My 32nd Birthday!

I went to work.  I rolled in around 7:40 and sat in the parking lot checking the internet on my phone while I listened to where Sarah's Beaver was on KZOK.  I really didn't want to leave the Escape because of the horrid weather I would be walking into.  I grabbed my bags and ran to the back doors of the L&I building.  I set up shop at Julie's desk and checked my email.  Annykay, my desk neighbor, walked around to my cubicle and handed me a card and a cupcake box.  I read the card and looked at the really pretty cupcake.  I told her thank you and we preceded to talk about the day and the upcoming weekend.  I decided to stay at HQ for most of the morning so I could work on my online courses I needed to do before December.  I checked in with Joe and told him how I was going to spend my morning.  He said those online courses would be a good idea to finish.  I spent a good 3 hours completing those and came out with a 89 and a 100%.  I was stoked and printed off my certificates.

I was about to go get my lunchbox but Annykay told me she wanted to buy me lunch instead.  I told her she didn't have to but she insisted.  We ate lunch with the girls, Shelly and Gina.  We had the grill special of French dip sandwich and some fries.  Surprisingly, it wasn't bad.  I really never thought I would actually eat from the State cafeteria.  After lunch, I finished a few things and started packing up my stuff to head over to the SRC to finish some boxes.
 
I checked in with Melanie and she said we could have our little team birthday party now before I went over.  Mostly because everyone leaves at different times at the end of the day.  For a half hour, we pretended to light the candles (we didn't want to set off fire alarms and have the entire building evacuate in the monsoon outside), they sang and handed me a card.  There was a gift card for the Seattle Team Store in the mall. Everyone had something nice to say inside.  It was awesome.  We each had a piece of cake and we talked about what we were all going to do this weekend.  I told everyone thank you once again and headed over to the SRC.

I did five more of the 2000 box series and by that time it was around 4:30 and I needed to go back to HQ to check my email again and shut down the computer.  Laura found me and talked to me about upcoming job opportunities and to wish me a happy birthday before I left.  I grabbed my stuff again, headed out into the monsoon and ran to the Escape.

I drove the back way to the West Side because I heard the freeway was backed up.  I didn't want to risk being late to my own birthday dinner with my friends.  Ben had arrived around 5 and talked to the staff about a large party showing up for dinner.  They couldn't seat us until at least half of us were there.  Celeste, Issac, Nicole and Lance arrived just before I did, followed by Fitzy and much later on after we ordered food, Lindsay and Justin.  After we were all there and had eaten, I opened my cards and some gifts people brought.  Fitzy had left hers out in the car and Nicole said hers would be given to me at next week's Friendsgiving. We visited, asked about Nicole's trip to South Africa, stuff Fitzy was up to, checked in with Celeste and Lindsay.  It was a chill evening.  The Buffalo Wild Wings staff made me a crown and sang happy birthday to me.  It was funny.  About 8, we all decided it was time to go. I had to go home and put the chickens and ducks away and grab stuff to head to Bonney Lake with.

I was soaked by the time I was done putting everyone to bed and gathering the eggs.  I changed really quickly, grabbed the beers, my bag and a jacket and hopped into Ben's car and about an hour later, we were in Bonney Lake.  The drive wasn't that bad but people really need to learn to drive in the rain.  Trish couldn't wait for me to open my gifts so she handed me my box and I opened it.  Inside were some Cougar and Seahawks stuff and a card from Ben's grandma.  That was really sweet of her to get me a card.  I got her address so I could send a thank-you card.  It was so late I wasn't really feeling beer so I got ready for bed.  I was tired.  6:30 a.m. is way too early.

Saturday, November 14th

The next day we woke up around 11:30 and took showers.  Ben made some breakfast burritos and we watched the Huskies get beat by Arizona State and part of the Duck-Stanford game.

The Ducks prevailed, knocking off the nationally ranked Stanford.  The race for the Pac-12 league championship should be interesting these next few weeks. I had Trish open her gifts after breakfast.  We got her a Seahawk flag, a Seahawk decorative wall piece I recycled from a piece of glass and a window cling and finally an old school Seahawk seat cushion with the vintage logo on it.  Yes, I find some good stuff when I go shopping.  Trish had to take Amy to the urgent care facility so they were gone for part of the day.  We just lounged in our pajamas and watched football since our previous plans were changed.  Communication was a bit poor after they came back and a new plan was created on the fly because they had to go get her prescription before 6.

I packed up our stuff and got ready for dinner at the Olive Garden to celebrate Trish's birthday on the 23rd since we probably won't be around to celebrate it closer to the date.  We had to wait for 45 minutes.  In the meantime, the Cougar game with UCLA started and I kept a close eye on that.  Ben and I ordered the endless pasta bowl and Trish and Amy got their usual.  I could only finish one bowl and Ben had 8 bowls.  I felt really full all night, an almost uncomfortable full.

We got gas on the way home off of Canyon.  Ben hung out with me for a little while and we watched a few more episodes of How I Met Your Mother.  We wanted to watch them all in order together.  That night we finished the first disk of season one. He left around 2ish.  He got home safely and I went to bed.

