Family Cook Out.

Joe and I will be going to Solon tomorrow for a cook out at my parent's house. My sister, Katie, will be in from Chicago for a wedding shower this weekend. It will be nice to have us all together for the evening and hopefully we will play some outdoor ping pong. During the summers, my parents set up a ping pong table in our backyard. It's a very good time since the wind comes into play and you have plenty of room to run around. Maybe we will crown a new ping pong champion this weekend...

Scramble!

I woke up early this morning to join Mrs. Patrick on a golf outing! We played a scramble at a golf course called Deer Trails. Even though the weather was very poor and we only played 9 holes, it was still a lot of fun.

I have passed the plateau (maybe more of a valley) point with my golf swing. I was worse than when I had first started before but I am starting to improve again ... just waiting for me to hit a wall again and for me to lose my swing. I'm slowly getting better though!

Weekend Update.

This weekend I went to Lancaster, PA for a "Spain Girls" reunion. It has been very nice that the girls that I studied abroad have stayed in touch. We have managed "reunions" probably about twice a year and we always have a good time catching up! This time we went to Jessie's house and then went to Hershey Park on Monday. 6 of the 7 of our group were there so it was a lot of fun! Hopefully we can all get together again in January!

A little sick.

Joe caught a cold when we were out in San Francisco and he brought it back to Pittsburgh. He is almost better but has now passed on his sore throat on to me. I'm planning on going to the Hershey area for the next few days to visit the girls that I studied abroad with in Spain. Hopefully I will feel better in the morning so I won't have to worry about passing anything on to them.

Home at last!

It was nice to finally get home on Monday morning - after being away for so long, I was worried about how our house was presenting while we were gone. I feared our plants in the front yard (if you can call it that) would have died from dehydration or being taken over by the weeds that are constantly growing and at a rapid rate. However, we got home, and the plants were doing well! Two of our hydrangeas had blossoms and everything else was still alive. The weeds had grown pretty large but we cleared most of those out pretty quickly.

Now we are living in a house that is on the market and I have realized it is a hard thing to do. I feel as though I have to constantly sweep behind me where ever I go. We aren't horribly messy people but we want the house to be show ready in case the realtor wants to show the house while we are at work. I understand the difficulties that I have heard people mention and we don't even have kids or a pet to mess things up!

Finally Headed Home.

After weeks of being away from home, we are ready to be back in Pittsburgh. We will have to fill our time today before our red-eye flight tonight.

Wine Tour.

We were picked up around 11 o'clock this morning and headed to the Russian River Valley. Over the course of 5 hours, we visited the following wineries:

• Gary Farrell - the view overlooking the vineyards below was breathtaking but in our opinion the wine was average.
• Lynmar - this was one of our favorite wineries. The pinot noirs and chardonnays were very good here and they were paired with small appetizers. The garden atmosphere was enjoyable as well.
• Deloach - this was probably our least favorite winery. Although the people were very nice, the wine just wasn't to our tasting.
• Sunce - we liked quite a few of the wines at this boutique winery. They had some great crackers with brie and artichoke dips.
• Harvest Moon - This also was at the top of our list (maybe because we had already sampled so many wines...). The vineyard owner poured our samples in this very unique winery. We had late harvest wine here which was a very sweet dessert wine!
  

Overall a very nice outing resulting in many bottles being shipped home!

Wine Country.

This morning we rented a car (Dodge Charger) and started our drive north of San Francisco to wine country. We decided to take the scenic route along highway 1 and stopped at Muir Woods to see the redwoods. We continued the shoreline highway and then headed inland towards Sonoma and our final destination of Healdsburg.

We arrived around 3 o'clock and settled into our very nice bed and breakfast. We were quite hungry and rushed over to one of the local restaurants that served small plates - mainly seafood dishes. We came back to the B&B for a wine tasting followed by a competitive game of croquet. We are headed back into the quaint town for some ice cream. Wine tour tomorrow!

