Heading to Hawaii this spring!!!

I believe in signs. I think that if you watch for signs, you'll find your way in life.

I told Mark that when the semi driver hit us this summer, he drove off with all our bad luck, because we've had nothing but good luck and good graces all summer long since then (although my brother said we deserved to be in the wreck because of the fight he and I had - said it was karma - little does he know just how good the karma's been!!!)

Six years ago - Mark was really sick, and I was pregnant with our second kid. On the way to the hospital to induce the baby a few weeks early so Mark could have surgery the same week, we had some time to kill. So we drove up to washington where they have a card room where you can play blackjack. One of the things we'd done right before getting ready to have the kid was we paid $1000 to bank his cord blood. Mark had what was looking like leukemia, and the head of transplant surgery at the research hospital suggested we bank the cord blood for Mark.

There's this little bet you can play with the black jack - Queens of Hearts. If you bet $1 and get any 2 cards that make 20, you get 4 to 1. Same suit pays more, same two cards and suited pays even more, but the object is to get 2 queens of hearts in one hand. When you do, it pays $125 to $1.

Mark never used to play proposition bets. The side bet on blackjack is just that cause the odds are slim to none. So we're there and he's had a few smaller hands go by, and I'm kicking him cause he's losing $4 and $9 wins left and right. So he bets this $1, and a few hands later, he gets the two queens of hearts.

Well, there's a kicker....

If you get the two queens of hearts in your hand, and the dealer has an Ace of any suit face up, and then the dealer rolls a blackjack in her hand, but you have the two queens, the odds are so slim, it pays $1000 to $1. Sure enough this is what happened, and we used the $1000 to pay for the cord blood. It was kind of this too good to be true type thing. Ironically, the pit boss felt that if we were having a girl, we should name her "queenie". I told her we were having a boy, and it had been long decided that his middle name would be Quinn.


Today we were talking and there's an extremely high chance Mark is going to get deployed. He recently had a friend from college who encountered an IED and is now a double amputee....same rank and classification as Mark. We have a little over a year before he deploys, although he's going to be insanely busy. There are some things he's really worried about with all this, and so I told his mom today that heck or high water, we're going to make the next year memorable. I wanted to take time with he and I alone, and have at least one really good family vacation in March. I didn't really care what it was going to cost or whether we could afford it - it was the right thing to do.

So since he was in such a funk today, I called my nephew to come babysit - figured we'd go have a nice dinner, and then go up to the little card room in Washington. I had $20 in free play coming to us (which we promptly lost).

We had this really nice dinner, and then played for a few hours. We had lost about $75 between us, and decided to go to the casino across the way - the same one where we had won the money 6 years ago.

We're playing the stupid proposition bet, and not winning much on it. Don't know what possessed me, but I started playing $2 on the prop bet. A few hands later, I get the two queens. I'm all excited, cause it's $250 dollars. But Mark starts grabbing my arm - the dealer had the Ace up. She peaked, and rolled black jack. $2000 in one hand of blackjack tonight!!!! It was really wild. So, I told Mark that I had been talking to his mom about a vacation in March - and here was the ticket money - it was absolutely a sign.

We do like to gamble. We don't do it often, and we don't typically win. But any time we've ever won big, we could afford to be playing, but we also had a looming financial need or challenge that needed to be met. I just find it to be good karma....I said we'd do a family trip heck or high water, and the means immediately presented itself this evening. I am just beyond stunned, even as I am writing this. So, Mark's going to be checking his calendar for March, and I have a couple of things to square away with Southwest Air (they owe me some mileage credit) but otherwise, on Monday, the money will go to the bank - and we'll be looking at buying tickets for a vacation before Mark deploys in a little over a year.

All I can say is - put good things out there - and good things come back to you!