Sunday, November 15th

I woke up around 5:30 a.m. running to the bathroom.  Most of the day from then until about 3 in the afternoon I spent on the toilet with liquid coming out of both ends.  I suspected food poisoning or the flu.  I finally came out into the living room around 1 to watch some football and wait until everyone got home.  I fell asleep several times hoping I would feel better so I could go to work the next day.  Around 4 I tried crackers and kept them down along with some watermelon and some water. Progress.  I started feeling a little better when the Seahawks game started and then lost interest right away in the way we were playing.  We are such a talented team and we waste so much time during the game not scoring when we have the ball.  Soo many three and outs.  Our defense kept us in the game until the end.  When there was no hope in sight, I went and took a shower and got ready for bed.  I was really hoping I felt normal enough to go to work the next day.  Being sick takes a lot out of you.  I am still going with food poisoning.

**I felt well enough to go to work the next day and a bunch of my neck, stomach and chest muscles were very sore.**

Next Adventure:  New Laptop!

Caching in Lacey on Veteran's Day

I had the itch for caching.  It's been almost a month since I've been out for a caching adventure.  I had Veteran's Day off, my first paid holiday by the way, and I wanted to spend it outside.  The weather was suppose to be nice so I got onto the website and scouted which caches I needed in the Lacey area.  I didn't really want to go too far from home this time mostly because it gets dark around 4:45-5:00 now.  I called grandma to see if she wanted to go with me.  She said sure.

That night I got the query all loaded and laid out some clothes to wear.  The next morning I got a phone call from mom saying she forgot her debt card and that I needed to come to Yelm to bring it to her before they left to head down to Vancouver for the day.  She was taking a day trip with some of her co-workers down to a large craft warehouse.  That wasted part of my morning.  Grandma called around 10:30, I got dressed as fast as I could, ate some cereal and grabbed, hopefully, everything I needed. 

I picked her up and then plugged in some coords to the first cache.  I had solved this one the night before but thought I had months ago, I guess not.  NFL Legends (GC558BT) was located off of the Chehalis-Western Trail off of 89th on the way to Tumwater.  I drove down the little "dead end" road and parked at one of the trail parking areas.  Grandma opted to stay in the Escape while I got out and got it.  My GPS hadn't caught up with the satellites yet so I made a guess.  I knew it wasn't far from where we parked.  I guessed based on the hint I was given and found it basically without the GPS.  I signed the log and hid it back better than I found it.  I got back in and we put the coords into the next one.

Go Outside and Play (GC624VD) was among some of the newer caches that popped up in Lacey during the past few months.  I haven't had any time to get them until now.  This one was behind the QFC on the side road off of Rainier Road.  We parked across the street from it and I saw it instantly.  How can anyone miss a large fake rock?

The next cache, Kooky Kellen's Crazy Cache (GC62MP5), was placed by the same cacher just down the road from where we were.  It was hidden on a small land bridge inside of a neighborhood.  Finding a place to park was a joke so we just parked right along side the road and grandma kept the Escape warm while I grabbed it.  It was the same as the one we just found, a fake rock with a large cache underneath.  This one also had a ton of swag inside.

Cache Me if You Can (GC61DPB) was a quick park and grab near the Hop Jack's and the Starbucks.  It was hidden pretty well on top of a sign.  I was glad I was tall enough to grab it without any assistance.  It kept a lot of attention off of me.  I signed our names and put it back where I found it.

The next couple were along the Chehalis-Western Trail near Chambers Lake.  No Name Cache (GC5JTTV) literally had nothing about it except its name and the GC.  I was hoping I found it right away because it was off the trail by 300 feet with no hint.  I left grandma on the trail so she could watch the geese on the lake while I traipsed through the woods looking for a container.  I tried to hurry but it really depended on how bad the GPS bounced in the woods.  Luckily I found it within five minutes, took a picture of a really neat growth coming out of the ground and then met up with grandma to go to the next one.

We walked the short distance to the next one since we walked down here but came up with a DNF but a great view of the lake.  I think the cache was missing because I looked everywhere and did not come up with it after I checked the three places it could be.  Oh well.  I will have to come back.

From there we tried looking for a couple more but it got cold and started raining.  We gave up before we really had a chance to look.  I didn't want grandma to get cold.  Next, I took her to the Hobby Lobby, where the old K Mart used to be.  I needed to get a few things so I can work on some crafts while it rains all fall and winter long, at least I will have something to create.  I needed some food so we went over to the Fred Meyer and grabbed a sandwich and a few things grandma needed.  We loaded everything up in the Escape and headed towards home.  I wanted to try that Not Your Father's Root Beer, but was having a hard time finding it in bottles.  I stopped at the Safeway and found it.  The checker got really excited and told me about how good it was with whipped cream vodka at one of her girl nights she had.

Since we were nearby, I wanted to go inside the Goodwill to check on some cheap books.  Sometimes they have good ones and sometimes they don't.  We were in there a few minutes and then we headed back to Rainier.  I dropped off grandma and her goodies and thanked her for going with me and enduring my caching and errands I had to do.  I couldn't pass up a dry day without geocaching.

Next:  My 32nd Birthday!

