The Last Four Days

I just feel like writing, so here's some random stuff that's been going on.

On Tuesday, the boys won at softball! Congratulations!

On Wednesday, we went 1 for 3 in volleyball, winning the final game of the night. This moves us up to sixth place! We have a bye this coming week because of the holiday, but we'll be back with a vengeance on the 11th!

Thursday was poker. We had a pretty big crowd - 20 people came over and 15 of them played. Nick and I both made the final table but quickly lost; Dmitry ended up beating Katie to end the game. I think the large crowd was due to the three special guests we had coming; unfortunately, only one of them made it and she didn't play. In her defense, she was only 12 days old then so her hand-eye coordination isn't quite conducive to playing poker yet.

The final table, minus Sergei (he disappeared with his chips so I didn't know he was still in)

The "Good Luck" cake I had made. The "Good Luck" was directed at everyone. The cake was because I felt like getting one!

Earlier in the day was my division's work picnic. It was a lot of fun, but also slightly unsettling because half the poker crowd was missing. I played in an impromptu volleyball tourney. We started off with fours - Andrea and I were on one team and the other six players were men. Our team lost. More guys wandered over and we ended up playing fives next - our team won! Finally, two more guys showed up so the last game was sixes. We started off badly, going down 0-8, then we rallied and came back to 14-10. We ended up winning 18-16. It was a lot of fun, although the ball was a rock! I have a large bruise on my knuckle from bumping that ball. It was interesting to play with Rob not diving at balls - he had on new jeans and didn't want to ruin them :) I also had good luck at the bingo table, winning a $5 gift card and a beach towel. I then won the "final" prize of the day, which was sort of a booby prize but exciting just because it was the last one they had. Finally, I won one of the raffle prizes, a $25 gift card to another place. Fun!

Today was a half day - awesome because we're not going anywhere this weekend. I came home from work, listed some stuff on eBay, took a walk, and took a nap. After Nick got home we went over to Dave and Smeeta's for supper and games. We played a high-scoring game of Puerto Rico. Nick was smoking us all early but ended up in last place. Final scores were 49, 52, 56, 57 and Dave won. If Nick had had one more mayor turn he would have tied Dave! We also played Euchre; both the guys and the girls won one game apiece before Dave and Smeeta had to leave for the airport. Joe Mauer also got his first major league grand slam (3rd homer of the week!) as the Twins pounded the Tigers 11-1.

And thus goes this week's adventures!

Crazy Airwaves

Something is up with the air over Wisconsin. Twice this past winter, Nick and I were able to pick up the Sunday night NFL broadcast out of Denver (the Broncos were playing each time). Literally out of Denver, there were commercials for local businesses, like John Elway car dealerships. This Sunday as we drove back we somehow got an Ohio radio station. We were listening to "Lucky Man" and one of the lines is customized to the local market. So, here in Minnesota it goes "last Sunday when my Vikings lost..." and in Wisconsin it should be "Packers". Well, this radio station had it customized to "Bengals"!!! Either someone was confused or the wind was blowing in the opposite direction. :)

Vegas Pics

Just a couple of pictures for those of you who couldn't make it.

The Bellagio lobby ceiling


Hanging out with Siegfried and Roy...


...and John Wayne!


The arch at the Venetian - inside is all one big moving walkway (it doesn't break over the hump)


Lions playing at the MGM Grand

Can't wait to go back!

Bacos Rule!!

Tonight we (1-5) played the number one team (6-0) and we managed to win the first game! What a fantastic feeling. We got 14 points in the second game and 17 in the third, so not embarrassing losses either time either. The All-Heart award has to go to the entire team: Nick, Rob, Bob, Sarah, Andrea, and me. Everyone played well and helped contribute to our victory. Nick tried to break my left foot, but after all that happened in Vegas, that didn't really surprise me. No bruise yet so I should be ok.

After the game, Rob talked me and Nick into a game of darts. Even though I haven't played since the Thompsons still lived in Minnesota, I did nicely. In the final round I was two points ahead of Nick and down two bullseyes. My first two darts missed anything worth points but my last dart was a double-bullseye! Go Karin!!

Vegas!

Nick and I are home safely from Las Vegas. We had a ton of fun seeing all the sights (lions, M&M's, volcanoes, fish, fountains, wax museum and more), eating yummy food, and going to TWO different shows. We stayed at the Monte Carlo, which doesn't have any sort of special attraction (see above), but does have a fantastic pool with a lazy river that I spent a couple of hours in and a delicious Brew Pub where I got an order of cheese curds!

I wasn't sure that I liked Vegas the first night - it's big with lots of lights and noise and people - but after that day I loved it! I got lucky on the slot machines (the Magic Unicorn paid me $21.05 off of $0.40) and thought the Bellagio fountains were awesome! Nick and I are looking forward to going back for Cindy's wedding in October. Nick has even picked out the show he wants to see next time. :)

The icing on the cake was the chance to see so many of our far-flung friends. Jeff and Heidi came from California and brought a friend who is probably going to end up in Minneapolis soon. Krista and Nic were there with friends from Texas and Chicago, all of whom were a lot of fun. Even if we split up, it wasn't long until you ran into someone you knew again. Our best chance encounter was the monorail - Nic, Krista, and Keith were scrambling to get on and ended up in the same car as me and Nick - what luck! I guess anything is possible in Vegas :)

Again!

