Mom's Birthday Weekend: Heading to Moses Lake

I took the Friday before Mom's birthday off because I wanted a three-day weekend and it was Mom's birthday so she might have something in mind she wanted to do.  I asked her a few days before the weekend arrived so we could plan something and she said she didn't know what she wanted to do.  I really had nothing planned because she couldn't decide and ended up just planning a simple family birthday dinner on Saturday.  I really needed to do laundry and get my oil changed in the Escape and was running out of time to do it.

I called her on Thursday night to ask if they family birthday part was something she was okay with and what kind of food she wanted.  She said instead, I wanna go to Washtucna to see the art bus and that it was going to be a really nice weekend weather wise.  I told her that was fine and that she needed to find a hotel somewhere close to stay in.  She started looking.  This trip was something we were going to do in August but the fires made everything smoky and that week all the kids from WSU were going to be heading to Pullman and we didn't want to be in that line of cars.  So, we decided to go another time and well, apparently this weekend was another time.  I wished she would have told me sooner so I could have had my oil changed and my clothes washed so it wasn't a problem.  I asked Dad if he would help me change my oil in the morning and he said sure.

I stayed up late on Thursday night and washed my clothes and cleaned the house since Ben and I have been watching Toby and Emmett for Erika and Zach while they've been gone for over a week.  There is a lot of dog hair everywhere.  Mom got a hotel booked in Moses Lake and I got most of my stuff ready to go the night before except for my clothes, those would have to wait until the next day.  I went to bed around midnight.  

I got up around 8 a.m. so I could call Dad to come over and then slept in for a little bit longer.  I got up around 9:30, I got ready, folded my clothes and moved the stuff around the garage so we could pull the front of the Escape into the garage so we wouldn't get wet.  He didn't come over until after 10:30 and we ended up not having the right tools even though the YouTube video told us what we needed for the 2017 Ford Escape.  We jacked it up anyway just to see and yeah, we didn't have the right tool. Instead of making this prolonged, I just told him that we would have to drive Mom's Expedition over just for the sake of time.  I didn't want to waste more of his day away since he had to go fix a pump at Grammie and Grandpa's house.

He left, I moved the Escape back into the driveway and I called Mom to see how much time I had to get the rest of my stuff ready.  I told her that we had to drive her Expedition over and she wasn't too happy about it because she was worried about her tire pressure.  I told her I wasn't going to drive the Escape over to Eastern Washington until my oil was changed.  I got my clothes packed up and then finished cleaning the house, did the dishes and cleaned the cat box.  I put the dogs into their kennels after they went outside to go potty one more time before I left.

Mom got to my house around noonish after she got gas at Nisqually.  I packed my stuff into the Expedition and made sure I had everything.  We drove to the gas station near my house to check the tire pressure.  Only one of the tires was low but we put a little bit of air into all of them, so I am glad we had a buttload of quarters in the cup holder.

We finally left town and got onto I-5 north off of Martin Way and College just after 12:30. Traffic at JBLM was bad, then it was slow through Fife and Tacoma and a little annoying when we merged onto Hwy 18.  We made really good timing up towards Tiger Summit and then it was backed up for some reason and took us a while to get to I-90.  It made no sense and I hate traffic.

We got onto I-90 without any trouble and made our way to the middle lane and cruised the entire way through Snoqualmie Pass.  It was clear, no rain and barely any snow on the tops of the highest peaks.  We decided to stop in Cle Elum because Mom was hungry and needed some food.  We stopped at the Safeway to use the restroom and then went through the drive thru of McDonalds and got two chicken sandwiches and a fry.  

We got back onto the freeway and it was smooth sailing through Ellensburg and over the Vantage bridge.  I asked Mom, since it was a nice afternoon, if she wanted to stop and see the horses.  She said sure.  The last time we were up here was back in April 2018 when we went to Spokane with Ben and Trish to see the Titanic exhibit.  Life was so much different back then and it's only been three years.

We veered off of I-90 and found a place to park.  There weren't very many people here except a few cars.  We grabbed the camera and headed up the steep, loose rocky trail.  We approached the horses and there was a family of three taking photos of their daughter like they were on a photoshoot.  

