Our oldest kiddo turned 17 yesterday! She’s had a job for 6 months, puts money into savings and retirement every paycheck, and is just an all around responsible awesome person. We’ve been burned out with cookies, so we decided to visit my grandparents in the hills of West Virginia over the weekend.
![](https://i0.wp.com/catastrophicstardust.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20230304_2158182508786852374780216.jpg?resize=640%2C853)
Grandma went all out with two birthday cakes! Red Velvet one day and a DQ Reese Cup Blizzard Ice Cream Cake the next night! We had some rain, so the creek was up and the hills were full of mini waterfalls. We did manage to get out and climb the hillside a bit and go for a few walks with Apollo. This was his last trip down. He is having health issues and we will probably have to put him down sometime in April. He enjoys exploring down there so we made sure he had a chance to sniff everything his heart desired.
![](https://i0.wp.com/catastrophicstardust.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/PhotoGrid_1679666632208.jpg?resize=640%2C640)
![](https://i0.wp.com/catastrophicstardust.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/PhotoGrid_1679666775512.jpg?resize=640%2C640)
Where we go is considered a dark sky zone, so I played with the night mode on my phone camera and took some night sky photos on the clear night we had. Since they are further South than we are, there were already things blooming down there. I also got to see my knotted patch quilt my great-grandma had made for me. I gave it to grandma to fix because it was ripped in places, so she has been patching it up.
Overall it was a great trip. It was nice to get away from cookies and house projects and work. We get so burnt out this time of year that it gets difficult to function.