Lunch, Pumpkin Patch and Tumwater Falls with Momma

Mom had a few days off and wanted to do something fun.  I told her that I couldn't get those days off but we could go do something after I get off work at 11:30.  Originally she wanted to go up north to take some pictures of this Kubota Garden between Renton and Seattle.  I told her with the weather we've been having and traffic on the way back down south, this just isn't the best time.  It would have to be a weekend with less rain in the forecast.

I called her on my break and asked if she wanted to come out to Tumwater to have lunch at Eagan's. She said sure and I told her to meet me around noon.  I finished my work, grabbed my stuff and headed to the burger place.  Mom had ordered food so now we just had to wait a bit.  We talked about what she wanted to do the rest of the afternoon.  She wanted to go to the pumpkin patch.  I asked her which one and rattled off a few of them in the area.  Since we were closer to Rutledge we decided to go there after she got gas at the nearby Pilot, the cheapest gas station in Tumwater.

We were basically the only ones there so the girl who was working was pretty bored.  She told us where to get the pumpkins and the wagons and to come see her once we were ready to weigh or pumpkins.  I grabbed the wagon and we were on our way.  We wandered down the paths and looked for a pumpkin to take home.

Mom spent some time taking pictures of the pumpkins, of us and the haunted corn stalks nearby.  A few years ago Ben and I went through the corn maze and had a great time being goofy.  This year we wanted to go to one but we ran out of spare time.

Mom found her pumpkin and I was being really picky choosing mine.  I wanted one with a fairly long stem, a stem that wasn't soft or rotten, a decently round but somewhat tall pumpkin with not a lot blemishes.  After searching for about 20 minutes I finally found a winner! 

Mom continued to take pictures on our way to weigh or pumpkins.  I put mine on the scale and then mom put hers on the scale.  She was really excited for some reason.  But then the last time I remember going with her to a pumpkin patch I was under 10 years old and I don't think she's been to one ever since.  Both pumpkins weighed almost the same and we paid 10 bucks for both of them.  We took them to the vehicles and mom wanted to go to Tumwater Falls.

We got onto the freeway and headed north to Tumwater.  We parked inside the park, which was pretty empty at this time, grabbed our cameras and started walking the loop.  There was a lot of water sloshing around but not as much as I thought there would be with all the rain we had this October.  This year we set the record for the most rain and the warmest temperature on average in October, ever.  Ugh rain!  We decided to take the right side of the loop around.  Mom took pictures of the small waterfalls, the river, the leaves and other random places along the walk.  We found out we definitely need a macro lens.

When we got to the bridge we admired all the water coming down the falls.  The mist was cold but refreshing.  We took the small side trail down to the platform to see the waterfall easier.  Mom even wanted a selfie with the waterfall.  Haha!  When mom asks for selfie I have to laugh just because it's just so unlike her to want a selfie.  Well at least in the past...it might be different now.  We noticed an unusual amount of seagulls in the area.  Why were they here!?  We looked closer and the salmon were trying to swim upstream after laying their roe and milt.  At first glance they didn't look like salmon because they were so beat up.

We watched them swim around for a while and then I showed mom a not so well known area to the left of the platform.  I first discovered this area two May's ago when I was exploring with Lacey.  As we got closer and closer it smelled more and more but you didn't see anything until we were right up on it.  Hundreds of dead salmon!  Ewww!  I thought of it as a great photo op.  Majority of the salmon's eyes were rotted out of their heads which made it even better.

On the way back up to the platform and the rest of the loop, we walked by two girls and one of them had a baby on her back.  Mom speaks up, if you wanna see something cool, there are some dead salmon down below the platform.  They both look at us very excited like.  It could have gone either way, we could have been the creepy locals that like dead things or the locals who showed us something really awesome.  The one girl was visiting from Arizona and has never really been around a climate like this one, you know the green, luscious trees, refreshing rivers etc.  They were pretty stoked to go and check it out.  We took more pictures on the way back to the cars.

We walked past the two girls again and they thanked us for telling them about the dead salmon.  The one girl said it made her trip!  Haha! 

We went back to Tumwater and headed to the store for a few things.  I asked mom if she had fun today and she said yes.  We will have to come up with other places to go and take pictures at.  We both went home.

Next Adventure: Pumpkin Carving Game Night and the Seahawks Tie

Mom's Seahawk Birthday

I slept in as long as I could but I knew we had to get up and get moving so we could grab an ice cream cake and head into Rainier.  Ben called a few places but we settled with Dairy Queen off of Lilly.  We were also in luck.  The cake decorator was on shift that morning so they could do a Seahawks logo on the cake for us.  Score!  We told them we would be by in a bit.

