Catching Up February 2025 part 2 (more like 3 because my Valentine post fit in with the catching up)

February 17 was President's Day. Jet helped me with the flag picture that day.

It was also National Cabbage Day. I made egg rolls one of the days around that holiday.

 

February 18 was Pluto Day. I watched one of the many episodes of Psych where Gus said, "You heard about Pluto?" The subtitles had it wrong, though.

 

February 19 was Chocolate Mint Day. I had another Peppermint Patty.

February 20 was National Muffin Day. For dinner we had... muffins again. We made all eggless muffins again. Cornbread muffins, blueberry muffins, and raisin bran muffins.

 

February 21 was the Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda. The kids requested Deku Scrub Cheeseball, which I made. Because Nichole is the one who usually sculpts the cheeseballs nowadays, some of the boys were surprised to learn that I was the one who made the original Deku Scrub Cheeseball way back in 2017. Jet helped put the bay leaves on top.

Jet and I haven't had a chance to do as much baking together as we used to. When we do get the chance it's so nice. I've missed it.

He helped me grind wheat one day, which was nice. My big helper. 

Jet also enjoyed making tracks in the snow (when we had snow. We've finally made it to Spring but I'm still blogging about Winter).

Speaking of snow, a few of us made the trek to the Snow Goose Festival in Delta this year. It was so foggy at first that we couldn't even look for the geese in the fields and when we got to the reservoir, we couldn't see anything there, either.

We entertained ourselves while we waited for the fog to lift.

Finally the fog lifted and just like last year, we found out that the geese had landed on the other side of the reservoir. Except that this year they were so far out, we couldn't get a good look or good pictures.

We did get to see a few fly in from time to time but we've had more exciting years. Oh well.

 

The day after the Snow Goose Festival was National Banana Bread Day, February 23, so we had some banana bread Pop Tarts.

It was also National Rationalization Day so Jeremy made something he'd been wanting to make for a long time- bangers and mash. 

That night was a multi-stake fireside with Camille N. Johnson, the Relief Society General President in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A couple friends and I walked to the building where it was being held. I did not get a good picture. There's a better picture of us when we had banana splits back in January.

Bad picture aside, the fireside was really good. I appreciated the things Sister Johnson shared with us. One of the things she shared was that every morning she has her own personal devotional with President Nelson, prophet and president of the Church. She will put on a talk that he has given in the past and will listen to that while she's getting ready. After that, so many sisters in our stake, including me, took that same challenge and started listening to President Nelson every day. It was talked about when we gathered together for the Worldwide Relief Society Devotional and Testimony Meeting a few weeks later. I went with my ministering sisters.

 

February 24 was Tortilla Chip Day so we had tortillas and dip of course.

 

Jeremy's birthday was in February. Jet wanted to put the candles on the cake so he decided how many of each color and placed them. What a sweetie.

Our Vacation, Thy Creations, and Our Relations- Part 10

Cow Appreciation Day was July 9. As we were driving, I called out, "We appreciate you," a few times to cows we were passing. Tee Hee.

 

Road Trip! 

We decided a couple days before that day that since we were in Washington, we could go to Mount Rainier National Park using Lucky's National Parks Pass. We also found out that now you have to have timed reservations to get into certain areas of the park... between certain hours. All our kids are used to us getting them up early for trips, so we were able to get to the park early enough we got in no problem. 

 

Welcome to Jurassic Park, err... Mt Rainier National Park.

Jeremy's parents came with us and it was nice to share that experience with them. It reminded me of when we went to Yellowstone with them in 2017. I visited Mount Rainier once when I was a child and it was so foggy, we could only see glimpses of the mountain from time to time while we were walking around. This trip the sky was so clear, we could see so much. It was gorgeous.

We took so many pictures (with our phones and our Nikon camera) that it's hard to narrow down which to put on this post so bear with me.

We got some tips from Utah's Adventure Family about places to go and Jeremy did some research so we had a plan. We went up the Paradise Corridor through the Nisqually (Southwest) Entrance to the park. It's a good thing we went in the morning as it got busier and busier throughout the day. We didn't do some of the things we planned to do and that's okay. We had a full day with what we did.

 

Christine Falls

Ricksecker Point

 

Narada Falls

See the fence toward the top left of this picture?

That's where we are standing in this next picture. And you can see the bridge I took that last picture from at the top right of this picture.

It was a short hike for this waterfall. Jeremy, Lucky, and I decided to go down and back up and it was pleasant. The mist felt so good.

We told our other kids when we got back up that we got a picture of the waterfall. This is the picture. Tee Hee.

 

Nisqually Vista Trail

Look at that smile. Jeremy was happy to be there.

We got to see where the Nisqually River comes from the Nisqually Glacier.

It was definitely a hike, including hiking across snow on the trail that had not yet melted.

How Nichole takes a break in the middle of hiking

How Jeremy takes a break in the middle of hiking

 

Lunch Break

We stopped at yet another overlook (we stopped at so many).

Look. It's Narada Falls again but from a very different angle.

 

Reflection Lake

At first we thought the lake was too choppy to see the reflection, then we reached a point where people were going right up to the edge of the lake to take pictures and when I went there, I could see why. There was a still part right at the edge protected from the wind blowing across the rest of the lake. There was the reflection.

Longmire Museum. 

Outside the museum was a cross section/tree slice (aka cookie) showing different historical events during the tree's life. That was cool.

The museum also had a gift shop. My father-in-law likes any excuse to get me slug themed items (slugs are my thing). They are easier to find in the Pacific Northwest. Go figure. He got me a banana slug plushie which Jet immediately claimed. I'm happy to share. The boys named it Timothy. Jet took his hat off (which he also claimed. It's actually Jr.'s hat) and put it on Timothy but when we got back in the van he took the hat off and said, "No, banana slug. That's not your hat," while pointing his finger at Timothy in a scolding manner. Heh Heh.

It was a long but wonderful day.

 

I'll share more of our wonderful vacation later.