winning weekend

So if any of you enjoy The Pioneer Woman and the lovely, lovely multiple pages of her lovely, lovely website, you know she has many lovely, lovely contests.
Those of you who don't enjoy her, you should.
And those of you who aren't familiar with these contests of hers, well, you're missing out.

Although, I never win. Even though I've been playing along and entering even from way back when, when it was merely hundreds of comments entering rather than thousands (9739 on the last contest to be exact). And yet I never win. Nothing. And we're not talking book giveaways here; we're talking $500 to Amazon.com or DSLR cameras or Kitchen-Aid mixers or any random wonderful I'd love to have it prize. She's awesome that way.

Anyway, like I said, I've never won. Whether it's a random drawing contest or one of her good old fashioned Give that Photo a Name contest. Always a loser. This past week she held 2 separate drawings for $500 at Sam's Club/Costco. Plus two more surprise bonus winners of $250 each. Mmm, yeah, that would have been nice. But no. The losing streak continued.
I found myself thinking about that Friday night... how many times I've thrown my name in the (ginormous) hat at her website. In fact, how many bloggy contests I've entered in general... and never win. Wah, wah, wah, poor me.

Fast foward to Saturday morning.
We had plans to trick-or-treat at The Magic House's Not-So-Haunted-House fun event for the kids. We wanted to be there bright and early to try and miss the worst of the crowds. But. We also wanted to stop by the Grand Opening of a new Sports Authority store down the road from us, as we had plans to buy Sawyer a hockey goal for his birthday and wanted to take advantage of the early bird sales and special coupons. Plus you got a free canvas bag if you were one of the first 150 customers or something. Woohoo!

So I sent Ryan down there early, while I got the kids in their costumes. I also asked him to first stop next door at Walmart first to pick up some face paint and hairspray to finish up our trick-or-treaters. While in Walmart, and on the phone with me, he realized he had grabbed the wrong coupon for Sports Authority. He also mentioned the line to get into SA was already around the corner of the building. To save time and money, I told him just to grab the Walmart goodies and come home; that we would take the better coupon we had here at the house over there later in the day. He agreed.
I have never been so glad that my husband ignored my instructions.

Ten minutes later I get a call from him:
I think I just won $500 at Sports Authority.
Wha--?!!
Turns out when he got outside, the doors were opened, the line was moving, and he decided to just run in and browse around, maybe just pick up the goal afterall in peace (and without the birthday boy around). He got in the back of the line and when he eventually got to the front door he actually let a couple of people who were just walking up go in the door ahead of him (lesson learned: it pays to be nice and considerate!).
As customers filed in the door, they were handed free hockey pucks, the canvas bags, and mystery scratch off cards to win $1, $5, $10, $25, or one lucky $500 to spend in the store that day. Ryan took the card that was handed to him and went on (without scratching it) to peruse the Blues fan gear. A few minutes into his browsing, noticing most everyone around him was talking about "I got $5 off!", he thought, gee I guess I should take a peek at mine too.

And proceeded to reveal a little number in the amount of $500!!

So he calls me and tells me this and tells me I should get down there to the store. First I was a little confused, and then I was like, Are you sure we have to come down there now?! It's 8 o'clock in the morning, the kids are decked out in their Halloween costumes, and we're going to be late to the Magic House. So he checks with the manager to see if he can come back, (and ask Is this for real?!) and then everyone's congratulating him, announcing him over the intercom, and he's suddenly a Sport's Authority celebrity!! ha!
Turns out the card was good for the whole day ($500 is not an amount I'd want to have to spend on the spot!!), so we went ahead with our trick-or-treating morning, had lunch out and a household naptime, and then shipped the kids off to a babysitter so we could wander around SA for two hours sans kids to spend the money.

We got lots of Christmas/birthday presents for the kids (and shhh... for a couple of other family members too) and spent a couple hundred on ourselves as well. For Christmas, yeah, that's it.

It was awesome because they really did have a ton of good Grand Opening sales and specials going on, so we got a ton of stuff. I got two pairs of shoes (which were greatly greatly needed... the last pair of athletic shoes I bought were picked out for me by a friend at the Nike employee store... when I was pregnant with Savannah. And yes, my feet grew with both of my pregnancies! I've been seriously looking for new shoes for the last six months or so, but I just could not get over the price of a good pair of tennishoes!!!) that I am ridiculously excited about. And two shirts. Ryan and I both got Blues apparel to wear to our game date with Birthday Boy Sawyer next weekend, and while Ryan hemmed and hawed over a new putter the whole two hours we were there, he ended up with just some random clothes as well.

I've never been on a shopping spree like that... and I have to say it was exhausting! Even though it was "free" money, it was still so stressful to be trying to spend it 'the right way' and balance out things we wanted with good deals and/or investments. Sadly, $500 can go very easily.

Anyway.
All that to brag on the fact that while I'm still very much a loser when it comes contests and freebies, at least I'm married to a winner!!
Thanks for sharing your little windfall with me and your family Ryan!