What would we do if we won the lottery?

Sorry, long time no post, we know. We've been in the desert and then, even worse, Vegas. But we've been keeping a list of ideas and things to discuss on the blog and, more importantly, we wanted to encourage further suggestions for discussion. Today, I learned that Beth's favorite New Kid was Donnie, because he had a 'bad boy' image. Mine was Jon, because he seemed a bit more reserved and nerdy, and also did not generally have the rat tail that the rest of them were sporting at the time. We discovered that both of our groups of friends in the 8th grade seemed to have a 'rule' that only one person could like each New Kid - i.e., if Britney liked Joey first, she had dibbs. You had to pick a new one. This was apparently done so that, in the likely event that someone should not only meet, but also have the opportunity to date any of these New Kids on the Block, viscious cat fights would be avoided. All very practical.

That feels like a lot of discussion devoted to the New Kids on the Block, no? Well, I'm editing heavily for y'all here. But we did want to respond to Catherine's great question of what would we do with lottery winnings! We actually discussed this back in Kansas and onward into Oklahoma, but, to reward Catherine for hours of interesting conversation (we do often return to ammend our answers to this question), here are our responses:

If we won $5,000:
Beth would buy a new camera, a couch, and a Dyson vacuum cleaner, among other things.
Kelly would buy new furniture as well

If we won $50,000:
Both Beth and Kelly instantly stated "Down payment on a house". Well, okay then.

If we won $5 million...
this is still under consideration, but:
Both Beth and Kelly would pay off debts for friends and family and buy a house.
Kelly would buy homes in Boston, London and maybe Maine. She'd also sock away enough to live reasonably off the interest :) Beth would probably do the same. Some would also go to charity. Beth mentioned something about installing a/c in Heritage Elementary...

If we won $50 million...
Basically everything we'd do with $5 million and then ??? Charity, mostly. Maybe a nice chunk of change for loved ones? This, we have decided, is too much money. We didn't really know what to do.

Interestingly, around the same time we were contemplating Cat's question, we heard on the news that Warren Buffet had decided to leave his $40-odd billion to Bill Gates charitable foundation when he dies. Apparently, he hasn't given much to charity during his lifetime because he figures he can do more with the money than they can, which may be true. He also is leaving some money to his kids but, and I loved this quote, he's leaving them "Enough to do anything they want with their lives, but not enough to do nothing with their lives". Interesting...

I'm also going to use this post to add some things we forgot in Missouri:
First, we ford the Mississippi River! We were so excited to cross the Gateway to the West, that we were jarred when a bird flew into the Snaab, thus registering our first and (hopefully) only casualty.

T. Snaab contemplates the innocent fallen as he gazes back across the Mississippi River...

Later on, in Rolla, Missouri, we visited Rolla-henge at the University of Missouri. Apparently a class rebuilt Stonehenge to scale on the campus. But, this being 'merica, they have added improvements on the original, including a slot to view Polaris, among other things. It is made of granite and is much more compact than the original and also not as lumpy. Everything's done better in 'mercia.