Bit by the Bug

And I don't mean the love bug. Buck's office has been tromped by a nasty something or other that is sending managers home to sleep on the couch for like a solid 15 hours. For Buck, it came with a thick, yucky cough, a headache, body aches, and general feeling blah. Of course, Gabby got it (but hers had a sore throat), Caelan and I have been battling with Thieves essential oil and lots of hand washing, but today the boys have succumbed. They've got combo of what Buck had and the version Gab had. Hopefully it won't last too long. I've got to call for Jury Duty again tomorrow--I had to go in last week, but only stayed at court a few hours. It will be a bummer to leave a house full of sick kids (I'm ignoring the mild ache in my own throat and refusing to cough though I want to :) on a school day (again).

Last night we went to Buck's holiday party. He was the only upper-level manger of four to be well enough to go. He found out from a table full of people also in various stages of sickness, that two of the others who'd been to the doctor had bronchitis and pneumonia. He texted me today that it's the non-contagious form--whatever!! :)

The party turned out to be one of the most fun we've  attended--maybe that's because of the others that we've attended, but I'll give this one props :) The food--was very good! Usually it's fairly inedible and we go out to eat afterwards. This time there was a fresh salad with yummy dressing, attentive wait staff in the ballroom to gather our plates and deliver more, the chicken was hot and well-prepared, mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed mixed veggies--I was impressed!

After the meal, every guest received a $5000 set of chips to play in the casino games set up at one end of the ballroom. Buck and I learned to play Craps (well, sort of :) I ended up giving him my chips, because other than throwing the dice, I didn't think the whole ordeal was that much fun ;) When you decided to be done "gambling" (with your $0 invested), you could turn in your chips for raffle tickets. You put the tickets in the gift bags you wanted a chance to win (all for restaurants) and that was that.

On stage there were some big prizes--tv, ps4, grill, wine cooler, etc.--which also required tickets. These ones only were available to employee club members (all of whom received a company pullover and some other goodies upon arrival). Each member only got five tickets, so we didn't end up with a big prize. We also tried to play bakery bingo--this was a very popular game, so it was hard to get seats! They had a bingo machine, and if you won bingo, you took home an item from the bakery--pies, cakes, bread, etc. Well, we sat down right as they finished the very last game. Oh man! They played a ballroom-wide game of blackout for restaurant gift cards; we didn't win those either. So finally, they pulled the tickets from the casino game *winnings.* No, no, no, no . . . serious lack of winning anything in our corner.

The VERY last possible prize was a $25 gift card to Panera. Buck is famous for not liking Panera. But I really do like Panera. He put a few tickets in that bag, just because he knew I liked it. I told him this would probably be the one he won . . . and sure enough, Panera matched our ticket! It was so funny, because he'd stood up and started walking towards the stage before they even finished calling the numbers. He just figured :)