401k, slot machines, haircuts and drywall…

What do all of these things have in common? They are all things we did this weekend!

The weekend started with a trip to our financial planner to review retirement projections. We spent a couple hours talking with him about how to reach our retirement goals and how to manage old 401ks from our previous jobs. We feel really good about this aspect of our future. Wanting to avoid the Friday rush-hour traffic after our meeting, we killed a couple hours walking around the outdoor mall. We got some great deals on summer clothes at Aeropostale (we were by far the oldest fogies in this teeny-bopper store) and then indulged in a French fry fiesta at Ted’s Montana Grill (gets two very enthusiastic thumbs up for their French fries). Steve had a buffalo burger there which he greatly enjoyed. I ate a salad…and about 3 pounds of French fries. The fries negated the nutritional benefit of the salad. Afterward, we headed home for house cleaning and laundry. It’s so much easier to get that stuff out of the way on Friday—it’s not looming over my head all weekend.

Saturday morning, we went to Weight Watchers, but didn’t stay for the meeting. Randy was out of town, Kenji had Lynn, his baby, and we had a list of things to do burning a hole in our pocket. I lost .2 (miracle with the excessive French fry consumption the night before) and Steve had a 1 pound gain. :( We headed home and purchased tickets on-line for our two concerts this summer. We’ll see Ben Folds (his song “The Luckiest” is our song) and The White Stripes (playing at Red Rocks Amphitheatre) this August. We are very excited about these. Yay!

We then embarked on a trip up to the mountains for some gamblin’! I have been to about 3 casinos in my life and Steve has been to one. We went up for a day-trip to Blackhawk and Central City, two mine towns that were dying but were rejuvenated by the gaming industry. It was a beautiful drive and the old parts of the towns are very cool. Lots of quaint Victorian houses against the rugged mountainside. We went to the Isle of Capri casino, each armed with our allotted spending amount. We dined at their buffet, which was sub par for the price. However, Steve ate enough cookies to justify the cost. We mostly ate salad because everything else was…umm…not good. We then started playing video poker, but kept jumping between machines trying to find a lucky one. In short, we lost most of the money (I did win $25 on a slot machine), but had a pretty fun time. It’s a pretty depressing environment though. It’s sad to see people hurting themselves smoking like chimneys, eating terrible food and being addicted to gambling. The sadness of the atmosphere takes a lot of the fun out of the experience. We decided we’d rather have friends over for a game of poker than head back to the casinos.

After that, we headed back down the mountain and Steve got a haircut (see a pic on the website), which is very handsome. He wanted to shave it all off, but I don’t dig that so much, so we compromised. Looks super snazzy. We headed to the house, but the workers were still there and we didn’t want to interrupt them, so we left. We headed home, ate dinner and watched Bull Durham (a movie both of us were not allowed to see as kids because of its racy content). It was pretty good. Saturday was mom’s birthday, so we called and wished her a great day.

Sunday, we slept in late, talked to our dads for father’s day, went to the pool and enjoyed the rays and headed to the house. Much excitement ensued at that visit! They have most of the drywall up in the house and it’s beginning to feel like a real house with real rooms. It was great. Steve took a load of pics and posted them on the website (http://www.top5ive.com/) . We anticipate about 6 more weeks until the house is done—we should find out our closing date soon. Yay!!! We stopped at the furniture store Scandinavian Designs (http://www.scandinviandesigns.com/) which was super cool. We found lots of stuff there that we would like to buy, but the pocketbook won’t allow it at this time. :(

All in all, a five star weekend—and only five days until the next one. This weekend, we are going to see the KC Royals play the Colorado Rockies on Saturday and then go to a friend’s wedding on Sunday—should be an action packed weekend!

Hope I haven’t left anything out. Hope everyone had a great weekend!!

Hannah