We got our stuff ready, the nacho makings, the presents and headed out the door.  I couldn't even remember the last time I was at this Dairy Queen.  We walked in and we told them we were there to pick up a cake.  They were like you're picking up the Seahawk cake?!  Yep.  They were all really excited and opened it up for us to look at it.  It was perfect.  We paid and hustled to Rainier.  I don't think we were going to make kickoff but we were going to try.

We didn't end up making it before kickoff but we were sure darn close.  I knew the game with the Atlanta Falcons was going to be tough.  Their quarterback has been putting up the numbers the past few weeks.  I wasn't worried about our defense but more for our offense.  I hoped our offense scored some touchdowns today.  We will need them.  The first half went well.  We went into the locker room 17-3.  It looked like we were going to do well since we were mostly a second half team.  During halftime, I got up and started cooking the chicken nachos.

Then the defense fell apart in the 3rd quarter.  They allowed 3 touchdowns back to back!  I could not stand watching them let Atlanta do that!  I was getting really worried mostly because our offense wasn't really doing anything either.  I did not want it to come down to the last two minutes and the Falcons kick a field goal and we lose.  Somehow we managed to take the lead late in the 4th quarter and we magically kept them from scoring with under two minutes to play.  There was a controversial call with Sherman and Jones and luckily it went our way.  We can not keep playing like this because we will not always be on the lucky side of the game.  Mom got her 26-24 Seahawk victory on her birthday.

I waited until we won to get mom's cake out of the freezer to thaw it out enough to cut it.  I went and got her presents and her card and set them out on the table where we were all sitting.  It would have been a depressing birthday party if the Seahawks would have lost. 

I corralled everyone over into the living room with the cake and some candles on it.  We sang happy birthday to mom and she blew out the candles.  She giggled.  Dad took the cake into the kitchen and cut it for us.  Mom got the first piece and we all got the rest.  She opened her card and the three presents I got for her.  I got her two small metal stars, a frog cookie cutter and a Seahawks headband she picked out at the mall a few weeks ago. 

We hung out for a little bit longer and went home because we had some chores we had to get done, you know like laundry, dishes and stuff.  She thanked us for coming over and celebrating her birthday with her and dad.  I was really glad the Seahawks won for her because that game was getting really bad there at the end.

Ben and I got home and started getting our stuff done before we had to go to work the next day. 

Happy birthday momma!!

Next Adventure:  Lunch, Pumpkin Patch and Tumwater Falls with Momma

"Epic" Wind Storm, Clothes Drive and Brandon and Victoria's Wedding

Throughout the week we had several newscasts of a potential historic storm coming in from the south pacific.  That sent a lot of people into panic mode.  They were comparing it to the storm of '62 which could be similar.  These massive storms are remnants of typhoons (in this case, Typhoon Songda) that weaken as it makes its way up to the cooler Pacific Northwest waters.  It broke up into three pieces.  We were to get the first one on Thursday night, one on Friday and the worse one was suppose to hit Saturday. 

The one on Thursday night was pretty mild.  We got a lot of rain.

The storm on Friday night brought a lot of rain, mild wind and some severe thunderstorms in certain areas.  The two places that were hit hard were Tillamook County, Oregon and Long Beach, Washington had reported waterspouts.  The one that hit the small town of Manzanita, Oregon started as a waterspout then went onto land as an EF2 tornado which destroyed at least 20-30 homes in town but luckily no injuries were reported.  It was weird seeing all of this bizarre weather unfold. 

Washington wasn't hit all that hard.  Some trees fell over, cars were damaged and some residents lost power but this "epic" storm really wasn't all that "epic."  It actually got weaker as it reached land on Saturday morning.

It looked worse than it really was.  This is a satellite view as it reached Western Washington.  The highest recorded wind gust was at the southern tip of Vancouver Island at 69 m.p.h.  It was officially named the Ides of October Storm.

Saturday morning really wasn't that bad.  I got up around 9:30, got dressed in my rain gear, ate breakfast and packed the bags of clothes into the Escape.  I hustled to the dentist office in Yelm for our relay for life clothes drive.  Of course mom would pick the worse day to do this on and I had to be at a wedding at 4.  Luckily the weather didn't really start getting windy until after 2 p.m. 

