Beware the Wheel...

Samantha and Patrick came to visit us yesterday, as Dave agreed to take them to the airport early (VERY early!) this morning. It's always great hanging out with them, even if Patrick kicked everyone's butts at TriBond. They also brought their cat Zoë, who was about to embark on her first plane trip. It was nice having a cat in the house again.

We donated some of Sprinkles' toys and beds (she had 3....), along with some blankets and towels, to the Humane Society a couple of weeks ago. We looked at the available cats and dogs, but none caught my eye.

Wednesday, I leave for Las Vegas, where I'll be until Friday night. Y'know... work-related things, of course.

Now, if you remember, Dave and I traveled to Las Vegas for Rachael & Chuy's wedding last August, and I ended up winning a couple hundred dollars, thanks to this bad boy:



Behold its beauty and wonder.

It is the Wheel of Fortune slot machine, and it is capable of both making your dreams come true and emptying your bank accounts.

Everyone knows that one of my life goals is to be on the Wheel of Fortune game show. Somehow, I think this is as close as I will ever get.

Seriously, though - the wheel actually spins!!!!! And there is fake applause sound!!!! And there are little animated Pats and Vannas!

I can't wait.

Oh yeah - and I hope we get a lot of work done.

Ye Olde St. Patrick's Day

I'm too pooped to write much, so here's a summary of our weekend: women's church retreat, biking, and a St. Patrick's Day party.

Some pictures from the St. Pat's shindig at the O'Shea household...

Lilly waving hello.

Rachel and Rachael and Lilly.

Rachel and Petty (appropriate name!).

Photo evidence of Dave holding his first baby (!) and Jessica's head sandwiched between, hehe.

Get. OUT!

I still can't believe it, but somehow I won the "People's Choice" chili award on Saturday night. I really only won because one person loved my chili so much that they voted with a twenty dollar bill. 1 penny = 1 vote. Anyways, I was definitely excited to have won something. I may have even pumped my fist in the air when they called my name.


Somehow, the minutes ticked by and we ended up spending almost five hours at the chili cook-off/auction. It was really great being able to spend time with our church family and donate to such a worthy cause. At last count, the Cook-Off ended up raising about $8,000 for the youth group. Awesome.

After the Cook-Off, we headed to Rachael and Chuy's place to hang out with some other friends and talk, and that was wayyyy too much fun. Hahaha. I think we got home at 3 AM. It was worth it, though. There were more than a few laughing-so-hard-we-were-crying moments.

Miraculously, we were able to wake up early on Sunday.

Dave went out on his first bike ride of the season with Justin (he owns Indiebike.com) and a few others. After he got home, I was itching to go riding myself, so he ate about 3,000 calories worth of food and then was nice enough to go out again with me. The Monon Trail was SO crowded because of the unusually nice weather. We got off the trail as soon as possible and onto some side streets. We only went 9 miles, but I was happy to be outside at all. I took my hybrid, but I vow to take my road bike the next time. I only hope that we go riding at 3 AM or a place at which people can't see me panicking after not being able to clip-out my shoes and then falling over, embarrassing myself, and scratching my arms and legs. Is that too much to ask for?

Giants and Giant Pulled Pork Sandwiches

The best thing about keeping the house clean during the week is that your weekends are free of chores! Hallelujah. I guess we aren't good at basic sorts of concepts like that. It only took us... what? 13 months to figure that out?

Friday we went out to dinner at the Thai Cafe in Broad Ripple. Soooo delicious. You can order any entree from their menu in varying degrees of heat. 0, 2, 3, 4, or 5, from mildest to hottest. Why isn't there a level 1??? That always kills us. The last time we dined there, we both ordered 2's and Dave had to get extra napkins for his spice-induced runny nose. This time he went for a 0, and I pressed my luck with a 2 again. It's really not so bad once your tastebuds are rendered completely numb.

Saturday consisted of us buying trash bags and Dave creating a shelf in one of our kitchen cabinets. He did a great job! He even has all of his fingers left.

To top the weekend off, we went to the Sheas' house last night to watch the Superbowl and eat a LOT of food. That was a blast. There were many whoops and shrieks. Baby Lilly slept through the whole thing. What a trooper.