Wild West Birthday Weekend

It was another busy weekend in Omaha. On Friday night, a bunch of us gathered at the California Pizza Kitchen out on Pacific to stuff ourselves with specialty pizzas, piña coladas, and creamy desserts before going dancing. Tamra gave Eric an up-close-and-personal look at her key lime pie. JNO this week was held in the basement of St. John's church at Creighton University, and Hugh got to have his birthday dance with several of the lovely ladies attending.

On Saturday night, the real party began. Vivian and I went shopping for some cowboy duds so we could arrive in style. I got a novelty arrow-through-the-head ornament that proved to be quite painful if left on for more than a few second. We also brought some cap guns that didn't seem to help Eric much with his migraine. Jenny and Sarah came as saloon girls, and got to have their pictures taken a couple thousand times showing off their gams and wads of play money stashed in very creative places.

In keeping with the Wild West theme, we broke out with the cards and play money and started a couple games of Blackjack and Texas Hold 'em to see who could wind up with the most money by the end of the night. I managed to hang onto my original $20, while Vivian cleaned up with a couple straights. Not bad for a beginner. I'll be sure to hang onto my wallet if we ever play with her for real money.

Cowboy grub was more than abundant all through the night. We had chili and baked potatoes with toppings, and plenty of chips with salsa. Hami braved the near zero degrees outside of grill up some delicious tender lamb, and Jenny baked up a couple nice birthday cakes for Hugh and Lisa (a cream cheese mocha cake and a raspberry creme cake, respectively).

We stayed nearly a full hour after the official party closing time of one o'clock playing all sorts of other non-gambling games with one another. I got to try Twister for the first time, which seemed to be a battle of endurance to see how long you could support your full body weight on one hand. Jessie easily won every game until Eric found a way to throw her off the mat with a shift of his torso on a right-foot-green call.

We also broke out the Cranium for an after-midnight challenge of trying to follow directions with half your brain asleep. I used the funky-smelling clay to keep myself stimulated while failing to recognize "Born in the USA" and trying to draw blimps with my eyes closed.

Good times were had by all. Yee-haw!