my Discover Pass out that I only had a few more weeks left until my pass expired.  I wish people would leave these containers alone.  I am not sure why anyone would want a musty ol' plastic container with trinkets and a piece of paper in it.  Especially, one that says, "DO NOT REMOVE!" on the lid. 

I changed out the containers and made sure when I put it back in the stump it was out of sight of others.  I had to dig out the debris, so the container sat lower inside.  Ben and I walked back to the Escape and got back onto I-5.  We decided to do the furthest south, in Vader, and work our way up to Chehalis.  Back in October, WSGA released four Adventure Labs, one in Rochester, Napavine, Winlock and Vader.  We had done the Rochester one in December.

We got into the tiny town of Vader and started the Adventure Lab.  It took us to five different locations and all of them were easy to get to, which made our "tour" through Vader pretty quick.  Ben grabbed a cache, Vader History - Little Crane (GC4AFV6) before we headed out.

We took Winlock-Vader Road north up to Winlock to do the next Adventure Lab.  Since I've been here about a dozen times, doing the Adventure Lab was pretty easy and straightforward.  We always enjoy the world's largest egg and the random roosters in town.  Coming into Winlock will always remind me of going to Egg Days in 2019, when Mom and I met up with Liz, Darren and the kids.  It was a nice day.  

We continued north up that same road into Napavine. a place I haven't been to in many years.  There used to be several caches in town, but they have all been archived. It was fun to see where the Adventure Lab took you.  I had forgotten about Frosty's Saloon, haha.  I hit my 14,000th cache at the second waypoint at the Oddfellow's Lodge.

We walked up the pedestrian bridge and finished off the Adventure Lab in Napavine before leaving town and getting gas at the Love's near Rush Road. 

We love stopping at Love's.  As I got gas, Ben looked at his app and saw there was one he didn't have at the Rib Eye.  I told him, I knew which one he was talking about because that cache was my 12,500th cache several years ago.  It has a ton of favorite points.  We finished up and drove over to the Rib Eye to hang out with the cows.  Where the Cows Came Home (GC3REFA) had over 400 favorite points.  Ben's photo did not disappoint.

We got back onto I-5 and drove south to the Napavine/Onalaska exit and got onto Hwy 508 and headed east towards Onalaska, to a small community of Klaus.  Between a Rock and a Hard Place (GC9W16M) was down a small road near a bridge.  Another cacher had DNF'd it about two months before, so we weren't even sure if it was still here.  We gave it the ol' college try.  I grabbed a stick and poked around the nooks and crannies. The fallen leaves did not help but we managed to find the container after a few passes with the stick. 

We got onto the Jackson Highway and drove south to Mary's Corner to get Brew Can Do It! (GCA0MQ5) at a small coffee stand.  It was hard not to be seen by the coffee goers in the drive thru line while lifting the lamp skirt and grabbing the cache.  I did it anyway and hoped no one was paying attention. I got our names on it, Ben got a picture, and I went out and put it back.  Again, hoping not to be seen.

I had gotten a couple of final coordinates to some multi caches.  I was hoping they were correct.  One of them was at the Jackson House.  We pulled into the lot, parked and figured out what we had to do.  I had Ben be my notetaker while I scanned all the informational signs for the numbers, we needed, to make sure the ones I was given were correct. We plugged them into my phone and quickly found the final for Jackson House - The Second Washington State Park (GC7FAGR).  We signed our names and put it back. 

We got back onto the highway and continued south to Lewis and Clark State Park.  The last time I was here was with Lacey in May 2015.  Life was sure different back then.  Anyway, Ben and I had a few inside the state park left to get.  I checked the other set of coords I was given and plugged them into the phone.  It was on the north end of the park.  I pulled over, parked and left Ben inside, just in case the neighbors got mad.  I ran out and quickly found the container hiding inside the stump. I got our names on it, put it back and jumped back into the Escape. 