I stayed at the dentist office with her until about noon.  I ate my leftover pizza and we watched part of a college football game while we waited for people to drop stuff off.  We had about 5 people stop by.  I rushed out to grandma's house and picked up some stuff she had then raced home to help dad finish getting the suburban ready to go and packing up the bags and boxes of clothes and stuff.  I packed the Escape so full it looked like hard core Tetris was being played.  Then we put stuff into the suburban until it was crammed full.  Then we attached the trailer for the stuff that mom had at the office.

We were on our way back to the office to load the rest of the items people dumped off.  When we got there Dr. Blackner, his wife and kids were there unloading their stuff.  They helped us load the trailer.  We thanked them and we were now on our way to donate it to Value Village.  We got there just after 2.  The guy came out with the carts.  We unloaded the Escape and mom's car first and then the trailer and the stuff inside the suburban.  Once we looked at how much we really had we were like WOW!  That's a buttload of stuff!  We had over 1500 lbs of stuff!

I told mom I had to go get ready for a wedding.  I wasn't going to have that much time to get ready.  I really wanted a shower but we were at Value Village too long.  I made it home with basically a half hour to get ready.  I ended up wearing the same outfit I wore to Nick and Nickey's wedding about a month ago.  It worked so I was going to stick with it.  Ben couldn't come with me because he was at a training at the Littlerock station.  He might get done so he could go to the reception out in Roy.  Both the ceremony and the reception were suppose to be in Roy but because of the weather the ceremony was changed to the Violet Prairie grange outside of Tenino.  I hurried as fast as I could to make it before the 4 p.m. start time.  I got behind some slow people on Ol' Hwy 99 and the trees made me nervous since the wind started to pick up a bit more.  There was a lot of tree barf on the roads and some good sized limbs.

I got there with about 15 minutes to spare.  I talked to Monica for a bit and then went inside because it started raining.  The grange was tinier than I thought it would be.  I sat with Lacey and her new "friend" because I wasn't sure who all was coming or when they would arrive.  The ceremony started just after 4.  I watched the wedding party walk down the aisle and wondered who was in the wedding.  Our friend Rebecca, who I haven't seen in at least 4 years, was one of Brandon's groomsmen, the Best Woman, and she was wearing a pretty slick pant suit.  I saw Megan, Matt, their kids, Amber and her boyfriend Josh, Lindsay and Justin in the back corner.  It was nice to see Amber again and finally meet her boyfriend we hear about. 

The ceremony was quick and painless, some shots were taken, humor was prevalent in just a way to where it screamed Brandon.  I hadn't met Victoria yet until that day and she seemed to fit Brandon perfectly.  She was dressed in a really nice dress and Brandon looked like a college professor but in a good way. 

Afterwards, I went into the back gave Brandon and big hug and met Victoria for the first time.  She was so happy to meet me since we've been friends on Facebook for over a year.  I said hi to Rebecca quickly because they were doing photos.  I chatted with everyone and met Amber's boyfriend for a few minutes and then everyone cleaned up everything as quick as they could and we headed over to the reception in Roy.  I wasn't planning on attending the reception but I was talked into it.

I should have brought some extra clothes but I didn't.  I didn't realize people went home and changed into warmer clothes either.  Oh well.  I survived.  I have never been out to the Tacoma Polo Club before so I followed Nuvi's directions off of the address we were provided with.  The address did not match.  I followed some of the other people and ended up at someone's house.  He told us which way to go.  When I arrived the place was huge!  I have never been inside an outdoor horse arena.  Good thing I wore my hiking shoes!  The floor was dirt with some muddy spots since there were a few leaks in the roof.  I talked to a few people that played horse polo at WSU.  I can't believe we all remembered each other.  We reminisced about the parties we went to at Brandon's apartment.

My friend arrived shortly after and we found a table to sit at.  We ate some chips and dip and some fruit cups while we waited for the main course.  We chatted, caught up and visited most of the time.  The main course were make your own tacos, beer, cider and wine.  There was some dancing, cake eating and visiting next to burn barrels.  We took a few pictures and I caught up with Brandon and Victoria again before it was time to go home.  I was getting cold and the fires were starting to make the area smoky.

I headed home around 9:30, took a shower and jumped into bed.  It was so nice to be clean, warm and laying in bed.  Today was a long day and I was tired.  Congratulations to Victoria and Brandon!  May your lives together bring you fun and adventure! #alcottery

Next Adventure:  Mom's Seahawk Birthday