July 18, 2005

What a weekend.....Jen worked the Harry Potter release party at the local Barnes & Noble Friday night. Didn't get home until 2am or such...said the store was packed all evening. I'm about halfway through the book and am very happy with it at this point.

The girls and I let Jen sleep in on Sat due to her late night and then loaded up the van and headed to Toledo for the rest of the weekend. Huge Kudos to Mike and Leah for housesitting for us and taking care of Bandit over the weekend. The drive to Toledo was happily uneventful, just some rain storms to drive through. Jen and I relaxed for awhile at Mary's house and then were able to sneak out for a nice dinner for the two of us, and then wnet to see Star Wars 3 (finally). While I enjoyed the movie, I was a little surprised at the rapid and severe flip in Anikan in the movie...from almost killing Palpatin when he finds out he is the Sith Lord to wiping out the Jedi Temple, including the massacre of the younglings. I did have goosebumps when he donned the Darth Vader costume for the first time and then to see the Death Star under construction. Overall, very happy with the movies....now I'm just waiting for the opportunity to watch them all in a row and see the story from beginning to end.

Sunday found us preparring for the baby shower/poker party. I definately had the easiest time of it, as I just had to walk a couple of houses down with the poker chips for the poker party. Spent the afternoon (1-5) eating some great food and playing basically $5 sit-n-gos with various family members for the day. We set them as short games ($5 = $25 in chips, blinds go up when someone gets knocked out, 1-2 gets paid if 6 or less players, 1-2-3 get paid if 7 or more). I did pretty well initially, catching a couple of full boats to get a chip lead and cashing in, so everything was going well until Jen's dad sits down. He proceeds to clean up 3 games in row by basically playing every hand and catching cards every time. Seemed like he always had at least 1 pair, but more likely was catching straights and flushes to knock people out, thus winning a big pot and raising the blinds on everyone else. I think he won 3 out of the 4 games he played using this strategy. Was amazing to watch.

Anyway, had a great time and arrived back in steamy Columbus around 10pm. Got the girls to bed, unloaded what needed to come out of the truck and then hit the sack. Have a pretty busy week planned, dealing poker at a private party tonight, Jen working tomorrow and then getting her and the girls ready for their vacation back to Toledo for a week on Wed. If my back allows me, I'll be working on some inside painting while they are gone (bathrooms and hallways), along with some other smaller projects that are easier to do without the girls in the house, not to mention the paint fumes and such.

And to top it off...the Rib and Jazz fest this weekend with Dave and Amanda coming up for the weekend. Can't wait.

One last thing....huge public congrats to Burton for winning the MtG tourney yesterday and getting the byes to Salt Lake City in August...way to go man.

TTFN.