Seattle, Firefighting Exam and College Football Games

Ben had another opportunity to test for the Seattle Fire Department so we planned on going up that way and staying with Doug and Jen in Mountlake Terrace...mostly so he didn't have to get up at 3 a.m. and drive that morning to the test at the UW campus.  Jen said it would be fine to come and stay with them for the night.

After work on Friday Ben said he would be off around 5:30 so I would just meet him at the station and we would be on our way.  Nope!  He got two calls basically right when he was suppose to be off so I had to find some stuff to do while he finished the calls.  I went to Fred Meyer and wandered around for a bit.  I thought it might be beneficial to grab some apples and some vitamin waters...you just never know what the weekend will bring.  I thought I was there long enough so I made my way to Rochester via Littlerock Road.  I sat in the station parking lot for almost an hour and I didn't hear from Ben.  For some reason my phone does not get any service at all in Rochester so I had no idea if he tried to contact me.  I got hungry and when I get hungry I get crabby.  I texted him where I was going and he immediately called me.  We figured stuff out and I would meet him at the station after I got food and got gas.  I got him a blizzard on the way back.

He packed his stuff and made sure he had everything he needed for his test.  We got into the Escape and we were on our way around 8.  We called Doug to tell him that we were on our way.  I thought my GPS saved Jen's address from August, the last time we went up there, but it didn't, so we asked for the address again.  It was a little slow through Tacoma, like we thought it would be, once we got into the carpool lane it was smooth sailing up until downtown Seattle.  It got a little weird through downtown mostly because it was Friday and everyone was going out.

We got to Jen's apartment around 10ish.  She was already in bed and Doug sat with us for a while and offered us pizza.  Ben had some while we fumbled around to find something to watch for a while.  I downloaded the CBS app and we watched some episodes of The Big Bang Theory on their streaming TV.  You just had to connect your phone to the TV wireless and BAM, you were watching whatever you had on your phone.  It was crazy!

I got ready for bed and we passed out finally.  Jen's couch was very comfy.

The next morning Ben got up, got ready, ate something really quickly and left to head down to the UW campus for his test.  The first hour and a half was studying the booklet they had provided for him.  Then there was a intermission or a break and then the next hour and a half was the exam.

I had gotten up for good around 7 a.m. because Erika started talking to me on facebook messenger and that went on for about an hour.  Then Jen got up and chatted with me and showed me some pictures of her past for the next three hours or so and visited with Sushi, her dog.  He is a   Then we got Doug out of bed.

Ben got a hold of us around 10 and told us he would be done around 12-12:30.  We all got dressed proudly wearing our school's colors and logos and patiently waited for Ben.  Jen wanted to go to Buffalo Wild Wings, just down the road from the apartment.  In the meantime, Jen found a way to have both the Ole Miss game and the Coug game on the TV.  I didn't know my game started at 12:30.  Ben arrived shortly after the games began.  We got into the Escape and headed towards the mall area.  When we got into the parking lot, some helicopters flew by very low.  It made everyone stop what they were doing and stare into the sky.  Some people took pictures and some took videos with their phones, you can tell what era we all live in now.

We found a prime spot right in front of the building and went inside.  We opted to sit in the bar area.  My game was front and center and we had to ask one of the servers to put the Ole Miss game on.  We ordered drinks and played on our trivia pads.  Doug and Ben played some poker while Jen and I played trivia.  Then everyone was playing trivia.  I was surprised Jen knew a bunch of random stuff like I did.  I had some competition.  Then we ordered food and I ordered the wrong thing without realizing it until it came.  I never order the boneless wings and I did for some reason.  What a bonehead move!  Hahaha!

We talked bad about our games and ate our food.  The Cougars finally came from behind to eventually beat Arizona State to become bowl eligible for the second time in three years but this time we won it out right with our record.  We have UCLA, Colorado and the Apple Cup still to go and then post season!!  Jen's game on the other hand was really sad to watch.  The Rebels had a clear win but for some reason let Arkansas come back to tie it then it went into an insane overtime with a really sketchy two-point conversion win to boost the Razorbacks over Ole Miss. She was so upset she threw her hat on the ground and started swearing. I can't believe Ole Miss let Arkansas take that away from them.  They were a ranked school playing against an unranked school.  Lots of lame.

We went back to Jen's apartment and we were all so full and tired.  I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore and decided to take a small nap before we drove home.  We slept for about 2.5 hours and decided to get ready to go.  Jen had to do some grocery shopping.

Traffic wasn't too bad on the way home.  I needed something to drink so we stopped at a Safeway in the Kent area.  I had to get a doughnut because I can't help myself.  We made our way onto 167 and followed it to 512 through Puyallup.  We decided to go all the way to I-5 and stop in Hawks Prairie to put his checks in the bank and to stop by the store to replace his broken watch and to get a few things he was out of.  We got back into Rochester and it was around 10:30.  He needed to go to bed and so did I.  Today was a long day.  We said our goodbyes and I headed home.  I unpacked some of the stuff out of the Escape and brought it in with me.  I showered, relaxed and went to bed.

Next Adventure:  Caching in Lacey on Veteran's Day