San Fran.

As I write this post, I'm sitting in Union Square in San Francisco (they have free wi-fi)! Tuesday evening we left Vegas and had the short flight to San Fran. Yesterday and Today, Joe and his dad have had meetings so I have been holding my own by wandering around and window shopping. Mrs. Patrick will be joining us late this morning - she had stayed in Vegas a few days longer since her family was vacationing there.

I am also reading a very good book which has helped to pass the time. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has been a very captivating mystery to read and I would highly suggest picking it up!

Knocked Out.

Bob was knocked out of the Main Event yesterday. He lost with a very unfortunate situation as well. Bob had a pocket pair of 9's and the flop came with a 9 as well, giving him a set of 9's. Two other people in the hand ended up going all in and Bob quickly called. Both of the other players had a flush draw. There had been two diamonds on the flop. So, with the two diamonds on the board and each player holding two diamonds each, there were only 7 possible diamonds in the remaining deck that could complete the players' flush draws. The diamond came on the turn and left Bob hoping for the board to pair so he could win the pot with a full house. It didn't happen and Bob was out instead of sitting behind a stack of 1.25 million chips. It was a nice run!

Day 5!

Bob is still in the tournament - they are down to 400 players left so he has made the money! He has around 410k in chips and they start Day 5 at noon (I missed a day somewhere along the way). We are all going to cheer him on even though it may be hard to see him since he is in the middle of the room and spectators are not allowed past the roped off area.

You can check updates at Pokernews.com. Look for Bob, or as he likes to call himself, Robert Lee Preston III...

Day 3.

Day 3 of the Main Event was yesterday. Mr. Patrick ran his pocket 10s into pocket Jacks and was knocked out. Bob continued to do well and was at 229,500 chips by the end of the day. The average chip stack is around 250k but Bob is still in very good shape. With 789 players remaining, he has a good shot of making the money (top 648 get paid).

Joe and his dad are going to play in another Bellagio tournament today - I enjoy hanging out at that hotel/casino so I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to see how many of the Bellagio Water Fountain shows I can see in one day.

Vegas Golf.

Despite the desert heat, we have actually golfed quite a few times out here. It's fun to try different courses:

• Desert Pines
• Tuscany Golf
  
• Royal Links
• TPC Las Vegas

Some days have been better than others. I drove the ball well at Desert Pines but poorly at Tuscany and the Royal Links. I chipped my first ball in at TPC this morning. Overall, I believe I'm slowly improving (a two steps forward, one step back kind of improvement).

Day 2

Mr. Patrick and Bob will be headed back to the Rio for Day 2 of the main event. Joe will be going to the Bellagio to play a different tournament. Mrs. Patrick and I will be splitting our time between the two casinos but most likely will favor the Bellagio since the Rio is a mad house during the main event.

Netbook.

Joe and I went to Staples this morning and purchased an Acer netbook! Joe wanted to play online poker today and he hadn't brought his laptop. We decided that getting a netbook would be a good investment since we had an immediate use for it and it made sense since we travel quite a bit. I absolutely love it since I have an affinitity for petite things.

Wildlife Galore!

This trip to Vegas has been filled with new animal spottings! Earlier this week we saw bighorn sheep walking and even jumping around the hills near the entrance to Lake Las Vegas. It was very cool to see.


This evening (after Joe unfortunately was knocked out of the poker tournament) we saw a desert bobcat! We were driving along and were almost to the condo when I saw the huge cat. He was very cute and I almost wanted to exit the safety of the car to go pet him (wise that I did not). I wish I had my real camera, and not just my iPhone one.

Main Event.

Today is the first day of the Main Event (day 1A), which Joe, his dad and his friend, Bob, will be playing at the Rio. We're hoping they can all make it to a Day 2. Mrs. Patrick and I have our own plans of going to the Rio Spa for a massage and pedicure.