You could tell the teenage daughter was tired of the pictures.  Mom and I got a few pictures in of the horses, the scenery and of us.  It was a nice stop on our way to Moses Lake.  I already have all the geocaches here so there wasn't much to do except take pictures.  

We were up there for about a half hour or so and more people pulled into the parking lot and were coming up the hill as we descended.  I told Mom that we got our exercise for the day.  We hopped back into the Expedition and merged back onto I-90 east.  As we drove past George, I told Mom some of the stories Ben and I shared when we were in this area back in May during Memorial Day weekend and the really cool Ancient Lakes area we hiked in.  I told her that she would enjoy the hiking and that we should come back again soon.

We got to Moses Lake and saw our hotel, Motel Oasis, right off the freeway but we needed to go to Walmart for a few things first.  I had her look up where the Walmart was in Moses Lake for some directions.  Along the way, we saw a quilt store and since it was Mom's birthday weekend, I asked her if she wanted to go and she said, yeah...let's check it out.  We parked and went inside.  The guy running the quilt store wasn't what we expected but he was very nice and loved to visit.  Mom found some Halloween fabric while the quilt shop guy talked our faces off.  He and his co-worker thanked us for coming in.

We continued down the main road in Moses Lake to Walmart.  I had to get a few things for Lindsay's baby shower on Sunday and I would not have enough time to get anything when we got back since this was a really busy weekend than it was going to be originally.  We found a couple of cute items for Lindsay's baby, some snacks for the rest of our weekend and wandered around the store just to kill some more time.  We got in line, paid and went to our hotel to check in.  Mom checked us in and we were in room 210 on the second floor.  Our hotel front desk guy helped us bring our bags up to our room.  He had a pet bunny in a cage of the lobby.

We got settled in.  We spent some time wrapping our gifts, we ate popcorn, watched Pac-12 at night with the Ducks and Cal playing and the Ducks barely won against a really crappy team.  I worked on my blog for a little while, I got cleaned up and we went to bed around 11:00ish.  Tomorrow was going to be a busy day.

Next Adventure:  Mom's Birthday Weekend:  Geocaching, Washtucna, Bus and Palouse Falls

Paint Night: More Flow Art

I was very happy to see Nicole's post on Facebook that we were going to have another paint night again because it's been since April 2019 since the last time we had one.  In my mind that is forever but in real life it's only 18 months.  Yeah, 18 months too long.  2020 was such a huge waste of time.  Time we won't get back.  She asked us what we would like to do and I suggested that we start out with an easy one like flow art.  Everyone agreed who showed interest in attending.  

She made an event for it and posted it onto our paint night group on Facebook for Friday at 5:30, all of us would be coming over after work.  After my massage/chiro appointment on Tuesday, I bought my supplies at Walmart.  I chose some bright colors hoping that they would all mesh together well on the canvas.  With flow art, you aren't sure how it would turn out once you dump them onto the canvas.  Nicole also posted the next paint night for November and so I thought I would get a head start getting my supplies for that one too.  That one involved crushed glass, glitter and acrylic paint.  I just had to choose which colors I wanted to do.  I ended up picking silver and blue since Nicole had crushed glass those colors.

For $5, Nicole would be provide the canvas, mixing supplies and soup for dinner.  We had to bring the money and a bunch of different acrylic colors.  I headed over after work and decided to stop at the store and pick up some cheese dip and Fritos since both of those are gluten free.  I got to Nicole's house a little too early and she was still working but only for about 15 more minutes.  I went upstairs and talked to Del for a bit since I haven't seen him for a while.  This was the second time I've been to their house since August 2020, when I helped them move.

Once Nicole logged off, I went downstairs with her and got ready for our paint night.  I got my area ready with my canvas, my little cups, popsicle sticks and set my paint out.  We waited for Sarah and Lindsay to arrive.  Once they did, we took some time to eat soup, salad, Fritos and dip and chatted for a bit.  We talked about a lot of stuff as we ate.  Each of us said at least once during the time we ate that pant night seemed so long ago with everything that has happened between then and now.  Nicole and Del moved into a new house, Lindsay and Justin are going to have a baby, Sarah and her husband also moved into a new house and my only big news was that I was forced to buy a new vehicle.  It was so nice to finally get to do paint night again.