Drew took me out with ACES again. This time I had a slightly better chance - pocket 9s. What are the odds two weeks in a row? Good thing he's a nice guy ;)

Camping Pics

A couple of quick pictures of last weekend's camping trip. If you're interested in seeing everything, drop me a line - I have an album of about 150 pictures. We had so much fun :)

Camp is ready!


Nick and Luke model the impossibly tall, ripped, and only-tied-at-three-corners volleyball net


Loading the pontoon


Pudgy pies!

Volleyball and Family

Tonight we played the other team from my work at volleyball, so most of both teams have to work together on a regular basis. We unfortunately lost all three, but we hung in there and kept our scores respectable. They are a top-3 team in the league! Nick won the All-Heart award - he not only blocked a serve and did a diving one arm saving dig that went over the net, he also saved an amazing ball. It was headed straight towards the out-of-play net and he managed to bump it backwards and over the net without it or himself touching the side net. Dave and Rob were in close contention to steal the award away from him though!

After volleyball, Nick and I came home to Bob and Sandy visiting us! They are just finishing a three week driving tour of southwest America and decided to spend their final night traveling with us. We played a game of Settlers (won by me again, I'm on a roll!) then looked at my scrapbooks and talked about their trip. It sounds like they had a wonderful time - I can't wait to see pictures of everything they did! Everyone just now went up to bed, I guess I should too - good night :)

Stereotypes

So, how does a group of just-graduated high school students celebrate? Quietly, camping near their parents' or grandparents' permanent camper, then spending the day on a 16-foot pontoon which only holds 4.

Or so the story goes. We don't really know, but that's what the other campers thought of us this weekend.

In reality, we were a group of 10 20-somethings, all with at least one college degree. We were quiet, but we didn't know anyone in any of the permanent campers set up in the park. And the pontoon was just a mix-up - the woman at the desk thought Luke asked about a fishing boat.

We did have a fantastic weekend. We had two sites next to each other, and set up two tents - our tent and "The Lodge", a tent we borrowed from Ben and Sarah. We spent Saturday out on a regular pontoon boat that fit all of us, fishing, swimming, and playing poker. I had plenty of food for all and only forgot one thing - the butter for the pudgy pies. Not bad. We finished the weekend by going out for dinner at a local restaurant before driving back to the Cities.

Happy Birthday Nick!

No Poker Love

No boasting this week - Ed, Nick and I were 2nd, 3rd and 4th out. I outlasted both of them :) Not sure who won - no one I've talked to seems to have stayed until the end!

Ruthless Luck

In volleyball tonight we were beat by the strong winds. We lost our first game (against the wind) 17-25, won the second (into the wind) 25-13, and lost the third (first half against, second half into) something like 14-25. So a 2-1 start to the season and it was pretty crazy - balls making right angles or being bumped forwards but ended up behind you. Maybe next week will be a tad less windy.

After volleyball, Dave came by and fried up some eggs while I used my KitchenAid to make the first batch of banana bread out of my rotten bananas (bought them just to make banana bread). We played two games of Settlers. In the first, I was ruthless, getting Dave to trade me all the cards I knew he'd give up and then using my monopoly to get his wood, then using a soldier to move the thief off my five before rolling a five, getting Nick to trade me a clay, and building a road and a city to win. Nick was pretty mad when he realized if he had built a road on his previous turn he would have been the winner! In the second game, my numbers kept getting rolled and I won in about twenty minutes - Dave was next closest with six points. Oddly enough, the thief was never active in the second game and only moved once by a seven in the first game. Helped keep the games moving right along. Smeeta will be back soon so maybe we'll be playing more games with Dave not leaving us quite so often.

And that's the night. Hoping for some more Ed vs Karin tomorrow evening :)

Visitors from Wisconsin

This weekend our friends Geoff, Kristen, and Lily visited from Wisconsin! On Friday night, Rob and Katie had a party for them at their house. Rob grilled out and made some fantastic hamburgers for us. I didn't see a single camera the entire time we were there - I think everyone was all camera'd out after the Memorial Day party.

On Saturday, Nick and I went to the zoo with them. After a quick stop at the library to get free passes, we were off! I've been to the zoo twice before. Once with Marsha when it was really hot so we only looked at the indoor animals, and once with Nick when we were there solely to see Harry Potter at the IMAX theatre and didn't buy zoo admissions, so this was really my first inside experience. The zoo is huge! I thought the layout was great too - everything was spread out and you didn't see a lot of "cages". A couple of pictures:

How do we find the animals?


A tiger!


Is there anything scarier than a combination Clown-Scarecrow?

After the zoo, we snuck in a game of Euchre while Lily was napping, then headed over to Seth's for some pizza and a game of Trivial Pursuit. Nick and I were pretty beat and went home early. We were asleep earlier than any other night this week! We should really work on that.

Today has been a pretty quiet day. Both of us worked on our own projects - Nick's been doing bathroom work and I've been scrapbooking/organizing pictures. It was a great weekend!