We drove a little further into the park and stopped at a pull out.  Again, Ben stayed in the Escape just in case someone didn't want us parked along the side of the road.  I got out, walked to where I thought it was going to be and found Lewis & Clark State Park - Remnant (GC46RGQ) stuffed inside of a mossy stump.  I signed our names, got a picture and put it back.  I was back to the Escape within minutes.

Lewis & Clark State Park - Trail of the Deer (GC46RG6) was at a larger pull out.  Ben and I both got out and searched the platform.  We overlooked it a couple times before I told Ben, "Found it!"  He came over and grabbed it from underneath the platform since he had the longer arms to reach it. We got back into the Escape and decided to drive further south to Toledo for one we didn't have. 

On the way there, I told Ben some stories and pointed out some locations from when I was in high school and played against them.  For the longest time I had not actually been to the town because the high school was outside of town.  This cache had us drive through town and down a hill into a small park called Kemp Olson Memorial Park.  We followed the road around to a grouping of trees.  Luckily, Ben was tall enough to make the grab from the crook of the tree.  We signed the logbook for Wooden Offence (GC9YETX).  There were two spider rings and I asked him to marry me, lol.  He said yes.  We chatted with Mom for a little bit on the phone.  We told her we were having a good time.

We got back onto I-5 and drove back north, I know, I know, we are not being very efficient but, I did plan on doing the west side of I-5 and then the east side. All of our caches were spread all over the place and this was the best I could do. We got off at the Labree exit and did the multi cache, Fern Hill Cemetery (GCAAD8H).  We thought we'd be the only ones there, so we didn't park very well.  Then a car came, and I thought I was going to be in the way.  It turns out it was SageFox and Nicsac, cachers who we knew.  We had already signed the cache, so we talked to them for a little bit while they did the multi cache and found the final. 

We drove away and ended up meeting them at the next cache, Recreation Park - Chehalis Parks Series (GCADBKG).  That one gave us some grief.  The coords bounced all over the place.  We finally, working together, managed to zero in on the hiding spot and found the container. 

Our next one, Chehalis North Multi Cache (GC8AE36) was going to be tricky to do.  We had to park at the Chamber of Commerce building and walk across the road to get to the bridge overpass over I-5.  We had to grab numbers from four different waypoints to find the final hide.  Some people from Kitsap County joined us in the walk over.  They were excited that the cache machine was near home, so they didn't have to travel very far.  We got back to the Escape and went over to the Walmart area to pick up the remaining three waypoints.  I figured since we were over there to use the restroom.  We went into the Home Depot to pee.

We finally had all four waypoints, plugged them into the phone and made our way to the final, which was on the east side of the freeway near downtown Chehalis near a row of houses on the hill.  We parked and walked up to the rock wall.  That same Kitsap County crew were there just as we found the cache.  Everyone wrote their names on it before putting it back.  On the way back to the Escape, it poured down rain.  Gross!  We were lucky to have almost the entire day rain free.

We drove back over the freeway and over to Centralia where the hospital was.  We needed our last one we didn't have in town, Never Without a Pen - West (GCACM4E).  The rain was still coming down but a lot less intense.  We got out and started searching.  I knew it was going to either be hanging in the row of trees or inside the block crevasse in the landscape.  I saw the top of it inside the crevasse.  We pulled it out, I had Ben sign it and we put it back exactly how we found it. 

We decided from the hospital to make our way over to the event, Chehalis/Centralia Cache Machine Dinner (GCAGZYJ), at the Quesadilla Factory.  While in the complex, we noticed a sign for a brewery we've never heard of.  I told Ben, let's go!  It was called Good Buzz Brewing, and they are known for their mead.  For those of you who don't know what mead is, it is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey.  We parked and went inside.  We visited with the owner, tried four different meads, and each had a beer from a local brewery.  It was great talking to the owner.  We learned a lot about mead.