After we ate and put our dishes away, we mixed up our paint in our little cups with the popsicle sticks, added our ingredients to make it flowy and each took turns trying different flow are techniques because we had only one overflow tub.  They all turned out very unique.  I called mine, "Blended Ninja Turtle with a Tad of Shredder."  

Nicole had put some plastic over the table so they could spend a few days drying.  She said she would do her best to keep her cats, Darcy and Rhett away from the paintings.  We loitered for a little while longer and then I thanked Nicole and headed home.  I had some popcorn and watched a couple of shows.  Ben got ready for academy the next day and then we went to bed.

This is the fourth flow art we've done since starting paint night.

Next Adventure:  Mom's Birthday Weekend:  Heading to Moses Lake

Dad's Birthday

About a week ago, I asked Dad what he wanted to do for his birthday and when he wanted to have it.  His birthday fell on a weekday this year so that makes it tough to have it on the day of when people work and stuff.  I suggested that we have it during the weekend after this birthday when we have more time and no one works.  I asked him what kind of food he wanted and he said chicken, salad, potato salad, chocolate chip cookies and ice cream.  I also asked when he wanted to do it and he said on Sunday after the football game around 4 p.m.  I told him I will make that happen.

I emailed everyone to let them know when, where and what kind of food we were going to have so they could plan for it.  A few days later I heard back from Tracy, stating that she wasn't going to come, Kevin and Karla emailed me saying to have fun and Erika thought she was getting sick so she and Zach weren't going to come.  It was going to be a small group of people.

On Friday afternoon, I washed the Escape and headed into town to purchase the food I needed.  I had to get most of the stuff at Costco because Walmart always seemed to be out of chicken every time I went grocery shopping.  It was frustrating.

When the day came, Sunday I got up and started cleaning the house and getting everything ready to go because I knew it would take a while with several breaks in between.  I spent some time watching some of the football games and the Seahawks played like absolute garbage against the Vikings and lost.  This was only week three and we have almost half as many losses as we had the entire season last year.  Did we finally hit our bad year? 

Ben and I had the house all cleaned up and started cooking the food about an hour before everyone was suppose to arrive.  Everyone who was suppose to come all got hear just after 4, when the chicken got done.  I put it all on the table and everyone dished up.

We ate, chatted about random things, we talked about the Puyallup Fair (Doug and Jenn went to the fair on Saturday), Dad opened his presents, he got a poo hat, a sign about chickens, a thermal shirt from Grandma and I got him a Harley shirt with a motorcycle on it.  I figured Dad needed some new shirts since all of his were worn out and have holes in them.

I got the ice cream out and Ben helped me scoop some ice cream in a bowl and handed everyone a cookie or two.  We didn't make the cookies because we didn't have enough time to so I got them at Safeway.  Everyone who wanted dessert enjoyed it.  I started cleaning up the kitchen and putting stuff away.  I did get some containers out and loaded up two of them so Erika and Zach could have some food too.  I even put some cookies in a container as well.

Everyone grabbed their stuff and went home for the evening.  I knew people had stuff to do before the new work week.  I cleaned as much as I could and then Ben and I left to take the food over to Erika and Zach's place.  We dropped off the food, saw the dogs and chatted for a few minutes.  Erika appreciated the food.  I told her to bring the containers back over when they were done with them.  We left and stopped by a few hardware stores to get the right screws for the Sceptre TV we had so we could mount it on the wall where the other one was.  A few weeks back our Samsung took a poop.  Luckily, we had this back up TV that we got from Willmarth in 2016 as a house warming gift.  I wanted it off the little stand we had so the cats and dogs wouldn't bump into it and knock it on the floor.  We also picked up some safety glasses for Ben since he lost his.

We finished cleaning the house when we got home, put everything away and then got ready for the next week with laundry, showers, etc.  The screws would have to wait for another day since we ran out of time.  We headed to bed shortly after.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Next Adventure:  Paint Night:  More Flow Art