My Adventures and Places Life Takes Me: 2026

Thursday, January 1st

It was so nice to sleep in. I got up, went for a quick walk around the park, glad it was dry and then came back and ate some yogurt, grapes and half a bagel. I figured it would be a great day to go get a couple geocaches later for our new year souvenirs. I looked at the app and saw there were a couple caches we could grab that were nearby.

I started some laundry, vacuumed and did a couple other things around the house. I really didn't want to waste a dry day. Ben finally got up and ate some breakfast. I asked him if he wanted to grab a couple caches nearby and he said sure, why not.

We hopped in the Escape, and we drove out to Wanschers Park off of Ruddell Road by Hicks Lake. We've been here over the years several times for geocaches. The first one we looked for was Welcome to Wanschers Park (GCBGY2Y). We parked in the small parking area and walked down the trail towards the trees.

The cache wasn't very well hidden, and we saw where it was right away. Ben picked it up from its hiding spot and we opened the lid and peered down to see what was inside of it. We saw nothing that exciting but pulled out the logbook and signed our names. We got a picture and put it back where we found it.

We walked back to the Escape and headed up Ruddell Road to the next one.

Parkside Drive (GCBECHZ) was the neighborhood over by the Lacey Post Office. I've been here several times over the years to grab caches as well. We got as close as we could, parked the Escape, got out and walked to the proximity of where the cache was. The coords kept moving, however, the most obvious place is where we found the hide-a-key. We got our names on it and put it back where we found it. This cache might not make it long term.

Ben walked over to the other side of the park to go see how much the duplex was going for. He has considered purchasing one as an investment. This property was asking way too much. We headed home and I turned on some college football. The Oregon beat Texas Tech, Indiana beat Alabama and Ole Miss beat Georgia. I worked on my blog for a while and then the D&D Summary from our last session on NYE.

Ben and I had leftover spaghetti for dinner. We went to bed late.

Friday, January 2nd

I got up about the same time I usually do. I called Dad to see if we could borrow the truck so we could take the limbs and bags of leaves to Silver Springs. We had raked up all the leaves and picked up the limbs in the backyard the day after Christmas because we had time and it wasn't raining. We took advantage of it. Dad said we could.

We got in a quick breakfast and changed our clothes. We headed out to Rainier and grabbed the truck. We drove it into Lacey and put the first load in the truck. We found out quickly; we were going to have to make two trips. We threw the bags of leaves in first and made sure they were strapped down. They were heavy enough, but you just never know.

We got to Silver Springs and no one was around, so we just drove up to where we knew we had to go, backed up the truck and started dumping out the 15 bags of leaves.

Did I mention I absolutely hate the maple tree in the backyard? We threw the bags away in the bin they provided. We left and headed back into Lacey. We loaded up the limbs and other pieces of organic debris and headed back into Rainier. Once we were done dumping that load, we filled up the truck with gas and drove back to Mom and Dad's house.

The Expedition had died and they had no idea why it wasn't staying charged. I followed Dad into Yelm so he could drop it off with Napa. I took him home. Ben and I went home after that, and it felt great to get all of that stuff out of the yard. We ate leftover wings for dinner and watched the second Avatar movie because we were going to go watch the third one with Nicole, Del, Isaac and Celeste the next evening. I worked on getting my Instagram feed caught up because I was about a year behind.

We went to bed late.

Saturday, January 3rd

I got up around 9:30 and got ready to go take a walk around the park since it was dry. I always try to take advantage of the weather when I walk. I noticed that they had a tree recycling program and decided when I got home, I was going to take the tree down and take it to the park. I had a quick breakfast and brought the totes in from the garage.

I got Ben up so he could help me.

It took a while to gather up everything and get it secure into the Christmas totes. We found out quickly that we did not have enough totes for all of our Christmas ornaments. Once the tree was naked. Ben and I took it outside and threw it on top of the Escape. Since we were driving a short distance to the park, we just drove slowly and held it with our hands. We managed to get it to the parking lot without it falling off the Escape. One of the worker's grabbed it from us and yelled Go Cougs! We went home and continued organizing our Christmas decorations.

I made a quick trip over to Fred Meyer to grab a container for our year ornaments since our collection was growing. I found the perfect container and headed home.

I got all the Christmas decorations packed up including our new container. Ben helped me put them in the garage until we could take them to the storage unit in Rainier. We had a late lunch and then got ready to go meet up with Nicole, Del, Isaac and Celeste in Olympia for the movie. We chose not to partake in the food and drinks beforehand. We got to watch part of the first quarter of the Seahawk and 49er game that started at 5. It was a big game with a lot of implications for the post season.

Ben and I headed to the mall, found a place to park and went inside. They had just finished their food and drinks at the Stack 571 Burger and Whiskey Bar. They paid, grabbed their stuff and we made the short walk over to the theater. Ben and I got some popcorn and pop, and we went into our auditorium and got settled into our assigned seats. The entire time I was nervous on how the game was going.

As the movie played on, I snuck a peek at my phone a few times but questioned what I saw. The score did not change a lot. I thought my phone wasn't updating correctly the entire time. When the movie finished, I immediately got onto the ESPN app to check. WE WON! And my phone was updating the entire time. The score really didn't change much during the game. We beat them 13-3 and secured the number one seed for the playoffs plus we nabbed the NFC West Division title since 2020.

We all used the restrooms and loitered around the lobby for a couple minutes talking about the movie and the football game. We then headed out to the parking lot to go home. Ben and I got home around 10:15 and I immediately turned on Sportscenter to see what happened. The game was wild. I hope we finish off the season on a high note and destroy everyone in the playoffs. We controlled our own destiny and have the upper hand.

I worked on my blog for a little while and added more to my D&D summary.

We went to bed late.

Sunday, January 4th

I got up around 9:30 and did a few things, turned on football and ate some breakfast. It was hard to get Ben up so we could go over to the rental and continue with the projects we were currently working on.

Ben ate, we both got ready and headed into Rainier right around noon. We spent some time finishing up the dining room floor with adhesive and the vinyl tiles. That took up most of the afternoon, while we listened to the football games, but we got some heavy things on it so it can set. All we need to do now is get a transition piece from the dining room to the kitchen and peel up the paint tape.

I grabbed a small paint brush and some of the blue trim paint and put a second coat around the living room window frame. Dad spent some time working on getting the bathroom fan going again. He had to come up with a way to hang it with the new ceiling tiles.

Ben did a couple of small things after working on the floor.

We cleaned up and put our stuff away. We talked about what we were going to work on the next week which was the landing floor. It is slowly coming together, and I can't wait until it's over and we can have our weekends back.

After the conclusion of the regular season, I am officially the fantasy football champion in Heather's family league. I still have to wait next week for our league. I have a pretty good shot at taking that one too, but anything can happen.