We walked over to the Quesadilla Factory and regretted taking the detour.  We had to stand in line for a very long time because a large group of people were having their wrestling banquet at the same time as the geocaching dinner event. We chatted with other geocachers while we waited in line.  When we finally got our food, I ordered the Pizza-dilla and Ben had the Croc-a-dilla. His was pulled pork that came out of a crockpot, not an actual crocodile. 

Once we finished our food, we chatted with more cachers at different tables including Brad, John and Steve.  We found out the next cache machine was going to be in Lewiston, Idaho in April.

On the way home, we grabbed one more in Grand Mound, Jack in the Crack (GCAHTE9).  It was an easy park and grab lamp skirt cache.  

We got back onto I-5 north and rolled into our driveway just before 8 p.m.  We had a blast and can't wait for the next one!

Next Adventure:  Fantasy Football Champion in Both Fantasy Leagues!

New Years Day

Ben and I stayed up until 2 and cleaned up a bit after everyone went home. I was so ready for bed after many eventful days and was glad to have a three-day weekend.  I set my alarm for 10 but ended up actually getting up around 10:30. I used the restroom, got some different clothes on and came out into the living room to eat some grapes, half a bagel and some yogurt.  I watched part of the Oregon Duck's bowl game.

Ben finally got up, ate some breakfast and loitered around for a little bit.  I asked him if he wanted to go do a few things that afternoon and he said sure.  We put different clothes on while I grabbed some stuff to shove into the Escape.  I had planned on going to the cemetery to visit my grandparents and great grandparents, get a cache and drop off stuff at my sibling's houses.  I was tired of their junk sitting in our house. 

Our first stop was in Tumwater at the cemetery to visit and swap out some of the decorations.  I wanted to come sooner, but the holidays, weather and other unforeseen things had happened in the last few weeks.  I decided that I wanted to spend the first day of the new year with them.  Ben and I rolled up and noticed there were a lot of flowers, mini wreaths, mini-Christmas trees and other personal affects.  It was the most I've ever seen, and I have been coming to this cemetery for over five years now. 

I took down the fall decorations and put them into the Escape.  I grabbed the wreath I had made five years ago, specifically for my winter/Christmas cemetery visits, and place it on their headstone.  We wished them a happy new year and wished they were still around to enjoy happy family times and milestones.  This year they were going to miss some big ones and it absolutely kills me because they would have LOVED to be here for those. 

We shared a few things of what had been happening and the things that we were looking forward to. It was quite chilly outside when the wind blew but I was sure glad it wasn't raining.  I told them that I would be back for Valentine's Day with a new update on our busy lives.  We told them that we loved them and missed them terribly. 

We got in the Escape and drove the short distance over to where my great grandparents were.  I wished them a happy 2024 and could not believe they've both been gone for over 30 years.  They've missed literally everything since I was 11 years old.  We would be completely different people since the last time we saw them.  Time is crazy.

We got back into the Escape and drove over to the Tumwater Historical Park and did the five waypoint Adventure Lab (and the bonus cache) Bonus Cache - Tumwater Historical Park (GCAAWF1).  I also checked on my WSGA cache that was also in the park.  The bonus cache was a short walk away under I-5 and at the first dock.  This one was much easier to find than the other dock further down the trail. We got our names on it, got a few pictures and walked back to the park. I was so happy it didn't rain because it was nice to get outside on a day off and get some fresh air and exercise. 

We drove home, ate leftovers (I had chili and Ben had a taco salad), we washed laundry, watched the Winter Classic.  The Kraken defeated the Golden Knights in a 3-0 shutout, which was the first shutout in Winter Classic history.  

It would have been awesome to go to the game, but it wasn't in the cards for us, unfortunately. I did some blogging, moved a shelf, watched some TV, listened to podcasts, did the dishes, vacuumed, looked at recipes for the upcoming week and then got ready for bed.  I was definitely not ready to go back to work the next day but at least it was a short work week!

Next Adventure:  Twin Cities Cache Machine